Can Logic be a barrier to knowledge?

Authors Avatar

TOK Essay: Can logic be a barrier to knowledge?

We often use logic, based on experiences and sensory perception, to help ourselves make sense of different situations. However, when it comes to a situation where our past experiences or highly selective sensory perception distorts the actual meaning behind one’s observation, then logic can become a barrier instead of an assistance to knowledge.

For example, the situation “when a man comes into a bar and asks for water, the bartender points a gun at him then the man says ‘Thank you’ and walks away.” By using logic developed from knowledge from our memory or our past experiences, we usually relate ‘drinking water’ to thirst instead of trying to cure hiccups. However, in this case, due to the unusual reaction of the man after the bartender points a gun at him, we have less similar experiences to refer back to and hence the whole situation seems illogical. In this way, in the absence of similar prior experiences, sometimes logic can be a barrier in explaining ‘unusual’ situations.

Join now!

In the world of art, one may often see many ‘illogical’ paintings, yet they create meaning and convey messages – without logic. Many artworks are creative in the sense that they ‘destroy’ the traditional logical views of things. For example, Picasso’s masterpiece ‘Time’ contained thin, twisted, flat-lying clocks all over the place. By tradition, clocks are solid and are usually hung on walls. In ‘Time’, the clocks are ‘illogically’ left twisted and lying on bare land in the middle of a deserted area. When I first saw the painting I suddenly felt a strong connection with it and admired the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay