The actual fact that you are swimming is based on the premises that lead you to a valid conclusion: A) A boy is in water. B) He is not drowning. C) Therefore he is swimming. C is correct assuming the premises A and B are correct. Also, induction shows that everyone who followed the correct sequence of movements knows how to swim. When I look at what happened to me, I have been surprised by what I thought I knew: I nearly drowned when kayaking; the kayak capsized and I got stuck under the current, pinned against the cliff. Before that day, I knew that I could swim. However, when I tried to swim out of the current, I wasn’t moving, even though I was doing the actions in the water. As a human, knowing how to swim is subconscious, private and automatic knowledge – when I swim, I do so as a learned, trained and practiced behavior. Looking at my dog, I ask myself do animals know how to swim? Dogs haven’t been taught by anyone, but it is a subconscious, natural instinct to doggy paddle in the water, which I noticed when my dog fell in the pool last summer.
Looking at the claim: ‘I know my friend’, I realize that knowing a friend implies knowing them based on how they think. I tend to associate emotions with that: you have shared emotions with a friend, and therefore ‘understand’ each other. Empathy is the key to understanding another person. It is not possible to ‘know’ everything that is going on in a friends head, even if you know them well. Therefore we cannot know, we can only empathize; we can ‘imagine’ what it is like to be them. Knowing a friend is the only claim within the four, which has room for a personal connection rather than fact.
Knowing a friend can prove to be hard by simply visualizing them, since seeing someone isn’t the same as communicating with them. We may think that we know a friend based on their appearance, but our perception is subjective. A more dominant way of knowing a friend is language, through which people can communicate, and exchange emotions and feelings, since I think knowing someone is based on learning how they think. Communication through emotion and language also enables us to reflect on our emotions.
Based on past events, you decide you want as a friend, and come to the conclusion of whether they are your friend or not and whether you know ‘them’. I often wonder how I know I can trust my emotions; even when we think we know someone we can be surprised: If knowing a friend is knowing the way they think, you can only predict their actions to a certain extent. For example, I though I knew my friend very well until she attempted suicide; I knew she was a smart and fun person, but I didn’t know she had trouble at home. Every person’s brain allows change of mind, because with emotions, there is an element of spontaneity, and the concept that nothing is pre-determined allows room for change.
The ways of knowing associated with knowing a scientific theory are perception, reason and language. I think knowing a scientific theory is seeing it repeatedly in action, without failing. Seeing out of my own eyes is proof. For example, I have never seen gravity ‘not working’; therefore ‘I know’ Newton’s law of gravity. At school, we did two experiments involving the breakdown of starch into glucose: one with an enzyme solution and one without it. The breakdown was fastest when the enzyme was present. I saw this through my own eyes. We repeated the experiment four times. Constant results in experimentation and observation confirmed my results. Empirical knowledge is a reasonable base for a theory. Also, the teacher gave us the hypothesis beforehand. I was taught all the scientific theories that I know by my teacher and am therefore relying on authority’s knowledge. Lack of language can also prove a theory: the theory that everyone dies is true because we can deduce that no-one is here who can tell us otherwise.
The main difference between the knowledge claims, is that we see swimming as knowing that it is ‘possible’ to swim rather than ‘how to’ based on science. Science is based on determining hypothesis which are ‘tested’ – whereas laws of science predict what will happen. The scientific method established laws based on removing emotion when carrying out experiments. This in a key fact in the nature of knowledge.
A historical period is a fact that has been transmitted through time by language and documentation. Before we are taught them we would never have known they ever happened. My father was in the 2nd War, so I know it happened and I know certain events that actually happened. Knowing a historical period is based on accepting evidence from the past. We rely on evidence that exists; both new evidence and new interpretations of evidence can change our view. I also have to consider source reliability: too many sources or not enough sources can affect what we think what actually happened. Historians cannot directly ‘test’ the past, whereas we can test swimming and a scientific theory. Testing is therefore important in determining the nature of knowledge.
Claiming to know a historical period can be backed up if you have seen pictures, or a film; new technology has greatly improved our knowledge of past events. Unlike a scientific theory where we can rely on our perception, the only way to knowing a historical period is to either have been there, or to rely on authority to tell us. I sometimes ask myself whether the authority who tell us may have been fooled by their perception. I can use logic and reasoning to decide whether a historical period actually happened, because ‘if it hadn’t happened, then how come we can see evidence of consequences?’. For example, when I went to Egypt, I saw evidence of the ancient Egyptian tombs and pyramids. I deduced that they must have come from somewhere. Similarly with knowing a scientific theory, we are knowing ‘that’ something happened, whereas with knowing a friend, we are knowing ‘of’ them.
After elaborating my ideas, I have come to the conclusion that the main differences in the nature of the four knowledge claims are ‘the way’ you know them: knowing ‘how to’ and knowing ‘that something is’, are very different. Whereas knowing a friend is based on empathy and knowing how to swim is based on experience and training, they can both by associated with the aspect of ‘natural instinct’, as well as something you learn ‘how to do'; learning ‘how to’ know a friend, ‘how to’ swim. Knowing a scientific theory and a historical period depends on the transmission of knowledge through language, despite its problems, and depending on ‘fact’ to lead us to the truth by ‘knowing that’. Additionally swimming and science can be tested, unlike the others.
Knowledge is constantly updated and upgraded, similarly to a computer. The new and better knowledge replaces the old knowledge, to get the closest to the truth as possible. But although these are different claims requiring different ways of knowing to justify them, they have all have one thing in common; their nature: they are based on premises that we accept in every day life as being ‘true’ and therefore deduct that based on these premises, they are equally true. We know something as far as we are willing to accept it into our world.
Reference:
Theory of Knowledge, by Nicholas Alchin, published in London, 2003.
Regarding the World – A primer for Tok, by Tony Stuart, published in Kent, 2000.
Lonely Planets, by David Grinspoon, published in New York, 2004
