Student ID: 000042

Theory of Knowledge Essay.

#4.
“There can be no knowledge without emotion...until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours.”

(Adapted from Arnold Bennett).
Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.

Student ID Number: 000042
Word Count: 1,599


Emotions, as a way of knowing, play a part in swaying our thoughts and behaviour as well as affecting the way in which we know. Arnold Bennett makes two claims in his statement, firstly that “There is no knowledge without emotion” and secondly “...until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours.” The first claim is the equivalent of saying “All knowledge requires emotion,” and seems to be invalid as it is a generalization that can be refuted by the fact that there can be some knowledge without emotion. The next statement made by Bennett however, seems to have some merit in the claim as knowledge has been known to produce emotional responses, especially if the knowledge is valued by the knower. In this essay, I will attempt to discuss the connection between knowledge and emotion and show that although one can have knowledge without emotion, knowledge that we value most is knowledge in which we are emotionally invested.

‘Emotions’ can be defined as integral feelings such as happiness, sadness, fear and shock. This can be felt physically as we also feel our emotions especially the stronger ones such as grief or euphoria which have the effect of taking over a person’s bodily senses, overwhelming them. The term knowledge refers to information one believes to be true and can also be justified, in other words a justified true belief. The connection between the two is not always there, which will be seen later, but often emotion and knowledge become interlaced with one another when the knowledge becomes or is important to the knower.  

The claim, ‘There is no knowledge without emotion,” can be questioned because it is so conclusive and leaves no room for possibilities, thus increasing its chances of being invalid. This generalization can be countered by the fact there can be knowledge without emotion in many cases such as in two particular Areas of Knowledge – Mathematics and Human Sciences. It could be assumed that at least every high school student who studies Math knows that 2 + 2 = 4. This knowledge is held by every one of those students, but they do not necessarily have any emotional attachment to it. In the human sciences, a fact such as a cell having a nucleus or the chemical symbol of Oxygen being ‘O’ does not bring about any sort of emotion such as happiness or sadness in myself – it is simply facts that I or anyone else can quote. That isn’t to say that this knowledge cannot elicit any emotional response – it would largely depend on the person and the significance it holds to that person. A chemist or teacher for example may think of it as stimulating knowledge because they are particularly interested in that field. On the whole these examples have shown that there can be knowledge without having any sort of emotional response therefore reducing Arnold Bennett’s claim to be only sometimes true; but how relevant is this? Not extremely, as the examples used and numerous others are simple but not complex facts. The question however, should be whether Bennett’s claim holds any relevance to valued knowledge.

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If the knowledge being pursued by the knower has significance to the person then wouldn’t it result in a certain degree of emotional response? Despite some knowledge having no emotion connected to it, I believe that Bennett’s next claim, “Until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours,” has some worth, as knowledge that is valued by the knower can produce feelings that vary in degree – from the strong, long lived emotions such as elation to the weaker, short lived emotions such as shock. A minister, for example, would highly value the knowledge he has ...

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