Ways of Knowing

The different ways of knowing help to establish a standard set of rules that we can apply to distinguishing between what is true and what is believed to be true, with some limitations that must be considered. Knowledge by language allows us to know something by the way it is described through words. Knowledge by Perception allows us to know something through our own personal experiences with it. Knowledge by emotion lets us know something through our intuition or a gut reaction that we fell we know is true. Knowledge by reason allows us to know something through deduction or induction or any logical process we may use to draw a conclusion that something is true. If we apply all these ways of knowing to distinguishing between something that is true and something that is believed to be true we will find that they serve as a fairly accurate set of rules. However we will also find that there are limitations in always using these ways of knowing for this purpose because they cannot be used individually for they are each flawed in their own way.

All the different ways of knowing can be used together to decipher what is true and what believed to be true. Each one brings a different consideration to your thought process as you try to tell what is true and what is false. Language helps you consider things from a social point of view or different views that different people may voice. For example newspapers like the Boston Globe or magazines like Newsweek provide us with information about political events through words and descriptions which we believe to be true. Perception helps you consider things from a personal point of view through your own experiences and interactions. For example I know my brother worked on a movie being filmed in Chaddam because I was there to see him work on it. Emotion helps you consider your own point of view in situations because it comes from your intuition or your gut reaction to something. For example I know when I am happy to see someone and when I do not want to see them because I can feel it in myself when I they approach me wither I have a good or bad reaction to seeing them. Also, reason helps you consider things from a scientific or technical point of view through logical analysis. For example scientists know the conclusion of their experiments because they have used a well thought out and logical process called the scientific method to reach that conclusion. If all these factors are considered and as long as a person uses their best judgment in a given situation these ways of knowing, when utilized simultaneously, can help the person make a much more accurate distinction between what is true and what is belied to be true.

Though useful when considered together, each way of knowing individually has its limitations and therefore cannot be used by itself. Language can be deceptive because the sources that convey the language may not always be telling the truth. For example knowledge by authority can be corrupt like when Adolf Hitler printed nationalist newspapers in Germany during WWII to be used as propaganda for his own benefit. Perception can also be false because what we perceive in any given moment may not actually be what occurs. For example our memories can sometimes be inaccurate like how I remember when I was very young and I used to see hands running across the windows of my bed room at night, frightening me, and I can still picture the image that way even though in reality it was just the shadows of tree branches outside. Emotion can be false as well because our intuition about certain things is not always accurate. For example you can know someone you love who may have committed a crime but just because you love them and you feel they didn’t do it does not mean they didn’t do it. Finally even reason has its limitations because sometimes we fail to detect faulty logic. For example a false syllogism like “all jaguars are black; my cat is black; therefore my cat is a jaguar” may seem like a perfectly logical conclusion to draw from the evidence stated but it does not mean that it is true, since a cat can obviously not be jaguar. Clearly when used individually these ways of knowing are not very accurate in helping one distinguish what is true from what is false. In fact it can be said that as a rule the more of these ways of knowing you use simultaneously in a given situation, the more accurate your conclusion will be. And by that logic using all of them together will get you the most accurate conclusion.

The implications of this argument are that it will sometimes be very difficult to distinguish between what is true and what is false and it is therefore completely up to the individual to use their best judgment to decide. This means that while there are some absolute truths in this world and there are some sources willing to communicate those truths, in the end every person on this planet will need use their own best judgment to draw an accurate conclusion about what is right and what is wrong. From my own classmates who will need to analyze the information told to them by their teachers, to the citizens of this and every other nation who will need to decide if what they are being told by their government is what they should really believe. All the people of this earth will need to use their own intellect to decipher between what is true and what is not.

The counter-claim to my argument is that there are occasions on which each individual way of knowing has proved to be accurate in discovering the truth. In other words there have been cases in which language, perception, emotion, and reason have been used successfully and individually without the aid of each other to reach an accurate conclusion about a certain matter. However I believe this is only true because on rare occasions there is always going to be an exception to the rule, but because these exceptions are always rare they cannot be applied the most common, everyday occurrence. Another counterclaim to my argument is that one way of knowing is more efficient or more important than another and that is the one that should be used to tell what is true from what is false. This may in fact be true in certain situation, however as I have shown, each way of knowing has its values and limitations and they all have an effect on one another so it is fair to say no one is ever truly better than the other.

By this evidence it can be concluded that the different ways of knowing, language, perception, emotion, and reason, can be considered simultaneously in order to more accurately distinguish between what is true and what is believed to be true. Each way of knowing does have its limitations and cannot be used individually for an accurate conclusion except in certain rare situations. The greater the number of ways used in a given situation, the greater your chances are at accurately telling what is true from what is false. The ways of knowing can, to this extent, help distinguish between what is true and what is believed to be true.