One of the first activities of the Theory of Knowledge course was to stipulate knowledge

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1 Prescribed Title 9 01 March 2006 Word Count: 1,592 5 Compare and contrast knowing a friend to knowing how to swim, knowing a scientific theory and knowing a historical period. What conclusions about the nature of knowledge can you reach? One of the first activities of the Theory of Knowledge course was to stipulate knowledge as justified, true belief. This knowledge can include many areas and there are many ways by which to attain it. With this Title there is an inherent language problem, because the term "knowledge" is applied to four different concepts. Knowing a friend, knowing how to swim, 10 knowing a scientific theory, and knowing a historical period are all named knowledge. These four concepts have similarities and differences in the Ways of Knowing that a knower utilizes and the Areas of Knowledge in which a knower knows, but the main similarity between each of these types of knowledge is that the knowledge is incomplete. Knowing a friend requires previous experience with that friend and a perception of that 15 friend's feelings and thoughts on a deeper level. A person may think that she knows someone very well, because she knows the friend's tastes in food and music, the things that the friend dislikes, and the way that the friend may act in certain situations. However, no one can truly understand the inner workings of another's mind, cannot understand why another does the things the other does. In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the main character, Charlie Marlow, tells 20 the fiance of the deceased Georges Antoine Kurtz, that he knew Kurtz "as well as it is possible for one man to know another" (Harkness 67). Marlow didn't know Kurtz very well, but what he said was the truth because completely knowing and understanding another human being is impossible. We can only have small insights and glimpses into the complexities of another's personality and mind (the belief as stipulated in the definition of knowledge), and these come 25 from perception of the friend's previous actions (justification of the beliefs). The knowledge of another person comes mainly from emotion, perception, and language.

2 Emotions affect a knower's perception of a friend's actions, and therefore the knowledge of a friend. The emotions of a friend affect the way the friend reacts to certain situations, altering the knower's perception of the friend. There are problems with the complexities of language; the best 30 way to communicate feelings would be to let another experience the feelings one has. Language makes an attempt to do this and has some success at a shallow level, but fails at expressing emotions of greater depth because one cannot truly describe feelings with language and then convey the feelings to another. At best, humans have an incomplete understanding of each other. Another problem is that the personal history of another affects the ways in which that person 35 reacts to situations. Humans all think and act differently according to their personalities, which were shaped by countless experiences in their pasts. My friend Matt hates going to the beach because he has a deformity of the chest; one side is proportional to the rest of his body while the other is lacking in size. His chest is lopsided and he does not like exposing it. This seems like a very clear explanation of his dislike of beaches, but there could be deeper psychological factors 40 involved and reasons that I cannot even begin to think of nor comprehend. Swimming requires knowledge of complex muscular motions and breathing patterns. Knowing how to swim is similar to knowing a friend because one cannot learn to swim from reading an account of swimming. One could read all the literature in the world about how to be a successful swimmer, then jump into a pool and drown. A few years ago I briefly had grand 45 dreams of becoming a professional skateboarder. I watched skate videos and read trick tips from many Internet websites. Then I bought a skateboard from my friend and went out in my driveway to apply all of my recently acquired "knowledge." It turned out that I couldn't do the simplest of tricks, and I did not want to put in the time and effort that learning to skateboard well required. I am a person who excels in reading something and then quickly applying that concept. In this case, 50 I was not able to rapidly apply the information of how to skateboard into the act of skateboarding.

3 Although I had an intricate understanding of how skateboarders did their tricks, I could not apply that understanding from my comprehension to reality. Physical activities such as swimming and skateboarding require a bodily kinesthetic intelligence, which is an "ability to control body movements and handle various objects skillfully" (Morris). This bodily kinesthetic intelligence, 55 one of the seven proposed Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Smith), is something that cannot be learned in books, but must be practiced in reality. The problem with knowing a period of history is that the occurrences of a historical period are in the past, and we cannot experience these occurrences firsthand because we exist in 60 the present. The knowledge of a historical period therefore relies upon sources of accounts of the period. This presents a problem because these sources could give false information or be mistaken. In my Art History II class, I learned from anthropologist Dr. Jamie Borowicz that many aspects of the Olmec culture from Mesoamerica are unknown and not understood. An historian could know the beliefs of the Olmec people through art media such as architecture, 65 painting, ceramics, and sculpture, but the information conveyed by art is interpreted with a present day bias. The Olmec created ceramic hollow baby figurines, the purpose of which is unknown. Insights into the Olmec culture could be interpreted from these figurines, but without consulting the artists or living in the time at which the figurines were created, the nature of these figurines is unknown. The point being made is that knowledge of a historical period relies 70 heavily upon a base of observation and interpretation, which may be unsound. This is like knowing a friend; some observations can be made and interpretations can be gained through analysis, but there is a problem with language that inhibits complete understanding. The problem with the ancient language is augmented by the fact that there are not enough examples of it in order to correctly interpret it, and without knowing the paradigms of the ancient culture the

4 75 meaning of art cannot be interpreted. In the case of knowing a friend, the problem with language is that one cannot communicate completely and efficiently what one feels to another; in the case of history, at times the language may not even be present to allow for interpretation, as in the case with the Olmec baby figurines. Scientific theories can be made by observation of the universe with a dose of human 80 creativity; they can be known through perception, language, and reason. A scientist can propose a theory based upon perception and reasoning and justify it with evidence that shows how natural phenomena are predicted by and follow the theory. In Chemistry class we did a laboratory exercise to determine the effects of crushing Alka Seltzer tablets and comparing the rate at which they dissolved compared to the rate of uncrushed tablets. The conclusion was that 85 crushing the tablets increased the rate of the reaction between the tablets and water because the surface area was increased. However, earlier in that class we had learned about collision theory and the fact that increasing the surface area of a solute increases the rate of its reaction with a solvent. We learned this concept via two Ways of Knowing: language and perception. The problem with the lingual Way is that it relies on textbook data to convey knowledge. Textbook 90 data is thought to be correct but has proven erroneous in the past, and the pitfalls in reliance upon established information and rejection of new ideas is apparent throughout history. The problem with accepting scientific theory as fact is that the theories are formulated via inductive reasoning, which uses many specific examples to form a generalization. The problem with this is the inductive leap from specific points to generalities. Scientific insights build upon previous 95 scientific knowledge, but when a revolutionary idea shakes the base of scientific knowledge, a paradigm shift occurs. Knowing a scientific theory is like knowing a historical period because both can be learned from reading a book. However, the knowledge of a scientific theory, as well as the knowledge of a friend and a historical period can be gained through observation and

5 interpretation. 100 Each of the four concepts that were given the name "knowledge" all require a knower to utilize specific ways of knowing in different areas of knowing. However, inherent in language are uncertainties that make complete knowledge impossible. A knower cannot know a friend as the knower knows herself because the friend cannot communicate his or her exact feelings Swimming can only be known through perception; the ability to swim cannot be transferred 105 through linguistic means but must be learned firsthand. A historical period can be known by a person living in that period, but the communication of life in that period by the person living in it can be misleading due to the ignorance of the liver or the linguistic record of the historical period could be incomplete. A scientific theory can be discovered in a laboratory via perception and reason, but communication of this theory via language does not have the same effect as the 110 perception of it. Emotions can affect perception, language cannot convey precise meaning, and induction makes assumptions to generalize from specific points. Because these Ways of Knowing are inherently limited, complete knowledge cannot be attained. 115 Works Cited Harkness, Bruce. Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Critics. San Francisco: Wadsworth Company, Inc., Morris, Clifford. "Some General Occupations Profiting from a Dominance of Bodily Kinesthetic intelligence." 23 July Feb < Smith, Mark K. "Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences." Infed The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. 25 Feb <