The Difference Between Knowing Something and Believing Something
Something doesn't have to be true to be believable. People say lies
and people believe them. There are things out, such as God, which
there is no actually evidence to his/her being real, but for years
people believe there is one. You can't stop someone believing
something. Back in Columbus's day, people didn't even believe about
the world being anything but flat, until Columbus proved it. He had
evidence, it was proved that the world was, in actually fact, sphere.
In this essay, I am going to show how believing something and knowing
something is different and try explain the differences.
The characteristics of knowledge are that it must be true; knowledge
can't be knowledge if there is any doubt in any of it. It must be
justified. It can't be true, if it's not right - e.g. 2 + 2 = 4 not 5
or 6. Knowledge is not in the future. What we definitely know has
happened in the past.
Belief can be in past, present or the future; it doesn't need to be
true. Most religions are based on beliefs. Nothing is solid in
religion, it is all something that may or may not be true. Belief is
something that someone wants to believe, whether it's true or not.
There are two main types of philosophers,
i) Empiricism - where philosophers believe that knowledge comes from
our senses
ii) Rationalism - where philosophers believe that knowledge comes
through from our reasons and thoughts
Some say that Empiricism is not a good way to believe where our
knowledge comes from. Our senses can deceive us, for example, when we
think we see someone we know on the street and wave to them, but our
eyes have deceived us, because it isn't who we thought it was. Our
thoughts are part of our knowledge, if we had no thoughts, we wouldn't
have knowledge of anything, because we couldn't think about them.
Belief can be very convincing, so convincing that we think we actually
In the article, “Why We Believe Obvious Untruths”, by Philip Fernbach, Fernbach argues that people need to realize their individual ignorance in order to differentiate truths from lies. He believes that people are quick to believe anything they are told, even is what they are being told is obviously untrue. Fernbach convinces us of the nescience of human nature through the use of logical reasoning, scientific evidence, and a clever metaphor.
...ective and previous knowledge, as well as comprehension and understanding of information are things that determine the end result. Even the definition of a concept or reality can be different. Gravity is just a word attributed to a physical law but other civilizations might use different terminology. Does the name of a physical law make it knowledge or does the law itself, being in existence, make it true, thus being true knowledge. It seems that knowledge is simply a general and unspecifically
Throughout the history of mankind there have been numerous cases in which people were victims of oppression or hate. Among these cases the sole reasoning behind this oppression or hate being based on the perception of others. History has shown that society is responsible for labeling groups of people, generally these labels are misleading.
There is no concrete definition of knowledge, but there is a definition that is widely agreed upon, or a standard definition. This definition may be widely accepted, but just like most things in philosophy, it is controversial and many disagree with it. The definition involves three conditions that must be met in order for one to truly say that they know something to be true. If one were to state: “The Seattle Mariners have never won a world series,” using the standard definition would look like this: first, the person believes the statement to be true. Second, the statement is in fact true. Third, the person is justified in believing the statement to be true. The three conditions are belief, truth, and justification. There are the “necessary and sufficient conditions” for knowledge. Necessary and sufficient conditions are linked to conditional statements, ‘if x, then y’ statements.
What is knowledge? Knowledge, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Knowledge is also known to be “true, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion”. Knowledge can be objective, but can also be relative. Knowledge can be objective meaning it is free of any bias or prejudice caused by personal feelings or beliefs. Knowledge can be relative meaning that a term, thing, or concept that is dependent on something else. But then again, which is correct; this argument came up in Protagoras’ claim. Protagoras claimed that man is the measure of all things. In this paper I will argue that Protagoras’ claim is true.
Knowledge is defined as information and skills one acquires through experience or education. There is; however, a certain knowledge than cannot be certain and is unjustifiable from the scientific perspective. Karen Armstrong, Robert Thurman, and Azar Nafisi wrote about this type of knowledge in their essays: “Homo Religiosus,” “Wisdom,” and “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” respectively. Each of these authors has a different view of what knowledge is exactly, how it can be achieved, and what it means to have achieved it, but each author takes on the view that the concept of knowledge should be viewed from a social stance. Armstrong refers to this uncertain knowledge as “myth,” Thurman refers to it as “wisdom,” and Nafisi refers to it as “upsilamba";
to regard or to accept what is being said is true, but it does not
The foundation of valid knowledge depends on one’s personal understanding. To “know” means to understand or be aware. Everyone’s personal knowledge differs and the way we obtain and interpret our knowledge is usually through our spiritual beliefs. In order to gain knowledge I rely on the Word of God. The knowledge of God is the most valuable knowledge a human being can possess. The Word of God can be found in Scripture. Proverbs 2:6 tells us that the Lord gives us wisdom and that the wisdom of God results in knowledge and understanding. But it is also clear that simply being aware of God’s existence is not adequate; the knowledge of God must encompass the profound appreciation for Him and produce a loving and growing relationship with Him.
a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things:
How we approach the question of knowledge is pivotal. If the definition of knowledge is a necessary truth, then we should aim for a real definition for theoretical and practical knowledge. Methodology examines the purpose for the definition and how we arrived to it. The reader is now aware of the various ways to dissect what knowledge is. This entails the possibility of knowledge being a set of truths; from which it follows that one cannot possibly give a single definition. The definition given must therefore satisfy certain desiderata , while being strong enough to demonstrate clarity without losing the reader. If we base our definition on every counter-example that disproves our original definition then it becomes ad hoc. This is the case for our current defini...
So, so far it is decided that knowledge should be true belief. How does one come
In today's society you would be hard pressed to find an individual who lives their entire life on the sole concept of blind faith. From the moment a child is born, he or she is constantly exploring what's beyond the great horizons by relying on their developing senses. However, as we grow older we begin to question the validity of our senses. As writer Flannery O' Connor stated," The things we see, smell, and touch, affect us long before we believe anything at all. ( DiYanni 169) So how do we know what we perceive is what is occurring?
How can you rightfully justify the truth? Well, there are some theories which contribute to the whole idea of understanding the basis of finding truth. The main fundamentals for determining whether something is right or wrong, one must first know there is a belief, one that is justified and that it is ultimately true. In many particular situations, conflict can build from justifying how well you know something is true due to evidence, supported claims and how much scrutiny is given by different, rather, opposing viewpoints. Throughout all history, humanity is personified by many different beliefs according to their ways of seeing reality from their perspectives.
Descartes defines knowledge as doubt and uncertainty. He describes that our main source of knowledge is our sense perception.
What exactly is truth? What is true? These questions are two completely different questions. In order to answer what is true, you must first determine what truth actually is. If we look in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, we see the definition that says “The things that are true”. This is not what we are looking for in a definition of this word, but really there is no defining line between what is true, and what is not.