Essay On Knowledge Of Knowledge

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The definition of knowledge is still a matter of ongoing debate among epistemologists. A classical definition attributed to Plato suggests that a piece of knowledge must meet three cri-teria – it should be justified, true and believed. (Plato. Cornford, 1957) The focus of this es-say when discussing knowledge, will be on the concept of knowledge as truth; whether the knowledge is an objective truth or the truth of an individual; subjective to their own interpre-tation or experience. Whether a group’s verification is always the standard that ensures that the knowledge is true needs to be considered, and further, which group is the ultimate author-ity when there is contention. An opposing group’s verifications’ may stand in the way of knowledge, …show more content…

Science is a systematic process that organ-ises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses; the natural sciences also refer to the gen-eral body of knowledge that can be rationally explained. (Helibron, 2003) As it deals with objective truths, reason and sense perception are of the most significant ways of knowing in verifying knowledge in the natural sciences. Scientific knowledge, particularly about the nat-ural world and it’s laws, is not created – it’s discovered, and as a process, the sciences are open to constant change and improvement, as with the more knowledge made possible, the more informed scientists can be about their theories and whether they are valid. A real life situation is the case of Dr. Wakefield, a medical researcher who wrote a fraudulent research paper that supported the notion that vaccines were directly linked to autism. When peer-reviewed and exposed, he was stripped of his medical license. The scientific community is of a general consensus that vaccines, held to the the improved standards of the 21st centaury are the most effective means to fight and eradicate infectious diseases. (Grammatikos, 2009). As a group of knowers’, scientists have to ensure vaccine formulations they create are held to the pedantic empirical and ethical standards required in the natural

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