Propositional Knowledge Essay

888 Words2 Pages

There are various forms, subsets, and perspectives on knowledge. Intensively discusesed in the book is the concept or propositional knowledge, which is usually the answer when asked what knowledge is. The idea behind propositional knowledge is within knowing something is that way. For example, people make claims such as that George Washington was the first president of the United States in the late 1700s. This type of knowledge is separated from knowledge by acquaintance and knowing how. Knowledge by acquaintance comes from personal experiences or our senses. An example of such would be the knowledge of how chocolate tastes because you have tasted it before. As we can see by the title, which includes the word acquaintance, the knowledge derives …show more content…

The first component, truth, argues that although you can believe something, this alone does not

make it true. A fact with evidence must be stated for something to be accepted as knowledge

which can be learned. This raises the question about which standards are necessary for a

statement to be considered factual and/or true. There are three different sections of this questions

which attempt to answer it in different ways. The first, being the correspondence theory of truth,

argues that a statement is true if it goes along with reality. An example of such is that the table is

blue only if the table is really blue. The correspondence theory of truth appeals to the humanely

inclination to common sense, however does have a flaw. The question then becomes how do we

know that something is reality? In an instance that someone is color blind, they would not know

that the table is blue and therefore, this may not be true. The next theory is that of the …show more content…

There are religious doctrines which support and also deny both

presumptions but, as we know, both cannot be true. Likewise, they both cannot be false. The next

theory is that of the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory goes on to conjecture that truths are

not stagnant. However, they are true if they are useful. The simple version can be explained upon

by saying that God exists, which creates happiness and good behavior, so therefore it is true. This

is critiqued enormously because it defies the definition of truth, which involves reasoning and

logic.

The major arguments in favor of skepticism are the relativity of perception and the

problem of criterion. The relatively of perception is set to attack the notion that we are

knowledgeable about a subject if we have a complete sense of said subject. However, the issue

with the relativity of perception is exactly in the name. Perception of a subject or object is a

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