Knowledge Essay

If asked, most of us would claim to have knowledge, at least knowledge of the things we are confident we know to be true. What would our answer be if we were asked what knowledge is and how does it work? Some of the major philosophers have an answer for the latter, but leave no explanation of what knowledge is. The views of philosophers presented on knowledge explore whether or not we can have knowledge, what one’s interpretation of knowledge is, and the possible origins of knowledge. Nowhere in those views is there even the slightest definition of what knowledge is. By the end of this paper, I will have covered some of these views, how society uses the word knowledge, and my opinion on what knowledge really is. Hopefully my opinion will answer what knowledge is, or at the least, provoke questions that will move us closer to a real answer.

Philosophers such as Plato, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant are responsible for some of the most innate views on knowledge. The rationalists, Plato and Descartes, argue that reason alone is the source of knowledge. Specifically, Plato forms a Theory of Recollection, meaning we are born with knowledge prior to experience that comes to surface through recollection, and Descartes believes that true knowledge comes through the application of pure reason. On the other hand, the empiricists, Locke and Hume, argue that experience is the only source of knowledge. Lastly Kant offers a new position on the view of knowledge claiming that though knowledge may come from experience, but not all knowledge arises from experience. These views pertain to the origin of knowledge, while other views pertain to the limitations of knowledge. Occasionally, philosophers have also throw...

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...idering the possibility of the previous sentence, how can we prove to have knowledge unless we have a physical proof based on evidence? Otherwise this so called knowledge we claim to have can only be considered as one’s belief or opinion created in his or her imagination.

The goal of my paper was to gather an explanation for what knowledge is and how it works, and now I find myself at the end realizing how much I do not know about the matter. I think the only thing I have gathered is that the truth may be that we can never have knowledge of knowledge; it is beyond our comprehension just like the existence of God, a question that people leave to faith. Similarly, the question of knowledge and if we have it will have to be left to faith, or we risk losing our sanity questioning if anything we know is even true, unless of course, it is scientific knowledge.