Personal And Shared Knowledge: The Definition Of Knowledge

The definition of truth is 'that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality' or 'a fact or belief'. Truth is both objective and subjective and I seek to derive to what extent are personal and shared knowledge questions valid. Shared knowledge is objective, highly structured, systematic in its nature and the product of more then one individual. An example of shared knowledge is, Physics for example. A construct of knowledge that is shared. Many have access to it and can contribute to it. In this case shared knowledge is shown as an objective and agreed upon entity. Physics, a science in this case is a tangible process backed up with evidence. Where as personal knowledge is subjective, an individual's interpretative belief and is shaped

It is on the definition of truth that personal knowledge loses its validity. A personal knowledge claim is lucid and is subject to be static increasing its fragility. For fact and reality can be distorted, even manipulated. For example, a person suffering with trauma or a mental illness possesses an interpretation of the world that is distorted and heavily affected. For a schizophrenic the world is full of things that do not exist tangibly in the real world, but do in their mind. For that reason personal knowledge has internal validity. Personal knowledge is not concrete, and thus lacks external validity and the ability to generalize amongst others. As personal knowledge is merely an interpretation of perception, distorted perception is consequential to a personal knowledge claim. An example of the difficulty to validate personal knowledge claims is the effect shared knowledge imposes on it. For Pablo Picasso, an artist who himself has contributed immensely to the shared knowledge of art, drew inspirations from existing bodies of art such as African art, symbolism, cubism and impressionism by other known artists such as Munch and many others. He later interpreting the shared knowledge, experimented with by manipulating the angles and figures, and creating more abstract pieces. Here the shared knowledge of existing fields of knowledge and artistic genres, shaped Picasso's personal knowledge. The effect shared knowledge hosts blurs the line between what 'I' know and what 'we' know, this immeasurability contributes to the static nature of a personal knowledge claim, making it unable to validate