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Human beings are much of a strange creature – many are attracted by what the majority of the
population accepts as “knowledge” and follow this path for many years without asking themselves the
reason why it is said to be that way. Others prefer completing their own “knowledge” by referring to an
entity which is thought to be superior to all the living on Earth. Then there are those which are open
minded, which stand out from the crowd, whose own curiosity takes the lead into finding out the
secrets of the world. What the question is implying, is the fact that sometimes a statement is said to be a
fact, a principle or the truth, entering our own classification of “knowledge”. On the other hand, this
could also be “discarded” in future, therefore left a side, because something else has replaced it, or just
simply we are ignoring it to follow another path.
In every century, people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they
were proved to be wrong. If this pattern keeps on following, then we can say that our modern
“knowledge” is wrong. Socrates was proclaimed by the Delphic oracle, the wisest man in Greece, and
to this, he responded: “If I am the wisest, it is because I alone know than I know nothing.”1
implies that he is saying that he is very foolish as he was under the impression he knew a great amount
of “knowledge”. When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When they thought the
Earth was spherical, this theory was discarded again. Information and knowledge is constantly
evolving, false information leads to a more accurate theory, which could then turn out to be false again.
However, the issue that rises here is that “right” and “wrong” are not ...
... middle of paper ...
...ledge” which was accepted
as accurate, and then discarded in favour of a new theory, which was based on new information that
explained the phenomena in an entirely new and more accurate way. However, the previous solution
was almost a block in a continuously constructed building of knowledge. Even when a block was
completely removed and ignored due to it's instability, it often motivated new lines of inquiry to replace
it once again. Humans have the ability to grow up learning a certain line of reasoning by explaining
something, by judging it and seeing its flaws. Inquiry diverges towards potentially more accurate
answers; even if the previous one was slightly right, in turn a new analysis was even more directly
derived from it.
Works Cited
K. Frazie, The Skeptical Inquirer, United States: Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Fall
1989, Vol. 14, No. 1
Socrates acknowledges the fact that he knows nothing, at least in areas which he is unlearned in. By knowing this, he has obtained true wisdom, according to the above maxim. So, in essence, he maintains that he is not a smart man, but the Oracle was not flawed in its testimony.
...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
When one theory is found to be false, another theory is quickly postulated to cover the first error.
To believe something is to know it so in order to know something, it is not enough to believe it- you have to learn it or have a good reason to believe it. Skepticism talks about two types of position: knowledge and justification. The skeptic argues that we do not know what we think we do it is only a thought. Skepticism of knowledge says there is no such thing as knowledge, and justification denies the belief of justified belief existing. These two are closely related which depends on the relationship between the factors of knowledge and justification: if knowledge entails justified belief, as theorists say, then justification skepticism entails knowledge skepticism. Gettier and Nozick broke down the subject and explain their point of views of it. To defend these views, skeptics lay out many requirements for knowledge or justified belief, and try to show that these requirements are not met. It still stand that’s why if I know something and I believe it that which I claim knowledge then why do I need a reason to believe it? Is black white?
...ce, if this were scientific knowledge that apparently is not true, it would still be considered an item of order, a false one. However, if the false scientific data is currently acceptable, then our mindset and way of thinking remains unchanged, but, in the final analysis, science or technology cannot develop in the long term with false scientific information. The false scientific truth would have temporary impact on our lives, since we would notice there is a disorder with this false information and someone would challenge it and replace it with more accurate information. In fact, when we discover that this knowledge is in reality, false, we would fix it and progress further in the fields of science and technology, and our lives would therefore be greatly influenced in the short and long term.
Any hypothesis, Gould says, begins with the collection of facts. In this early stage of a theory development bad science leads nowhere, since it contains either little or contradicting evidence. On the other hand, Gould suggests, testable proposals are accepted temporarily, furthermore, new collected facts confirm a hypothesis. That is how good science works. It is self-correcting and self-developing with the flow of time: new information improves a good theory and makes it more precise. Finally, good hypotheses create logical relations to other subjects and contribute to their expansion.
However, by making the assumption that all statements are universally either “true” or “false”, he dismisses perfectly logical scientific explanations which are merely outdated. Specifically, he is saying that explanations that were previously accepted by the scientific community but are no longer due to “ampler evidence now available...was not-and had never been-a correct explanation” (138). This is simply not true, as the “correctness” of an explanation is not binary; that is, there may exist some explanations which provide partial explanations which may be perfectly accurate in some contexts, but misleading or even wrong in others. I will refer to this as the context dependency of scientific laws. A good example of such a phenomenon with more than one correct explanation is how electricity is produced. Electricity can be explained as the motion of electrons, which are subatomic particles that circulate around the nucleus of an atom. The Bohr model gives this explanation, claiming that an atom looks akin to our solar system. Recently, more accurate models like the Schroedinger model have come through to state that the Bohr model is not entirely accurate, and that the existence of electrons around atoms in certain places is based on probabilistic models. Despite this new information, the Bohr model can still be used to explain electricity and the motion of
In the Apology, Socrates was told by the Delphic Oracle that there was nobody wiser than him. With ancient Greece having been a prominent home of philosophy and art since before Socrates' time, the Athenian court found his proclamation both insulting and hard to believe. Socrates goes through great lengths to find the wisest of men and seeing if their reputations are in fact true. He hoped to find a man wiser than him to prove the oracles prediction was false, even Socrates failed to believe he was the wisest man. He first went to a man that seemed wise. After he spoke with him Plato quotes "I came to see that, though many persons, and chiefly himself, thought that he was wise, yet he was not wise."(77) With his certainty that Socrates was wiser, the man was insulted and hated Socrates for derailing his intelligence. Socrates then goes to another wise man, but is again let down. He still believes he is wiser. Convinced that he would not find a more intelligent man amongst wise men, he then questioned the more "educated people", such as poets and artisans. According to Plato, Socrates says "I imagine, they find a great abundance of men who think that they know a great...
to accept as false and only then start to rebuild is foundation of knowledge. To insure the
The debate is necessary to grasp the idea of Tacit Knowledge (TK) and Explicit Knowledge (EK); moreover it provides the insight why TK sharing is important for strategic marketing decisions. Knowledge has a number of dimensions, but research suggests the two basic dimensions of knowledge, namely:
Evidence is fundamental in science. It plays a role of proofing the hypothesis. However, what can be a piece of evidence? Apart from this, some ‘truth’ or evidence that are once accepted by the world can be changed as the society progressed. Evolution of truth and evidence can be driven by various factors. In this essay, the first part will focus on what is considered as evidence in science, how the evidence and truth changed following the cycle of paradigm shift and illustrate the factors that causing the truth being challenged with different examples.
When results arise that cannot be explained through the current paradigm, a new paradigm may begin to form. the new paradigm originates with new theories that are proposed as a result of the anomalies that were found. “to be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted” (Kuhn 17-18). when the new paradigm is finally accepted, a paradigm-shift occurs. the paradigm shift represents Kuhn’s “scientific revolution”. Once the paradigm-shift is completed normal science returns under the new paradigm until new set of unexplainable facts arise.
How is it that a body of knowledge is to be established as fact ?
Knowledge has a preliminary definition which is that it is justified true belief. Due to its dynamic nature, knowledge is subject to review and revision over time. Although, we may believe we have objective facts from various perceptions over time, such facts become re-interpreted in light of improved evidence, findings or technology and instigates new knowledge. This raises the questions, To what extent is knowledge provisional? and In what ways does the rise of new evidence give us a good reason to discard our old knowledge? This new knowledge can be gained in any of the different areas of knowledge, by considering the two areas of knowledge; History and Natural Sciences, I will be able to tackle these knowledge issues since they both offer more objective, yet regularly updated knowledge, which is crucial in order to explore this statement. I believe that rather than discarding knowledge we build upon it and in doing so access better knowledge, as well as getting closer to the truth.
...will be impossible either. However history always gets changed by revisionist historians, because we as human’s do not know the full truth of the world before us, the historians choose facts which will fit what we think is the “truth”. Therefore in the field of history, the knowledges always change. However in history knowledge is only “sometimes” discarded since the new theories might be built on old theories, which is done by making it better which then becomes the new theory. As for science when something is proven it is most probably right since tests have to be done.