Statements of Knowledge

Of the 9 statements provided, we cannot assume any of them to be “knowledge”, as they all rely on opinion, assumption, morals and/or beliefs.

“I know stealing is wrong” is a moralistic statement, in the sense; we consider it “morally” wrong to steal. For us, stealing may be seen as a devaluing action, however, for the Mafia, someone who steals is considered to be extremely capable. For a poor kid, who has been brought up in extreme conditions and been taught to steal, “stealing” may not be wrong. To him, it is a way of life; it is required for his existence. Here, relativism comes in. To quote from our TOK textbook “According to relativism, there is no such thing as absolute truth that exists in an objective way independent of what anyone happens to believe is true. Instead, truth is relative and may be different for different individuals.” What may be true for you may not be true for me. “I know stealing is wrong” is one such statement; it varies from person to person. It is a belief, not knowledge.

“I know it is raining”. In fact, you can never know if it is raining. First of all, due to a lack of skill, we cannot distinguish between rains, “a type of precipitation, and a product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that is deposited on the earth's surface”, and sleet, “a type of precipitation intermediate between rain and snow.” (Source: www.wikipedia.org). What someone may perceive to be rain may be sleet to someone else; though not a very convincing argument at first, if given thought it starts to makes sense. Secondly, my favorite argument; isn’t “rain” rain in the opinion of the person who decided to call it rain? What we take to be knowledge, undoubted knowledge of rain, is merely the opinion of people who decided to term it as “rain”. To me, rain maybe something else, and since rain is not something that can be “proven” (like the earth being round using satellite images that seem to be “foolproof”) but merely “defined” using a judgmental understanding of precipitation, there is no concrete evidence as to the “knowledge” of rain being based in anything other than purely opinion. Furthermore, how can you be certain it is “rain”? It may well be orange juice, or coca-cola or even whiskey. Just because it is colorless and tasteless (as someone might argue saying “I see it” or “I taste it”) does not mean it is water, unless it is actually tested using laboratory equipment. Again, laboratory tests may not be fool-proof; what if another liquid has a boiling point of 100 degrees Celsius? What if another liquid has the same density? What “proof” do you have that it is indeed rain and not anything else?

“I know how to speak French”. Okay, let’s suppose someone has been learning French for say 2 years, and then one day, he goes to France and is faced with a problem; the key to his rented apartment doesn’t open the door. He returns to the owner and forgets the word for door (la porte). Now, this person is unsuccessful in trying to convey to the owner of the house that the key does not open the door, due to a “memory lapse” the person cannot recollect this particular word. (Note: the person still recollects the vocabulary to have a perfectly normal conversation with a fruit-vendor) Now, does this person know French? Knowledge of language, according to me, is very subjective. During the conversation with the house-owner, we can very well say that the person did not know French, as he did not manage to convey what he meant to. However, he still knows how to speak French with a fruit-vendor if required, “Je voudrais deux kilos de pommes, s’il vous plait”. Knowledge of language is more of an opinion; an opinion about the extent to which we believe we can successfully communicate using that language (ignoring the minor memory lapses here and there). So the statement “I know how to speak French” may hold true for a person at one point of time, and may prove to be false just a few minutes on. It is more of an opinion than knowledge.

These, were three examples to show what I mean that knowledge cannot be known. It is more of something that needs to be understood. I could explain the rest of the knowledge statements in a similar way, to prove that they are indeed not knowledge, however it would involve similar repetition, and hence, I have not. All of the knowledge that we know, is based in belief, assumption and morals, and hence comes with an inherent bias. Hence, knowledge isn't knowledge, it's someone's knowledge which has been passed on. The definition and perception of knowledge vary, from situation to situation. Knowledge, to me, is something assumed to be concrete, which isn't actually so.

Note: I have picked three of the knowledge statements as examples to substantiate what I am trying to explain. If anyone wants, I could try and offer similar arguments for the rest of the knowledge statements.

Is Opinion Knowledge

Is Opinion Knowledge?
After witnessing a heated discussion on this question, led by a determined co- student, I have come to a personal conclusion.

Yes.

Opinion is knowledge. Knowledge is opinionated. An opinion is knowledgeable (most of the time- like mine is)

I must start off with defining the two terms before I get threatening remarks and extortion threats from anyone who reads this. An opinion is defined as ‘belief’, ‘view held probable’ (Taken from the Little Oxford Dictionary).
Knowledge is defined as ‘information’, ‘facts’ (Taken from the Little Oxford Dictionary).
What The Oxford Dictionary means by ‘facts’ is- ‘known/believed to be true universally’.

Let’s go back to the 1st century when elements were broadly defined as- earth, fire, water...
During this time, common knowledge told you that there was nothing as atoms. Everything was either earth, or water or fire. This common knowledge was an opinion.

After six centuries, The Hindu philosophers at that time enforced ideologies amongst many- saying that an atom was the ‘will of God’. They were small pieces of earth, water and fire that were invisible to the eye and functioned under Bramha’s will.

This little story survived only for a century before the Greeks set out to change it. They gave the world an apparently comprehensive view of what they called ‘matter’, as being particles of substances. A liquid had these so called ‘atoms’ and these would slide over each other and would be smooth, unlike ‘atoms’ in a solid that would not display any kind of movement.

During the Islamic Golden Age, a young scientist al-Ghazali set out by saying that there was something smaller than an atom. Inside it were secrets which only Allah knew.

Different cultures kept what they thought was ‘knowledge’ and omitted anything else. The Hindus thought that Bramha was the controlled of the world and thus the atom, so the Islamic view was made redundant.

After centuries of haziness and confusion about the smallest existing unit we call an atom, John Dalton stepped up to propose his idea of an atom. He defined it as an infinitely small, indestructible part of a substance. How Dalton came up with this theory is not recorded in the ‘Handbook of Scientific Achievements’, however it is known that his theory was accepted as it proved useful to solve many Chemistry puzzles at that point of time. Scientists regarded this as knowledge and hailed the genius in Dalton. Taking his word to be true- great scientist like Avogadro, Lavoisier, Proust expanded on his work. The world was finally aware of what the smallest unit in nature was!

This opinion was thought to be knowledge for a very long time indeed. Then, in the late 1800’s the world saw a brave (or mad) scientist who had the audacity to challenge their knowledge. All the scientists were appalled by John Thomson and his discovery of this strange particle known as an electron?!However, his logical solution was enough to make the orthodox views redundant. He proposed a ‘plum pudding’ model of an atom, where positive charges and electrons(!) were clustered together.

Dalton’s idea was disregarded suddenly when Ernst Rutherford, his very own student conducted an experiment with a gold coil and alpha particles. Rutherford, Geiger, Marsden shot alpha particles at a gold foil in vacuum and observed that most particles passed right through, however some got deflected and a fraction bounced back. The professor was taken aback, and his student presented an atom with a rigid centre of positive charge and negative charges circling it in vacuum.

On further investigation Rutherford found out that the rigid centre had particles called ‘protons’. He proposed that the basic constituents of an atom were a rigid mass of protons in the centre encircles by electrons surrounding it.

After thirty years of silence, James Chadwick discovered neutrons as uncharged particles in the centre of an atom- known to be called as a nucleus.

With the new image of Quantum Physics striding beside him, Neils Bohr showed the world another view of an atom- the Bohr Model. He described the atom with electrons orbiting the nucleus in ‘quantum leaps’ and categorized these as electron shells. Further studies led to the conclusion that each shell barring the first one was not allowed to have more than 8 electrons. Scientists like Erwin Schrodinger and Louis de Broglie perfected this model and gave us- (after a lot of editing)- AN ATOM.

Now we know what an atom is!

Wait- ‘quarks?’...’up-quarks?’...’leptons?’...no- stop- please!

Today, young scientists at laboratories like CERN are drawing themselves into the miniscule nuclei to find an answer. Now they say that even a nucleus is mainly vacuum with a combination of up and down quarks and smaller undecipherable sub atomic particles.

If a solid is 99.9% vacuum- why is it a SOLID!?

No one knows...

Thus the moral of this painful and time taxing research summary is- knowledge is opinion!
One can see how the opinion of few was taken to be knowledge- it was universally accepted to be true. Over the years, opinion was the crust of knowledge. These kept changing so the knowledge kept changing. The transition is palpable. From earth, water and fire this much debated atom has become a ‘ball of vacuum’. What next?

How much of knowledge is opinion?

Knowledge can be found in two types, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance involves knowledge which we acquire through experience while knowledge by description is that knowledge we obtain by the media, including newspapers and television or other sources of information like other people. Knowledge we experience is individualistic and independent as it is associated with our perception of things. For example if I were at a city, besides the knowledge by description I obtain, I would have to some extent a knowledge by acquaintance if I ever bothered to experience it or appreciate it (positively or negatively). This perspective of mine is mine alone and another person would not experience the same emotional attachment I have experienced and this is why this knowledge can also be termed as private and a knowledge only you can understand. Nevertheless it is still knowledge and this is the knowledge that is based on opinion. Also there is a possibility of biased knowledge where we have a biased opinion based on our knowledge by description.

Knowledge by description is largely based on facts that we are provided with but is less individualistic than knowledge by acquaintance. However it is also ignorant to dismiss this knowledge as not opinionated. Even though it is not restricted to one person, it is still the opinion of everyone. This could be debatable as one can term an opinion as something that can be rebuked by someone with a different perspective. But how many different perspectives are on a fact? We could always argue that what I believe is true you may not believe but would I contradict the fact that Paris is the capital of France? If I cannot contradict it, it cannot be opinion. Then again we could say fact is a universally accepted opinion and that someone had to come up with that opinion to make it a fact and all facts are opinions. Yet when I think of an opinion I think of something that can be contradicted and is based on perspective. If I think Paris is the capital of France, chances are unlikely that you will believe it is the capital of Germany. We could say that opinion does undergo a transition when it is universally accepted after which it becomes a fact. We could also argue that all facts are also based on opinions that have been created over the course of time. This too is possible but then leads us to conclude that all knowledge Is opinion. If that’s so then where does fact even begin? If there is no beginning to opinion then we are confronted with a phenomenon similar to the chicken and egg phenomenon.

All knowledge is biased (?)

From last class, we saw that there were two types of knowledge. The first one is Knowledge by Acquaintance, which is a sort of knowledge we know by experiencing something (i.e. by being "acquainted" with it). With the given example "I Know Paris", we saw how the definition of knowledge varied depending on who you are, a tourist or a local resident for a period of time. For a tourist it could mean the monuments, the roads or even the culture. However, for the local resident, it could imply the Parisian life, what Paris means to that person, or experiences which the person may have had in/around Paris. It could also mean the personal attachment the person shares with the city. This sort of knowledge is something that is felt, perceived, and in a sense, it can be termed as "private knowledge" as rarely would you expect many people to know what you know about a city (by "know" here, I mean your experiences or your attachment).
The second one is Knowledge by Description, the sort of knowledge which we obtain from a secondary source, and not by personally experiencing a thing. The given example stated that "I Know Paris is the capital of France.", and people said they knew that Paris was the capital of France in various ways:

1. Somebody told them
2. From an atlas/newspaper/magazine (written source)
3. School/internet
4. Live(d) in Paris

This is the sort of knowledge that is published and printed in various places and which people are sure "exists". This can be termed as "public knowledge" as it is taken to be a fact, something that is "universally accepted".
Also, it was seen that all opinion is knowledge, as having an opinion means that you know such an opinion exists. That gave rise to the concept of "biased knowledge" and about how much we know is actually true and how much is biased. According to me, all knowledge is biased, and all knowledge is based COMPLETELY on opinion and what people perceive to be true. It is what people find best-fitting to the current understanding of the current aspects which they know about. Every "fact" and piece of "knowledge" is based on the most concurrent opinion between the people deciding on that fact. What seems to fit current understanding may be far from the actual truth, but is still taken to be "knowledge" as it seems to fit understanding. As a result, in my opinion, all opinion is based on more opinion, and all knowledge is biased.

E-mail Ids

Hello everyone,

I've created the blog for Mrs. Balan's TOK batch, and I need to add everyone as authors (contributors) on this blog, so just send me a mail on parthpd@gmail.com (send it from your gmail ids if possible, it'll be easier for you to sign into blogger) and I'll add your e-mail id as an author on this blog, or just leave your e-mail address as a comment on this post.