Is opinion knowledge?

I would like to begin by defining these two main terms; opinion and knowledge. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines opinion as ‘a belief or judgement about somebody or something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge’ and knowledge as ‘the facts, information, understanding and skills that a person has acquired through experience or education; an organised body of information shared by people in a particular field; the awareness of a fact or situation’. Take for example, a simple statement like ‘Everybody has an opinion on everything’ – now I might say that I KNOW everybody has an opinion on everything. However, that wouldn’t really be my knowledge, as I can never know for sure whether everyone in the world has an opinion on everything or not – it can be called my belief, or my opinion.

One word that resonated throughout the description of knowledge is ‘information’ – knowledge is based on ‘information’ and our understanding and interpretation of this ‘information’. However, all knowledge starts off as an opinion or theory of some kind – Galileo was of the opinion that the earth was spherical, however, four centuries ago, a majority of the population was of the opinion that the earth was flat, and this was regarded as knowledge (and gospel truth), thus Galileo’s opinion was initially shunned, till it was ‘proved’ to be right. Then, Galileo’s theory became knowledge! Who knows, a few centuries down the line, someone else might me able to prove that the earth is indeed flat in shape!

Take a debatable issue like that of God for example – many people might have an opinion that God does exist. However, each person’s definition and perception of God is most likely to be different – for the people who think God exists, they ‘know’ that God exists, they might have some personal proof or experience whereby they ‘know’ this. Atheists opine that there is nothing like God (that nobody has managed to come up with concrete evidence to prove that God exists, they probably take as proof that God doesn’t exist) – they believe firmly in it and for that section of society, it is knowledge about them. The existence (or lack of it) of God cannot be ‘proven’ at this point of time, and it will probably always remain a mystery to human beings.

Opinion and knowledge are intricately intertwined and interconnected with each other – knowledge is opinion that has been ‘proven’ and accepted by society at a certain point of time, thus, knowledge itself is constantly changing and evolving. Opinion is the perspective or point of view on a particular issue, person or thing of a person or group of people – opinion is not always knowledge, many times the person(s) voicing their opinion has absolutely no ‘knowledge’ about the issue. However, it is because people have opinions that theories evolve, and we have knowledge.

To conclude, knowledge is opinion that has been ‘proven’ to be ‘fact’ or ‘information’ at a certain point of time – however, as I have already mentioned, knowledge is constantly changing and evolving. Since there are so many opinions in the world, both conflicting and allied, it would be highly inaccurate to say that opinion is knowledge – however, it would be more precise to say that some opinion is knowledge, and that opinion is the base for all knowledge. If there was no opinion, then there would be no knowledge.

- Priyal Chitale.