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Zach Callahan

Introduction to Philosophy
October 28, 2014
Mr. Eiswert
What is Knowledge?
To me, knowledge is composed of all sorts of different parts. Whether that be
experience, opinion, truth, or nature itself. When people think about knowledge,
people usually think about what people have learned and found out over the course
of their lives. I think it is a little bit more than that. I think that it is composed of
truths, opinions, and ones own nature of belief in general. The classic definition of
knowledge of being aware and understanding something or someone through
experience. I think to gain more knowledge, you have to open yourself up and
venture out. You cant gain knowledge if you close your mind and accept everything
you know as fact. For example, if someone said the sky was blue and you thought
the sky was red, you need to accept the fact the sky is blue and delete the opinion
that the sky is red.
When you think about facts, it is something that the general public has
accepted as something to be true. Knowledge is collecting those facts and using
them in the future. When you go to school, you gain knowledge. The process of
school, shaved down to a simple description, is constantly collecting and reusing
those facts. When you learn about these things, your mind remembers them for
future situations. It replaces your past opinions and gives you the information to use
in your life. Another thing about facts is that they are extremely difficult to be

proven false. Someone cant go back and see what happened 200 years ago, which
means we have to trust and accept what photographs and written documents tell
us. Scientific facts are equally hard to disprove. These facts already passed multiple
test and trials and entered this world as factual. I believe knowledge is accepting
these facts and using them in real world situations and passing them down for
future generations just like the past generations have.
Another big component of knowledge is the nature of belief. You can believe
something that isnt factual. For example, a higher power. People believe in god, but
there is no scientific factual evidence that there is a higher power. Take atheism.
People dont necessarily believe in god, but they are not denying there is one. With
knowledge, I think you accept that fact that there could be, but nature of belief
steers you away from it. There is all sorts of different beliefs in this world. For
example, some may think having the same pre-game routine allows you to win. I
understand that falls under superstition, but that is along the lines of belief. I think
beliefs are based off your own personal knowledge and how you take in external
information. Beliefs, to me, sometimes blind the facts around you. You can refuse to
accept the information proving your belief wrong, giving you sort of distorted
knowledge of the subject.
Justification also plays a big role in ones perception of knowledge. When you
learn something, or experience something in your life, you need to justify it. If
someone came up to you and said, Your shoe is untied, you would look down to
see if that was right. Very little do people just accept it and believe that it is true.
When you decide if something is a truth or lie, you need a reason to believe that is
the case. Another example is peoples view on the paranormal world. A lot of people
say they need to see it to believe it. Thats pretty much the definition of

justification. They wont accept the fact that there is a paranormal world unless they
see it for themselves. With knowledge, people wont hold onto it unless they see
that it is true and it isnt just some made up theory or event. This is why I think
experience is more meaningful to gaining knowledge than learning something. With
experience, you see for yourself what you are supposed to see and what you are
supposed to take in. With learning, you are just taught something that overtime has
become the overall perception of whatever it is that you are learning.
Another big thing with knowledge is the nature of truth. How do you know
that what you just heard or saw is the truth? To me, truth and justification tie
together. When someone tells you something, you tend to have to see that actually
be true before you accept it. That goes back to the shoe untied thing. If someone
said you shoe is untied, in order to tell if they are lying or telling the truth you would
have to look down and see if it was or not. Truth is a big factor in knowledge
because it is the building block to facts. Facts dont start as lies, they start as true
statements that are tested for failure. At the same time, lies play a role in
knowledge because you can remember those lies so you arent fooled by them in
the future.
At the end of the day, the amount of knowledge one could have is endless.
Every day you are faced with numerous experiences and statements that you can
use in the future. Whether you can justify it, prove it, believe it, or know it is a truth
or lie. Someone who has a lot of knowledge can be ready for different situations in
the future. Knowledge is information that can help you make decisions in the future,
based off past experiences. For example, if in High School you found out the sky
was blue and someone told you the sky was green in college, you can use that
knowledge from high school to categorize the sky is green as a lie. Knowledge also

helps form who you are as a human being. There are terms and events in life that
are just perceived as a society to be one way and no one argues against it. Like the
sky is blue, water is a liquid, and the sun is hot. Knowledge allows you to know that
information and not argue against it.
Another important thing about knowledge is its ability to be passed down.
One thing that makes it knowledge, is that you pass it down from generation to
generation so it doesnt get lost over time. I believe this has a huge role in historical
information and terms used universally across the world. Over time, people have
told the same stories of events, used the same formulas for math equations, and
used the same cures for different diseases. This is because the knowledge was
gained from the first party, and passed down through the rest. If knowledge wasnt
gained from experience, then different methods would be used to fight a cold each
time someone got it. When results work, and work efficiently, I believe that
knowledge is embedded into that individual who then passes it down for others to
use. Same with historical events. No one now was at the signing of the constitution,
but through stories, paintings, and writings we know today what happened over two
hundred years ago. This also has to be accepted by the general public, and when it
isnt, things like conspiracies and alternative events rise up.
To me, at the end of the day, knowledge is what you gain every day
throughout your life. How you justify it, believe it, and accept it as a truth or lie will
define what that knowledge is to you or not. Knowledge is something that you can
use in the future, and something you can pass on to someone else, and experience
with someone else. I also like to believe that everything is knowledge. How you use
that knowledge however, is along the lines of wisdom. Anything could be
knowledge, from the square root of 4 is 2 or that the ocean is blue. You use that

information throughout your life to make decisions and to decide if something is a


fact or opinion. Knowledge is information that you learn about from the generations
before you, and something that can be used to even create more knowledge. It
really is endless. For example, we can use the knowledge we have on the medicine
and diseases we have now, to created new medicines and fight new diseases. I like
to compare it to the universe and space. Every day the universe is expanding and
space is getting bigger. The same goes for knowledge. Think about it, we have over
eighty percent of our oceans undiscovered. We have so much of the universe we
know nothing about. New things to learn about and experience surface every day
and the opportunities to gain that knowledge are presented every second.
Knowledge is probably the most important things in our lives and it what separates
us from other species. We have the ability to constantly take in the universes
experiences and lessons and knowledge is what you take in from that and it is what
you use to move forward in this life.

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