The 4 Ways of Knowing

THE 4 WAYS OF KNOWING

REASON

PERCEPTION

LANGUAGE

EMOTION

The 4 ways of knowing provide humans with the source and the ability to gain knowledge on the world and what is occurring around them. We use these methods mainly subconsciously and prominently when we are children and only beginning to learn from our surroundings. Firstly, and the most obvious way of knowing, is perception. We observe our surroundings using our senses of hearing, touching, seeing and smelling to analyze our surroundings. This can be flawed for often our sense of perception is pre-conceited and biased and what we perceive and see might not be what is true. Next, there is language as a way of gaining knowledge. This leaves little room for personal bias, and even though language is very subjective, it is at the same time rule governed and therefore the basis for human communication of information. We accept what we are told, and we also excpet the reality that language provides us with, and consider this knowledge. Furthermore, emotion is one of the ways of knowing, and it is the one that we tend to rely on when making decisions, especially ones under pressure. Our emotions give us our intuition and our knowledge on what is right or wrong, and once we learn and adapt our morals from our parents, they often become embodied as part of our emotional knowledge, and we use this to gain even more knowledge. For example, we see a murder happening, and because we learned that murder is wrong through emotional ties, we know to tell someone what happend and condemn that action as immoral. Lastly, almost opposite to emotional knowledge aquiring, is reason. Reasoning is the ability to make conclusions accorfing to what we already know to increase our knowledge.

Meaning Theories

The problem of meaning

When analyzing words and their meaning, one must take into consideration, what is being referred to when wie say we know the meaning of a word. Defining a word, means using other words, to convey a purpose or an idea. This can be problematic, and what we referred to in tok class as the problem of meaning. In our search for knowledge, we often use language to define various statements or suggestions as true or false. When utilized to describe and convey knowledge to another person. That is the main purpose of language, yet words and their meaning are subjective, and therefore can have a great inaccuracy and specificity. A meaning of a word is accepted when everybody understands and accepts the same concept for the same word. So, as long as the participants of one language do not accept a word to mean the same thing as the other people that speak that language, it is not considered the meaning of the word. Still, words and their meanings are very ambiguous and leave a lot of room for misunderstandings. Because they are so subjective and convey a different thing to many people, words are open to different interpretations and ways of viewing.There are a few different ways that meaning is defined, and these possibilities include meaning as a definition, meaning as denotation and meaning as an imagine. These three concepts refer to the way that we provide meaning to a word. Meaning as a definition is the simplest one, as it is a written down explanation of something, that is present in a dictionary, and therefore accepted by everyone, or atleast widespread. The second type of meaning, is called the denotative meaning, which once again is the set meaning of a word, set in contrast to the idea of connotation, or its figurative or associated meanings. Lastly, the idea of meaning and imagery, is more related to personal, biased perception of a word. It refers to the imagery created in a persons mind when hearing a word, and what image he or she directly associates to the word. For example, many would associate the word red with anger, or a heart etc, and paint this scenario in their minds, creating meaning to it, as an image.

Truth and Reality

TRUTH AND REALITY

- hypothesis of many is that secure knowledge can never be found
- we often pity our ancestors for ignorance-->in the future we will be pitied, we are no better
- always believe we are close to complete knowledge, and have reached the light at end of tunnel, but we are very far away, because always new things come up to defy and question what we already know
- each discovery creates more mystery: the more we know, the less we understand
- knowledge must forever change otherwise it withers- mind and reality are more profound than we normally suppose     
- It lies in human habit to search for the truth, to be able to sure on a certain fact or matter. 

Bertrand Russell once stated that "What men really want is not knowledge but certainty". This can be evaluated in a variety of ways, but the most discernible hypothesis we can extract from this quote, is the concept of man's struggle for certainty and reassurance of their beliefs. We do not strive for the truth per se, yet we strive for certainty what is occurring around us. Especially for this reason, man has a compulsion towards proof. The more one knows, the less one understands is a saying appropriate to describe the circumstance humanity often finds itself in. When more knowledge is gained, confusion and disruption interrupts the order society has built upon. The desire for security clashes with the common belief that knowledge will bring satisfaction, for when deeper analyzed, certainty and knowledge oppose each other greatly. I believe we can never be completely certain of the truth, as we can never be completely certain of anything. Many often rely on their senses of perception, taking in what occurs around them and using it to build a relatively unstable base for so-called knowledge. An absolute and sure clarity in our convictions, is as vital in life, as an open mind and an unpretentious mindset when encountering new information. So called terrorist can be used as an example for a convicted and unchangeable population, for they are ultimately tied to their beliefs and take on the consequence of death to support these. Religion is part of an intensely belief and trust based matter, each religion claiming that the other is wrong. One must provocatively ask, if we truly have the power to deem others beliefs as untrue. Society plays one of the biggest roles in perception of knowledge If many individuals accumulate the same belief on something, usually through the pressure of society, this is a common belief. We usually accept this "knowledge" we are given without further inquiry and this can lead to great fault. How can you be sure what you are being told is true? We learn to accept what we are told and this strengthens as we mature and grow older. Youth tends inquire to a certain extent, wanting explanations to our questions. Yet, we often lose this trait later on in life, for we become so used to accepting and regurgitating what we are told, immediately converting it to so called knowledge, relying greatly on the input of those we call experts. Our experiences of reality vary and we all observe what is around us in a different manner because of various factors, such as emotion, language etc. and this leads to the creation of our own realities around us and our own perception of the world.

         

Benjamin Whorf

Benjamin Whorf
American linguist
hopi indians of north america and european languages
no words for time
no concept of abstract time
language determines our experience to our reality
we see and think

Benjamin Whorf, who's full name is Benjamin Lee Whorf, was born on April 24, in 1897. He turned out to become an American linguist ( and at the same time a fire prevention engineer). He is well known for his linguistic theories and ideas, his main concept concerning the way we view the world, and the way language is also able to determine our experience to reality. This idea has been named the "Sapir- Whorf hypothesis". Whorf himself called it the principle of linguistic relativity, in relation to Einsteins principle of physical relativity. This hypothesis encompasses the idea that a structure of a language affects the point of view from which the speaker or the listener conceptualize the world. This is related to an absolute truth, for according to Whorf, all languages create a different point of view for the people, and we there fore have varied outcomes from our cognitive processes. Whorf and his mentor Edward Sapir, after whom the theory was also partially named, hypothesized that there was no concept of abstract time. Whorf gained this insight when stumbling across the Hopi Indians of North America, who had no definable or specified concept of time, leading Whorf to question European definition of time and the words we use for this concept in European language. The Hopi Indian culture did not view the flow of time as a sequence of seperate events, like a day, etc, instead they view it as one unified process.This leads to the lack of nouns in the language that refer to units of time, as we have minutes or hours or days. As discussed in "What is Language", this once again proves that we define our own reality, with our words. If we did not have these words for time, which we created, we would not have the same concept of time as we are used to now. Whorf stated that the Hopi view of time was the basis for the other perspectives to their lives, behavioral patterns and culture. He died on July 26, 1941, at the age of 44 in Conneticut, but left behind this concept for other linguists to explore. 

Animals do Not have Language

Do Animals Have Language?

In our TOK class, we discussed this question thoroughly. Firstly, it was necessary to define language. Language is considerably different to communication, and we often mistake the two for each other, coming to the rash conclusion that animals have language. What is rather accurate, is the animals have communication. They are able to convey a demand or an exclamation to their fellow animals, yet they are not in the state to discuss ideas and use profound descriptions. Dolphins for example, are able to utter sounds to warn the others if danger is near. Because everybody accepts these sounds as meaning the same and reacts to them, the dolphins have a means of communication. Even though language encompasses more than one type, for example body language, animals merely have a limited amount of signs and noises to communicate, whereas humans are able to lengthily describe and express per se emotions and other complex ideas. I think language is distinguished from communication with its content and its purpose, and there fore the human ability to communicate emotions and thoughts etc.. with other humans exceeds animals primal and basic communication for survival purposes.

Language x Communication

What is Language?

"Language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is the shaper of idas...we dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages"

Even though it is very natural to us, and we use it almost without thinking, language is a very complex concept, for it not only is used to convey ideas and other matters, but it also defined our life in a sense. Event hough we have created language, language is limited by our knowledge and what we have come to know of the world. This leads it to limit the our control over reality, for language in a sense limits our reality and sets boundaries for our mind, for our imagination span can not travel beyond language. It limits the human experience in the sense that we are not able to describe or understand anything perceived beyond our vocabulary span. To be considered language, a set of words or sounds must exist, that convey a meaning that is accepted by all that speak that language. As time progresses, language changes, as does the meaning of things. In the age of the internet for example, shortcuts have evolved and words have gained meanings that did not exist yet, for example cyberspace. Throughout the world civilizations have evolved language as a means of communication, yet they are specific to their own culture often, and clashes with other cultures can lead to misunderstandings, for different languages, have different meanings per se for the same thing. Language at the same time is not a perfect medium of communication due to its manipulative characteristics, vagueness and proneness to being biased, leading it to be a very subjective source of knowledge. Freedom fighter for example, to some represents one that fights for their country and dies for it, yet to others, a more appropriate term to describe the exact same person would be terrorist. Language on its own is a way of knowing, yet we use the other three ways of knowing to gain insight on language. Reason, perception and emotion play a vital role in our use of language. Without these three concepts we would not be able to build a stable foundation for language. When we say the word dog for example, we need reason to understand that something called a dog, assumes the characteristics of a dog, which we have previously perceived in other things called "dogs". Without language, there would be no generalization, and everything would be an individual thing. Everything that surrounds us would not be part of an object, rather its own, completely unique thing. One must differentiate between language and communication and the statement "all language is communication, but not all communication is language"is accurate in this circumstance. Yet, both communication and especially language are rule governed, based on the idea that everybody must be able to understand what is trying to be conveyed. For this to be possible, it all leads back to one idea, general agreement. This is the foundation for language and communication, because otherwise, if there were no agreement on the meanings of words for example, everyone would have their own individual opinion and the transferring of knowledge from one being to the other would not be possible.