THREE KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE



1)Experience


What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon, and touched with our hands... -- 1 John 1:1

All Humans posses a knowledge that stems from our personal experiences known as experiential knowledge. We collect these personal experiences through our five senses, which help us consciously or unconsciously take in information from our surroundings. These things come naturally and without thought process.
  • Sight – I know the Gateway Arch is tall because I have seen it.
  • Hearing- I know balloons make a sound when they pop because I have heard it.
  • Taste- I know lemons are sour because I have taster them.
  • Touch-I know that water is wet because I have swam in it.
  • Smell – I know dogs bark because I have heard them.

    • The philosopher Aristotle explains this knowledge in Posterior Analytics, he called the human mind as an empty slate (tabula rasa) at birth, that lacks knowledge of any kind. He believed that as we grow we gain knowledge from our five senses.
    Empirical knowledge is an example of experiential knowledge. This kind of knowledge is knowledge we obtain from measuring something using our five senses. This type of knowledge is stressed by scientists for it proves the existence of things through testing.

    2)Authority

    It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them down, and we know that his testimony is true. --John 21:24

    An Authority is simply a person who claims to possess knowledge that we d not have. Authorities can give us knowledge on things that we do not have from experience with our five senses.
    **There are five questions we have to ask to determine whether the authority is trustworthy or not.
  • Is the authority trustworthy?
  • Does the authority have an ulterior motive?
  • Is the person mislead?
  • How does she know this?
  • Can I verify this knowledge?


    • There are obvious risks to not asking the 5 questions but there are also risks and obstacles in knowledge from any authority, the greatest obstacle being fear of the cost. Fear of the cost happens when we have to open of a mind. When we hear things from an authority sometimes what we are told goes against our core beliefs. Upon hearing contradictory things we can become scared of this new idea or unknown future. A Jesuit priest, William O'Malley says that to aviod this obstacle we must be both unprejudiced and receptive. Though hard, to be both of these qualities we are satisfying the human nature to know.

    3)Reason

    The final kind of knowledge is Reason. Reason is the power to think in such a way that we proceed from what we know to what we don't know yet. Using the prior two knowledges we can conclude reasonably an entirely new knowledge. For example: I see my brother running out my door at 8 o'clock in the morning.(Experiential Knowledge) My mother tells me his school starts at five till 8.(Authority) I can conclude that he was running out the door because he is late for school.

    2 Kinds of Reason
    1. Deduction, the power to draw new facts from statements we know or believe to be true. For example:
    Premise #1: Every first Monday of the month at 11 o'clock the city's tornado sirens are tested.
    Premise #2: I hear the tornado sirens on a Monday while it clear, sunny day. Conclusion: It is 11 o'clock.

    2. Induction, the second process in which reason works, is the power to make universal statements based on limited experience, with the word universal referring to something which is true always and everywhere and in every instance. Often an inductive statement contains the words "all," "no," "always," or "never." Saying that all snow is white naturally white is an example of an inductive statement.

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