Three Kinds of Knowledge
Experience
The first type of knowledge that we encounter in the reading is from experience. There are two types of knowledge from experience: experiential knowledge and empirical knowledge. Experiential knowledge is defined as coming from a personal experience that we perceive through our five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Empirical knowledge is knowedge that we obtain by measuring something.
We gain knowledge from experiences everyday. Whether it is taught to us in class, read in a book, or learned from interaction with people. Our conclusions about anything can not be possible without our previously attained knowledge. Aristotle shows this in his
Posterior Analytics:
All teaching and learning that involves the use of reason proceeds from pre-existent knowledge. This is evident if we consider all the different branches of learning, because both the mathematical sciences and every other art are acquired in this way. Similarly too with logical arguements, whether [deductive] or inductive; both [discover new knowledge] by means of facts already recognized, the former making assumptions as though granted by an intelligent audience, and the latter proving the universal from the self-evident nature of the particular.
What Aristotle is saying here is that all things that involve the use of reasoning come from knowledge that we have already had. He says that this is true for sciences and all other art forms, as well as deductive and inductive reasoning. He also states, vaguely, what deductive and inductive reasoning are.
Authority
Usually when people speak of authority figures, they think of people such as parents, police officers, or teachers. But really, an authority is someone who claims to have knowledge that you do not. While your parents or police officers or teachers are authority figures, scientists are authority figures as well. Your friends are authority figures in some instances. Knowledge from authority is knowledge gained from an authority figure. A few examples from the book are:
I've never been to Vatican City, so I don't have experiential knowledge that it exists. But I've met people who say they were there, and I've read about it in books.
The question arises in the reading that we accept so-called facts told to us by authority, but what it they are wrong? "I believe them because it doesn't cost me anything to believe." If the authority was wrong, so what, if he was right, great!
Another term used for knowledge from authority is fear of the cost. Fear of the cost is when a message touches too close to home and all the skepticism crawls out of the closet. William O'Malley wrote an inspiring essay on fear of the cost. Here is an excerpt from his essay:
To be truly open-minded means to be both unprejudiced and receptive--willing to consider new ideas, even those threatening to my own. In fact, in the best sense, being open-minded means going out in search of new ideas.
Reason
Reason is the power to think in such a way that we proceed from what we know to what we do not yet know. Reason is the same thing as logical thinking. When one thinks through things logically, one reasons. Here are a few examples from the text.
Premise #1: My wallet is missing from the car.
Premise #2: Nothing appears to be broken.
Conclusion: I left the door unlocked.
There are two general types of reasoning: deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Deduction is the power to draw a conclusion from two premises, or statements we already believe are true. Induction is the power to make universal statements based on limited experience.
- Deduction
All humans are rational.
Socrates is human.
Socrates is rational.
In this example above, there are two statements, the premises, and a new fact that was deduced from those two premises, called a conclusion. Aristotle said that a premise is an affirmative or negative statement about some subject which is believed to be true. Here are a few examples of implied premises.
Premise: Bill Clinton is a Democrat.
Premise: -------------------------
Conclusion: I voted for Bill Clinton.
Implied premises are instances when people assume the other person will understand what they mean. What he implied was that he is a democrat, or at least he favors that party.
- Induction
Another type of reasoning that was explained by Aristotle was called induction, which means making universal generalizations about something based on a limited number of experiences of that thing (where universal is taken to mean something which is always true). Words that can indicate inductive reasoning are words such as "all" or "no" or "always"or "never". Deductive reasoning is usually the stronger type of reasoning because only one exception is required in order to disprove and inductive statement.
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Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
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