I'm bored and for my final paper of this past semester I was reading a book (if you want to know, the book is called
The Book of Chuang Tzu). And the main premise of the book is about knowledge, or lack of knowledge. This thread is going to cover a little bit of epistemology which is philosophical in nature. So if philosophy is for you, then this is the right thread to be in!
Before I get into the meat of what this thread will be about
epistemology must be defined
Quote:
e·pis·te·mol·o·gy
iˌpistəˈmäləjē
the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
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So this thread will cover three basic questions that are interesting to try to answer (by you may not be able to answer any!)
1) How do we know what we know?
For example, one may say that if you jump out of the window you will fall to the ground. But how do we know that you won't float up in the sky instead?
2) How do we know what we don't know?
Another example. For now, we don't know whether or not we really evolved from a common ancestor in human history (it is a theory at this moment not a fact). How do we know that we don't know that?
3) How do we know what we are and are not able to know?
If we know what we know, and we don't know what we don't, how can we distinguish what we know and what we don't from each other? And how can we finally know something we previously thought we didn't know?
So now that we have that out of the way, let's get into some of the questions using real examples.
Example 1: Suppose you are in university and you have a 9:00am class every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. There is a school university clock that tell you the time and is accurate and always maintained. However, on Monday the clock stop working and the time freezes at 8:45am. It is Tuesday, exactly 24 hours later from 8:45am Monday and on your way to class you glance at the school clock. The clock still reads 8:45am and you believe that is the actual time (and it is). But how do you know that this time is the correct time assuming you believe the clock is in working condition? If you were a few minutes earlier or later you would have still thought it was 8:45am on Tuesday but you would not have known that was incorrect, therefore you would not have the knowledge to know.
Exmaple 2: Suppose you and another perspective employee are going out for the same job. This second perspective employee has a college degree, related to the employer, is honest, and has experience. All qualities you do not happen to have. Let's also say that this perspective employee has a handkerchief in his back pocket before the job interview. You come to the conclusion that the man with the handkerchief in his back pocket will get the job. However, instead of hiring that employee, the employer hires you. Unbeknownst to you, the random suit you put on in the morning also had a handkerchief in your back pocket. You had no idea as you just put something on to look good. So your belief was right, but how did you know that you were going to get hired? Did you actually know?
