“There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge: through passive observation or through active experiment.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
I believe that this statement is accurate because it encompasses all the possible ways to acquire knowledge. The passive observation component refers to acquiring knowledge through unintentional means. The active experiment portion refers to acquiring knowledge intentionally, by manipulating variables. Various ways of knowing (WOK) fall under either active experimentation or passive observation. Language falls under both because language is passed down from generation to generation, which is a form of passive observation. Language is also experimentation because people had to create the words initially, and like Alia mentioned in class, Shakespeare made up words which are part of the English language today. Sense Perception falls under passive observation, because you are not consciously trying to acquire knowledge. Reason falls under active experimentation because you have to manipulate variables in your head when you reason. Emotion can fall under passive observation because it is an involuntary response to a particular situation. Imagination falls under active experimentation because your mind creates imagination consciously. Memory can fall under passive observation because some things are imprinted in your memory unintentionally, but it can also be active experimentation if you purposely try to memorize something. Intuition falls under passive observation because it is unintentional and it is not something that you can manipulate parts of. Faith can fall under passive observation because if someone sees a miracle, it could make them have faith. Some of these WOKs can overlap, even ones I did not mention. But they can all be classified under either of the two categories.
I completely agree with how they encompass all the possible ways, and my blog was similar to this. They are such broad methods that anything can fit under one of the categories. In order to create knew knowledge we are determining something that was not known before and the only way we know something is by learning it. If it is already published then its not knew knowledge so we have to see it being true, and that is either through passive observation or observation of an experiment we set up. This relates to the skepticism post from march though because maybe there is a third way, but we just dont know about it so it would be impossible to prove something I dont know about isnt a way of generating new knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI also do believe that there are only two ways of producing knowledge. I liked how you incorporated the ways of knowing in your post, as it brings me into the tok world and I can therefore see more deeply where each way of knowing stems from. In my opinion however, I don't believe that active experimentation always requires one to manipulate variables. I think by intentionally just trying something, knowledge is acquired even though no variables were manipulated.
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