Without Knowledge At All Analysis

Knowledge cannot be illustrated with one straightforward definition and in consequence, there are innumerable ways of receiving it. From day one of our lives, we are obtaining knowledge from our own experiences and the experiences of those close to us. Knowledge is obtained not only from the facts in a textbook but from the senses we are born with. It is not simply one or the other but is a jumbled up stew of education and experiences that creates the knowledge one knows today. And when we explore the assertion “Without knowledge of the past, we would have no knowledge at all” the flaws of the statement can be seen when one understands the different ways of collecting knowledge. Although many argue that knowledge of the past is knowledge itself, however, because knowledge can be extracted logically from the parts of our own experiences and those of the past, knowledge is not only derived from the past. Philosophers have traditionally maintained that one of the first major types of knowledge is prior knowledge, which from Latin, literally means knowledge that is prior to experience, that cannot be attained from the knowledge of others. This knowledge is not found from experience but instead accumulated from reason itself, such as the truth of mathematics and logic. For example, the mathematical truth that 1+1=2, although I learned from counting my fingers that one finger plus another finger will give two fingers on my hand, I can still comprehend the concept without knowing the situation. Such as I know that 1 million plus 1 million is 2 million, I do not need a million toes to understand this formula. And these ideas can be associated with logic. For example, analyze this argument: all A’s are B’s, and if C is an A, therefore, C is a B. Separately of experience and past knowledge we can understand this logical structure. In addition to math and simple logic, there are variations of truth that do not require past knowledge to be truths. Such as all bachelors have no wives, a brother is a male sibling, Blue is a color. In the first statements by definition bachelors are unmarried adult males and in result have no wives, so the statement is true by definition not by past knowledge. Irrespective of a person’s schema and past experiences that world bachelor will still describe an unmarried man or something of that kind. However, although these concepts are true for the above statements this only represents a small portion of the knowledge that we can acquire from personal experiences. Posteriori knowledge directly translates in Latin to knowledge that is after the experience. The four main ways of obtaining posterior knowledge is perspective, self-examination or introversion, memory, and testimony. The most obvious of these four is of course perception. What we see, hear, touch, smell are the factors we all employ to make knowledge and add to our overall schema. Next we have self-examination which involves the inspection of how we experience and how our thoughts operate. For instance, when my back started to hurt me, I went to the doctor, she then asked me to describe it. Then …show more content…
The knowledge that is learned from dead aristocrats or from parents and close friends. Yet this statement fails to distinguish the knowledge we perceive on from everyday lives. As well as the knowledge that reflects our own mental state, that controls our thoughts and feelings. It also disregards prior knowledge that is in a result of non-experiential knowledge, which depends on things such as logic. So this assertion can only be partly correct, for it is right in conveying the importance of looking to the past and learning from it. When exploring other cultures and their perspective of knowledge, it is seen that obtain knowledge is primarily gained from the stories of their ancestors. For example, the Sioux legends and mythology played an important role in their traditions and the way they rationalize the world around them. The Sioux had a respect for ancient wisdom and in resultant places the knowledge, they learned from their leaders above those they experience. Yet past knowledge can not be defined as our only knowledge because, the knowledge we obtain from the past only adds and enhances