After a brief
introduction of myself to the idea of philosophy I would like to dig deeper in
to what it is really composed of and what and choose the component which is our
first choice (epistemology). Philosophy is its board sense is divided in to
five branches. Logic: also known as sematic which is to do with meaning and
concepts. Ethics: also known as moral or political dealing with how we
ought to live. Epistemology: which to do what we can be known (knowledge).
Metaphysics: to do with what is ultimately
real. Esthetic: to do
with what art. This branches are also studied as philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of law, and philosophy of art (aesthetics). The term Epistemology which is derive from Greek word episteme
epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”),
and is also refer to as the theory of knowledge.
Pritchard
in his book ‘What is this thing called knowledge?’ begin by talking about types
of knowledge as his main interest in the book is on a particular type of
knowledge (prepositional knowledge).
Types of Knowledge:
There are three
types of knowledge, Knowledge by
Acquaintance, Ability Knowledge, and Propositional Knowledge. Needless to
explain with example here as we all seems to be too frequented by it.
But, here the question that came to my mind
is can these knowledge exist
independently of one another? Can we have prepositional knowledge
independently without directly or indirectly having related knowledge of
acquaintance or ability knowledge and Vis-versa? Our pursuit in education are
mainly focus on prepositional knowledge. What are some major problem this
concentrated pursuit creates in our society (if any)? Have our educational
endeavor focus too much on prepositional knowledge that we have a highly
specialized professionals who have no clue of any co-relation of his action to
the larger environmental or societal implication? If aim of education is at all
liberating and empowering individual and all ultimately for the larger good of
the society. Does the hierarchy we assume (or perceive) divided the society?
Look at the disparity in our society? The unequal payment or the returns of
different profession? Is it the problem related to this notion of hierarchy or
is it something else? If, so what could be that?
Are approaches like CCE which focus on
scholastic excellence and co-scholastic (honesty, team spirit, etc.),
extra-curricular activities, physical-education practice in our education
system sufficient to dealt with this mammoth problem we have (consider this
question if you agree to the problem I have highlighted above)?
Definition of Knowledge:
There
are in-built dilemma in knowledge regarding where to begin. That is either to
begin by definition of knowledge or criteria of knowledge. This problem is call
the problem of criterion. This problem
say one can only identify
instances of knowledge provided she already know what the criteria for
knowledge are. Or one can only know what the criteria for knowledge are
provided she is already able to identify instances of knowledge. The
Methodism and Particularism are two way out of this dilemma. Methodism proceeds
from the criteria for knowledge and Particularism begin from instances of
knowledge. I face another problem, if I should
begin by defining both ‘knowledge’ and ‘criteria of knowledge’ or ‘the problem
of criteria’. For now I begin with the problem but I don’t know how efficient will
it be if looked at facilitation point of view.
Prepositional knowledge: A prepositional knowledge is a knowledge
of preposition. A preposition is what is asserted by the sentence which says
that something is the case. Like, all husband are married or two plus two is
four. But, it is quite obvious possible one can assert on anything. So, if the definition
of prepositional knowledge is just asserting that something is the case than everything
can go haywire. So the precondition of considering any preposition as
prepositional knowledge is that one have to belief on which she is asserting
and that assertion should be true. This assertion should in turn be
justifiable. Thus, the famous Justified
True Belief as the criteria of knowledge. These three criteria’s made the pursuit of knowledge in various field (like
science) possible for objective studies and hence its advance. But, where these
scope are impossible (like religion) no objective studies is possible and hence
its own problem.
The three criteria’s
are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to call any preposition a
prepositional knowledge.
Before talking in detail about criteria of
knowledge I would like to talk about the dilemma related to it in education. What
is the difference between knowledge and information? Is it knowledge place in
class room in the form of information? Or is it at all possible to place
knowledge in the form of information? Is this the problem of Knowledge in our
education system? Do we have the luxury of analyzing every knowledge we claim
in education via tripartite criteria. Is it because JTB criteria is not applied
in acquiring knowledge? Is education system the delivery of the ‘produced
knowledge’ where the process of production is not given important but only
where the end product is given important?
*Problematization
on the definition of knowledge, each criteria of knowledge, and further
contents in knowledge would be done in next writings.
