Introducing myself to Philosophy-II

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.