Knowledge Issues

14 September 2010

Today we discussed about knowledge claim in class. A knowledge claim, we discussed, is something that we believed is true. And of course, there are the regular knowledge issues, such as - where did the sources come from, are the sources reliable, how can we justify it, does it correspond with the reality, etc.

Sometimes, when I think about the knowledge issues that we discussed in class, we don't really think about the knowledge issues consciously. For example, when we are reading a statement, we don't go step by step thinking about the knowledge issues, whether we should believe the statement. In my opinion, people usually don't think about knowledge issues on a regular basis. If we suspect every statement that we read or hear, our lives will be a little miserable and tiring. I think that if a person who often suspects whether things are true is a rather negative person. Of course, I am not saying that we shouldn't think about knowledge issues at all.

I wonder, what are the benefits of considering the knowledge issues? Is it necessary to know the absolute truths behind the things that we believe? Will that make us happier?