Preview

How Can the Different Ways of Knowing Help Us to Distinguish Between Something That Is True and Something That Is Believed to Be True?

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1871 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Can the Different Ways of Knowing Help Us to Distinguish Between Something That Is True and Something That Is Believed to Be True?
TOK ESSAY

4. How can the different ways of knowing help us to distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true?

In order to distinguish between what is true and what we simply believe to be true we will first have to define what truth and belief is and how these two terms differ from each other. This paper will then seek to determine how the four different ways of knowing – perception, language, emotions and reason – can help us distinguish between truth and belief.

It is believed that Plato once defined knowledge as “justified true belief”[1] – this implies that in order to obtain knowledge, we need to know a certain thing as a fact, and that merely believing it is not sufficient. The idea of truth is simply that no matter what we believe to be the case, some things will always be true and other things will always be false. Our beliefs, whatever they are, have no bearing on the facts of the world around us. That which is true is always true – even if we stop believing it[2]. Hence, if everyone were to stop believing that all bodies on earth experience a gravitational force, everything would not suddenly float around randomly. Belief, on the other hand, is free thought – it can be fact or fiction. If you merely believe something, then it may be true or it may be false. Simply believing that something is true does not make it so[3]. Furthermore, if everyone were to share the same belief it could eventually turn out to be completely false. For centuries everyone thought they knew that the earth was flat, which we now know is incorrect. Additionally, on an individual level truth and belief are interchangeable terms. If I believe the sky is blue, then that is my truth. If I were to believe that an oppressive institution were actually noble and honest, then for me that, too, would be my ‘truth’. I might even be so foolish as to actively support an oppressive body, believing it to be noble and good. Someone, standing on



Bibliography: Cambridge Univerty Press, United Kingdom, 2005 Holberg, Ludvig: Erasmus Montanus. Zauner Grafis AS, Denmark, 2008/1723, pp. 25 Websites: [6] Lagemaat, Richand van de: Theory of Knowledge – for the IB Diploma. Cambridge Univerty Press, United Kingdom, 2005, pp. 48 [7] Quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein found on: www.brainyquotes.com [14] Lagemaat, Richand van de: Theory of Knowledge – for the IB Diploma. Cambridge Univerty Press, United Kingdom, 2005, pp. 119 [15] Ibid, pp

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Imperfect Identity Essay

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cited: Jacobsen, Rockney and Moore, Dwayne. An Introduction to Theories of Knowledge and Reality Redings and Discussions. Canada: Pearson, 2012. Print.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Knowledge is not the same as belief. Beliefs can be mistaken, but no-one can know what is false.…

    • 1338 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Read Chapters One, “What is Epistemology?” and Two, “What is Knowledge?” of How Do we Know?” As you do, make sure you understand the following points and questions:…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Theory of knowledge; often provokes big questions on the meaning and justifications of conventional knowledge.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    After developing a question, the next step is to gather information and resources. Previous knowledge and beliefs determine the process of gathering information. Belief is not in and of itself truth; it is an assumption of what is true. The truth perceived by a person is interpreted by the person’s belief. Each person’s worldview rests on what the person believes is “truth.” If a person’s epistemological worldview is to believe in the Bible to already be true than knowledge from the Bible can be revealed.…

    • 1902 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rescher, Nicholas. “Epistemology: an introduction to the theory of knowledge.” State University of New York . 2003 Ebrary.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Scientific Method

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Belief is described as a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists, that something is true. Belief is a confidence; it is taught in childhood and plastered into the mind, it is a block to many men and women while growing old and learning about life. There was a time that a military soldier told a joke to another soldier after a situation of importance. The two…

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Health Promotion

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Belief–a statement of sense, declared or implied, that is intellectually and/or emotionally accepted as true by a person or group.…

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hospers' Argument

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In his argument, he emphasises on the three main requirements for knowing, one is that the thing has to be true, secondly, one has to believe in that thing and lastly it requires that one has adequate evidence to believe that the thing is true. Firstly, the truth requirement is necessary for if it is not, would be self-contradictory since knowledge cannot come from something false. Secondly, it requires that one has to believe that the thing is true for believing is an eminent part of knowing.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The difference between truth and knowledge itself moreover is a much simpler matter. Since the only semantic distinction between the two is that, truth is anything that is in accord with fact or reality whereas knowledge are any facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education. However from an epistemological perspective disagreement still remain about whether our senses can be trusted to discover the ultimate nature of reality and subsequently establish if the perceived world as we know it is not just an illusion or a dream.…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many different types of ways of knowing such as language, sense perception, memory, imagination, emotion, faith, reason and intuition. The two different ways of knowing that I will be comparing in this essay are Intuition and Reason.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Truth vs. Perception

    • 2314 Words
    • 10 Pages

    What is the key difference between ‘truth’ and ‘perception’, and which is more important? The truth is the reality of the fact while perception is the truth relative to oneself. The mind, the nature of the metaphysical of a human being is different to everyone else’s. Everyone has lived different lives; experiencing different passions, interests, suffering and possessing different capacities in knowledge. People are also brought up in different ways, belonging to different cultures and religions. This diverse array of factors is what makes us who we are, affecting and contributing to our views and perspectives. When contemplating the ‘truth’, it is filtered through a wide spectrum of experiences, knowledge and emotions, resulting in ones perception. For example, an orange is orange, which is the truth. If you look at it through green glasses, it will appear green but the truth is that the orange remains orange. Perception is like the green glasses, filtering the truth relative to the person that is perceiving it.…

    • 2314 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    What does truth mean?

    • 929 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What does truth mean? Truth can mean many different things, to different people. I believe, that truth is what people accept as being correct when it can not be proven factually. "It is a relationship that holds that holds between a proposition and the corresponding fact"(Truth[Inernet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]). "According to, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, truth is conformity to knowledge, fact, actuality, or logic." There are three major competing theories of truth. The three theories are pragmatic, correspondence, and coherence. The remainder of this paper will discuss all three of these theories, plus which theory seems to be the most defensible to me, and why.…

    • 929 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    What is Truth

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages

    For thousands of years the pursuit of knowledge and the definition of fact plagued philosophers. In order to define what knowledge truly is, fact must be defined as well. If something is a fact, then that must mean that it is truth. Facts and knowledge coexist with truth due to facts being true and incorrect statements being false. Ergo, knowledge can be seen as truth. Then the counterpart of truth; error is one of the main problems of the knowledge of truth (The Problems of Philosophy, 12). However a question that is frequently pondered is “What is truth really?” In order to answer this obscure question philosophers have fabricated many theories. The most famous of these theories are the correspondence and coherence theory. Other theories of truth use said theories as a foundation that later branch off into different directions (Encyclopaedia Britannica). I will examine the strengths and weaknesses of both correspondence and coherence theory while finally using the flaws and benefits of both theories to state my position on how truth is strictly subjective.…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    Final

    • 57372 Words
    • 230 Pages

    Bibliography: Sosa, Ernest [1980]: “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge.” In Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 5: Studies in Epistemology. Minneapolis MN: University of Minneapolis Press: 3–25. Stace, W.T. [1967]: “Science and the Physical World.” In Man Against Darkness and Other Essays. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Tye, Michael [2009]: “A New Look at the Speckled Hen.” In Analysis 60, April: 258–63. Yolton, John W. [1970]: Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.…

    • 57372 Words
    • 230 Pages
    Best Essays