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TOPIC - "Although all our cognition commences with experience, yet it does
not on that account all arise from experience."
A note on the relationship between Knowledge and Experience.
To use the "knowledge" and "experience" to elucidate the disparity between them
or not, the concept in itself is very positive and sound. Lots of great writers,
artists and scientists have talked and written about the significance of obtaining
ideas from bits of knowledge from around the world, making sense of it and
trying to figure out ways to join these dots to invigorate productive thinking and
to come up with new ideas.
Referring to Kant, he says "that there is nothing to doubt the fact that all our
knowledge begins with experience, otherwise in what other way will the
cognitive ability be and put into exercise. Objects that we see around us stimulate
our senses and it turn we come up with representations of those stimulations. We
try and understand these representations, connect them, differentiate them and
try and compare these, thus using up all the raw data of sensible impressions into
a cognition of objects, which we call experience. "
If we take time, into consideration then there is nothing that precedes experience,
when it comes to gaining knowledge.
Kant says that, "....even our experiential cognition is a composite of that which we
receive through impressions and with our own cognitive ability provides out of
itself, which addition we cannot distinguish from that fundamental material until
long practise has made us attentive to it and skilled in separating it out."
Kant, makes a division between priori knowledge and empirical knowledge, the
first one is knowledge/justification that does not involve experience whereas the
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second one involves pragmatic evidence. There are a few things in life which we
know because we have experienced it and some others which we know which are
independent of experience. It could be knowledge gained from books, listening to
the experience of another person etc. or as we mature and various opinions, ideas
and other kinds of knowledge are fed to us, we gain the ability to make sense of
consequences of certain actions using our own knowledge. We certainly doubt
that kind of knowledge to a certain extent unless and until we have experienced it
ourselves but the thought processes in the mind are already set in motion by
then.
A toddler, for example does not realize that if he falls off from a height on the
ground he will hurt himself, unless he has experienced it because at that point of
time in his life the child is incapable of comprehending any kind of explanation or
justification told to him by adults. Here, the child is devoid of empirical evidence
and will later on gain such experience and develop his thoughts around it.
A noteworthy inquiry here is, that from where might experiences itself pick up its
assurance if every one of the guidelines in agreement to which it continues were
themselves thusly constantly observational, along these lines unexpected?
We can content ourselves, by utilizing our intellectual capacity to see an actuality
together with its sign. Tending to the aforementioned inquiry, in the event that
we step by step evacuate everything that is exact in our encounters that is the
experimental bodies such as - the colour, something we see, the
hardness/softness, something we feel- there will an area that was occupied by
that body and doing away with it is not an option. Similarly, on the off chance that
we get rid of experimental idea of each question, every one of the portions of
experience that shows us we will in any case not have the capacity to take from it
that by method for which we consider it a substance or as reliant on a substance.
Subsequently, we yield that this idea is situated in our workforce of discernment
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from the earlier. Thus, we concede that this concept is seated in our faculty of
cognition a priori.
The beauty of expanding one's cognitions is so great that one can only be stopped
by coming across a clear contradiction. Kant doesn't argue from the pragmatist
position that all knowledge is generated by reason, or does he contend to the
empiricist position that all knowledge is generated by experience.
" Kant agrees with the empiricist position that all knowledge begins with
experience and that there cannot be any innate ideas in the mind prior to
experience, but he does not agree that this position supports the claim that
experience must be the only source of all knowledge. Instead, he explains why
reason and experience may be combined to produce valid knowledge."
Knowledge may arise from two main sources: the sensibility and the
understanding. The sensibility is the workforce of accepting impressions, while
the comprehension is the personnel of creating representations. Sensibility
produces instincts, and comprehension produces ideas. Hence, instincts and
ideas are components of all experiential, and they are components of every one of
them from the earlier and a posteriori information. Intuitions and concepts may
be a priori or a posteriori. A priori concepts are pure concepts of the
understanding, while a posteriori concepts are derived from sensory intuitions.
All that appears to be vital for comprehension is that there are two fundamental
stems of human cognizance, which can develop from a root normal to everything
except maybe obscure, to be specific sensibility and comprehension. Through the
first of which objects are given to us and through the second of which they are
thought.
So although all our cognition commences with experience, yet it does not on that
account all arise from experience, we see that there is a certain sort of knowledge
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that is obtained on gaining from other individuals' encounters and from perusing
records of it that is from the books. Moving on to what Descartes has talked about
knowledge and experience. He asks a very important question that .. "If we know
something, are we absolutely certain of it?"
The quest for knowledge remains a perplexing problem. Humankind keeps on
trying to comprehend itself and its general surroundings, and, in reality, how it is
he/she can even be sure of the things he supposes he knows. How do we know
what we know? On the other hand in what manner can an epistemology be
created that gives a system to be perceived and understood? Descartes'
recreation of a knowing process was based upon a numerical approach and gave
a physiological solution for his issue. Still, Descartes epistemology sits simple and
there is by all accounts various issues. It appears that the principal defect to
Descartes realism is that it emerges out of an ontological information, or
familiarity with being. The main genuine truth he finds in acknowledging he is a
'thing that believes' is an ontological truth. That is, he cannot affirm another
person's presence since he considers, or in light of the fact that they think. His
truth then is close to home or subjective truth. Yet, at any rate, it is truth for him.
This, then, prompts the second issue for his logic: it has all the earmarks of being
an existential reality. Truth is comprehensible in light of the fact that he, in the
experience of his cognizance, has found it. This individual and subjective reality
does not prompt the goal reality, or all inclusive reality that he guarantees. His
case for self acknowledgment, or maybe, self disclosure, demonstrates little to
some other unsure being. To say "I think, in this way, I am', is not testable or
comprehensible by any other person. It is an existential reality. It is as if
Descartes has built up for himself the 'knowing sense of self'. To return to the
discussion of Descartes quest for knowledge and basic truths, it was said that his
rational process seemed perplexing as he moved from the subjective to the
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universal to the objective. His rationalism doesn’t seem rational. Perhaps another simpler way of rational construction would be:
1. I can know
2. There is something to know
3. I can use subjective understanding to bridge the gap.
Knowledge for the rationalist is thus what can be deduced from principles that
cannot be otherwise; they are indubitable. Examples of such principles include:
"Bachelors are unmarried males," "A thing cannot be and not be at the same time
in the same way," "Triangles have three sides," and "A whole is always greater
than any one of its parts." These statements are known with certainty to be true
because the very meaning of the terms involved (e.g., bachelors, triangles, things,
wholes) requires that we think of them in certain ways (without relying on sense
experience). We thus know about some things prior to any sense experience we
have or could have. Such knowledge is called a priori. Any knowledge that relies
on (that is, comes after or is posterior to) sense experience is called a posteriori.
In order to identify an ultimate principle of truth on which all other knowledge
can be based, Descartes adds to a strategy that suspends our trust in what we
have been taught, what our faculties let us know, what we "believe" is self-
evident - to put it plainly, with respect to all that we know. Keeping in mind the
end goal to figure out if there is anything we can know with assurance, he says
that we first need to question all that we know.
Certitude is in this way grounded in the information of the self, which is itself
coherent just if there is a God who ensures that we are not tricked about what we
know of the world plainly and particularly (i.e., numerically). By speak to reason
alone, we can know: this is the primary message of logic.
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Learning from books or experience, have a typical source that is life. On the off
chance that experience is the thing that individuals gain from around the world,
by seeing something, feeling it and appreciating its tendency, books are just the
record of it. At a point when a man encounters something they gain from it and
they go on and pass the information to others. Everyone's truth is painted with
their own perceptions. The information picked up from others while dependably
have an instability in it in light of the fact that until and unless one encounters it,
one does not fully become convinced of it. Books are a critical wellspring of
learning. They keep records of other individuals' encounters and can develop the
results of maybe the same occasions the essayist has been through and one
where the listener might or has encountered or may, in the future. Books will
furnish us with ideas and hypotheses for the way things capacity in life however
does not give the chance to practice or experience them.
Learning picked up from books and information picked up from a fact,
compliment each other. There is a sure connection. You can learn and pick up
information about wars and fight and claim to be exceptionally adapted however
when one must be there on the front line and conceptualize your brain and plan
out methodologies it's a great deal a superior approach to get information by
experience.
Thus, my concluding statement on the basis of the writings of the two authors,
Descartes and Kant are, that even though knowledge arises from experience,
there are a lot many sources through which knowledge can be gained. Intuition,
doubt, doubting the already known matter, records of other people's experiences,
by modes of proper education, comprehending the right and wrong on the basis
of individuals' understanding of what the right and wrong.
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References :
1. Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (1986). Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the Objections and
Replies. Retrieved April 3, 2016.
2. Kant, I., Guyer, P., & Wood, A. W. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge University Press.
3. Reynolds, C., Dr. (n.d.). The Quest for Knowledge: A Study of Descartes. Retrieved April 3, 2016, from
http://www.global-logic.net/descarte.html