Preachers Who Are Not Believers, Essay Example

This TOK essay is written to assess the topic “the whole point of knowledge is to produce both meaning and purpose in our personal lives.” The following will evaluate the relevance of this question within the Theory of Knowledge OK, specifically as it relates to ways of knowing (WOK) and it will break down to what extent I agree with this statement.

Definitions

The main idea to note in answering this knowledge question is view  ‘knowledge’ as a process. There is a process to the acquisition of knowledge and it’s through these methods of acquisition that individuals define their way of knowing (WoK). There are a wide range of WoKs present in areas of knowledge (AoKs) such as Historiography used in History, The Hypothetical Deductive Method used in the Natural Sciences, Globalization reflective waiting the acquisition of nearby knowledge and Moral Dilemmas in Ethical knowledge acquisitions, that enable one to acquire knowledge through a diverse set of paths. This makes the process of acquiring knowledge very personal, which makes it different from an phrase like “the whole point” used in the knowledge question to define the objective of knowledge acquisition. Since the diversity of knowledge acquisition offers a variety pathways, goals and objectives, it makes the process unique to the knower making it that much more difficult to state, in good faith, what the “whole point” is in acquiring knowledge.

The knowledge question actually uses the phrase “personal lives,” which makes it necessary to define and interpret the phrase before one can truly assess the knowledge question itself. In one way this touches on the personal nature of knowledge acquisition but it also makes reference to the personal experiences of individuals and how those experiences impact knowledge acquisition. The alternative to this personal experience would be a generalized human experience.

The final terms that need a clear definition before evaluating the question itself are the terms “purpose” and “meaning.” I interpret ‘meaning’ to define an existence that resonates with an individual in a way that is personally significant and of distinct worth.  I understand the word ‘purpose’ to be language for pathways of behavior and action.

The Knowledge Question.

The essential question is not so much a question, as it is a statement, but I think the essential questions that spawns out of it are questions like ‘how does one know they need to gain knowledge to find purpose for their lives? If they don’t know and the statement still holds true that the whole purpose of knowledge is the pursued of purpose or meaning, then that means the process of finding purpose or meaning through the acquisition of knowledge is unintentional. Taking a deeper look at the knowledge question, if one perceives the phrase “whole point” to mean the only meaningful cause or objective, then before the argument even starts it struggles with the complexity of the vast seemingly endless nature of knowledge. This puts anyone assessing the question in a tough position to prove or disprove the argument.

To What Extent I Agree

Despite the tough position the knowledge question puts me in is to either agree or disagree with the statement, I do believe their is a sound interpretation that applies to the concept of knowledge, purpose and meaning. I believe that the acquisition of knowledge increases meaning while at the same time it causes a reduction in purpose. I base this concept on a statement made by Voltaire, often cited in many scholarly works. He specifically says, “the more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain i am that I know nothing” (Voltaire, 1).   It is often the case that one is certain about a particular job, college major, stock in which they want to invest, or even person they want to marry, prior to having all or more information. Once they have done their due diligence or had the time to really evaluate the situation, their original enthusiasm based primarily on a lack of knowledge is placed at odds with doubts they developed through new knowledge acquisition. While this might not always result in one becoming indecisive, and could actually create a situation where one has a clear understanding of their purpose, or at least an understanding of what is not their purpose, core idea is that knowledge has the tendency to create doubt through more clearly defining meaning.

Applying AoKs and WoKs

When applying areas of knowledge (AoKs) and ways of knowing WoKs to the knowledge question, it provides a clearer picture of how increased meaning results in a decrease in purpose. Within theory of knowledge studies, there 8 recognized Areas of knowledge, specifically the arts, ethics, history, the human sciences, indigenous knowledge systems, the mathematics, the natural sciences, and religious knowledge systems. The ways of knowing entail, emotion, faith, imagination, intuition, language, memory, reason, sense, perception. For the purpose of this TOK essay, I will specifically look at religious faith as a way of knowing and natural science as a body of knowledge.

Reference to WoKs:

Faith & Religion

The proposition of the question most clearly lends itself to Faith as a WoK. This WoK should be a rather straightforward area for students to explore in support of the PT. However, I would be interested in exploring cases where acquisition of knowledge through Faith has led to diminished faith, and possibly reduced meaning in the lives of those going through such a process. A real world example might be Priests who don’t believe in God (Daniel Dennett & Linda LaScola,122). In Daniel Dennette and Linda LaScola’s  study on this subject, they interview a young aspiring priest who talks about his experience in acquiring knowledge separate from his teachings in college and how it challenged his faith. He starts by stating when he first went to college, he thought Adam and Eve were real people, and then he goes onto note that,  “…and I can remember really wrestling with that when my Old Testament professor was pointing out the obvious myths and how they came to be.  And I kind of joked at the time that I prayed my way all the way to atheism.  Because in the early days, it was wrestling with God; praying to God” (Daniel Dennet & Linda LaScola, 126). This provides a prime example of how the acquisition of knowledge impacts ones concept of purpose and meaning in their personal life. Essentially religious doctrine and religion as a whole is structured to provide people with a sense of understanding about the meaning of life or to know a general purpose to life through which they can adapt their own personal circumstances, but Dennet and La Scola, reveal even aspiring clergy find that the more they learn about their religion the less certain they become in regards to their chosen path. This reaffirms my argument that increased meaning leads to decreased  purpose.

Intuition

Intuition is another way of knowing (WoK) commonly used to acquire knowledge. It involves knowing something through a gut instinct or feeling. An example of intuitive knowledge would be getting lost on a street in a foreign country, and finding your way home even though you don’t speak the language on the street signs, but finding your way through an intuitive sense of which way you should go and which way you should not go. The idea behind gaining knowledge through intuition comes natural. The same could be said about finding there right path in your life or understanding the meaning of a word you have never heard of before just because it sounds like another word. The idea here is that if you can find the meaning of a word than you can find other meaning in your life through intuition.

Natural Sciences.

Kuhn supports the view that scientific development of knowledge leads to the inevitable recurrence of scientific revolutions which results in paradigm shifts (Hairston, 76). Natural scientific theory is grounded in the continuous act of proving and disproving hypothesis. This is done through active experimentation where tests new scientific assertions are tested to become new scientific knowledge. In terms of scientific knowledge, due to the rapid progress of science,  it is legitimate to acknowledge the possibility of a ”partial or momentary truth.” German philosopher Karl Popper states that knowledge in Western civilization is based on the premise that “no number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a single experiment can contradict one. Popper held that empirical theories are characterized by falsifiability – continuous research for the error” (Kutchmen, 90). Furthermore, Kurtchmen in the same text where he cites Popper’s view, “The Half-life of Facts,” presents data revealing that half of all scientific knowledge established survives time while the other half is discarded. He attributes this fact to knowledge continuously being improved upon as new information is uncovered. This reaffirms the notion that there is a decline in propose through the Proust of knowledge.

Real Life Examples

A real life example that helps me identify with this idea that increased mealing leads to decline in purpose, comes from nearly every aspect of my life. As i have grown older I have experienced more and been able to look back and identify the meaning of certain events that occurred. When I was younger, I believed I had a clear cut concept of who I wanted to be and how I wanted my life to turn out. Now that I have grow, while I have a deeper understanding of complex issues and events that happened in my past, I am much less certain about my direction now in the present or my future. Through wisdom though, I have also become content with uncertainty.

Conclusion

In sum, while this notion regarding scientific theory and religious faith may provide some sign that society as a whole is aspiring to new heights and purpose through finding deeper and clearer meaning, on the surface it appears that increase of meaning even in the natural sciences results in broader and more complex understanding of the world, not a clearer one.

Work Cited

Dennett, Daniel C., and Linda LaScola. “Preachers who are not believers.” Evolutionary Psychology 8.1 (2010): 122-150.

Hairston, Maxine. “The winds of change: Thomas Kuhn and the revolution in the teaching of writing.” College composition and communication (1982): 76-88.

Kuchment, Anna. “The Half-Life of Facts.”Scientific American 307.4 (2012): 90-91.

Voltaire. Candide. Wildside Press LLC, 2007.