Information of the Theory of Knowledge

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Outline

Human beings possess five human senses which they use to get information from their surroundings and they include taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. Information collected by these senses pass through a process before it gets fully understood.The question of when our senses should be trusted to give the truth is very debatable as some would argue that, they should be trusted at all times, some would say they should be partially trusted while others would not trust them at all. However, each argument can be supported, giving situations where common sense can be trusted to give the truth as well as situations where senses cannot be trusted.

Introduction

According to (Lehrer, 2000), the sensory nerves are usually the first to detect information from the senses which is then relayed to be interpreted by the brain. It is after this interpretation that one gets to understand what has been detected by a particular sense. One can opt to trust or not trust the information gathered by senses depending on his/her belief on the issue or object under study. Trusting the senses also depends on a particular time and situation that we are faced with and therefore, we sometimes tend to trust them while at other times we don’t. Another determinant is our bodies’ and mind’s condition because we can only trust our senses when they are in a good condition.

When Senses Should Be Trusted To Give the Truth

(Mudimbe ,1988), argues that, truth is what one feels is right after reasoning and it is not uniform to all people as one person’s truth can be taken to be a lie by the another which makes truth debatable. When one’s body and mind is in good condition, it becomes possible to gather information around one’s environment using the five human senses. Human senses gather factual information on the ground which is in most cases trusted to be the truth since it is all they can provide and we entirely depend on them. For example, the sense of sight is used when performing experiments in the laboratory to check whether one is using the right specimen, setting and mixing them correctly to obtain the results. It would be impossible for a blind person to perform some experiments where color needs to be recognized as well as other results needed in data entry for an experiment. This makes the sense of sight a necessity in providing truth which should be trusted.

Another example is when reading texts; it is very obvious that we trust our eyes without question to give us details of a particular written material. When one wants to answer a question, information read by the eyes is used to give feedback meaning that the sense of sight is trusted. Blind people often trust their sense of touch to help them recognize their surrounding. Though a lot of training is done to help them read and write, it is clear that at the end they depend on their senses to give them information which they internalize to get meaning from it. If one needs information that gives description of an object’s color, texture and shape, it would be appropriate to trust the sense of sight, touch and hearing since they can see and feel that object. (Guiasu, 1977)

(Feyerabend, 1975) argues that, when someone wants to know the kind of action taking place and the person performing it, he/she needs look at that particular action. For example, by looking at a shop where robbery is taking place, one can automatically trust his/her senses as it is possible to view those stealing and what is being stolen. Therefore, in such cases where details of description are needed, one can rely on the sense of sight as it’s the only way to get that particular information. Actually, when carrying out the day to day life activities where little reasoning is needed to acquire the truth; our senses can be trusted to offer the right information. For example, when cooking one would want to know how the food tastes and literally take a bite to taste. The smell of the same food can be detected by the nose which would inform the cook whether it is producing a good aroma. Therefore, this is how people acquire truth if there is nobody to doubt the outcome of information gathered by the senses. In most cases, reasoning is not applied in daily routines since from childhood people are taught how to use senses to recognize various sounds, tastes, smells, texture and things they see. This leaves most human beings with no option but to take the truth as it is literally provided on the ground. Furthermore, when people opt not to trust their senses as the tools available to perceive their surroundings, they make life hard because they have no otherwise than to be led by senses. In fact, most of the things that are believed to be true got their label through use of senses while others acquired this label through manipulating previous truths internally.

When Senses Should Not Be Trusted To Give the Truth

(Piaget, 1971) argues that, though human beings use a standard approach of trusting their senses to provide them with truth, what is usually given by the five senses does not necessarily become the truth. This is because the process of establishing truth through our senses is usually faced by so many problems which make it difficult to trust them. A Scientific definition of sense is the faculty that is used to perceive outside stimuli and as per the definition, only the outside truth of phenomena can be recognized using senses but not more. Therefore, anything beyond what can be seen from the outside should be put under more scrutiny to give the truth. Though the world is understood through use of senses they are mostly deceived which gives us wrong feedback. This happens when intelligence is applied to reason and experiment in search for the real truth of information gathered by our senses. The main objective of this industry is to deceive human senses and create a new meaning to the actual observation of the phenomena.

According to (Ayer, 1952), Magic shows are also used in evasion and deception of human senses since what is shown is usually a manipulation of events where senses gather fake information. In such cases, it is not right to trust our senses because without reasoning they cannot provide us with the truth. Senses can be compared to cameras that view the phenomena from only one angle which is very misleading since its necessary to have more than one side of things looked upon before making a conclusion as to whether something is true or not. Human senses can sometimes be erroneous giving the wrong information compared to what is right. For example, when someone is either short or long sighted it is possible to give wrong details of what is being observed due to the eyesight problem. There are certain distances than a normal person without any problem with sight cannot see as well as wavelengths. Senses in such situations fail us for not being in a position to collect information needed or providing wrong details altogether. Senses cannot also be trusted during interpretation of artistic material and information as they are usually deceived giving results of three dimensional drawing while what was observed were one dimensional lines. (Popper, 1972)

Information provided by human senses should not be trusted if they were used separately to determine truth. For example, someone might observe water in a pot and on noticing some bubbles, it would be possible for him/her to conclude that the water could have boiled and is very hot. When someone else goes ahead to feel the same water by dipping a finger he/she may realize that the water only had bubbles of air and that it is very cold. Therefore, it is important that more than one senses are used together so as to provide true information.

(Goldman, 1970), argues that, our senses can never be trusted when the person collecting information has impaired senses which is a problem being faced by most people due to state of the environment surrounding us. It would not be a surprise to find that almost everyone has a problem with at least one of his/her senses and this is a good reason as to why we should not trust information gathered by the impaired senses. For example, when the person viewing something is color blind, then color detected by that particular person is definitely a wrong one and should not be taken to be true. Such a person should try to use other means of detecting colors or even confirm from others thereby proving his/her sense of sight as unreliable. (Hornsey, 2007)

According to (Manen, 1990), another situation where senses would give wrong information is when one is suffering from a cold which tampers with the sense of smell. It would be inappropriate to depend on such information of a smell detected by someone suffering from cold since that person is likely to experience difficulties with smelling. So one may mistake a particular smell for another or even fail to detect it at all rendering his/her sense of smell unreliable at that particular time. When for example, more information about a flower is needed, the only thing that can be detected by using senses alone is its color, smell and texture but not whether one likes it or not. Therefore, more truth than just the physical appearance of that flower can be determined by application of some reasoning of whether its color ,smell and texture that are appealing for one can decide whether he/she likes it or not. Some people possess more keen senses than others since they detect a soft sound while others cannot, making it difficult to trust the measure of sound’s intensity through listening. The exact measurement can only be measured by use of instruments that would give the truth about intensity of the sound. (Wilson, 1979)

Conclusion

(Gasholder, 1976) concludes that, as much as human senses are important in detecting as well as providing truth about various issues in life, it happens that they cannot operate on their own to provide the actual truth. However the counter argument that they should not be trusted at all times would be more applicable since research has proved that the truth about phenomena is more than what is physical. More reasoning as well as experiments should be done to give the actual truth about phenomena.

References

Lehrer K. (2000): Theory of Knowledge: Westview Press pp 15-17.

Guiasu S. (1977) Information Theory with Application: McGraw-Hill Companies pp 13-16.

Feyerabend P. (1975): Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge: Greenwood press pp 44-47.

Piaget J. (1971): Towards a Theory of Knowledge: Vicking Press pp18-22.

Ayer A. (1952): Language, Truth and Logic: Dover Publications pp 35-38.

Hornsey M. (2007): Kernel of Truth: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates pp27-33.

Wilson J, (1979): Philosophy and Religion: Greenwood Press pp14-16.

Gasholder G. (1976): Psychophysics: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates pp 19-23.

Manen V. (1990): Researching Lived Experience: State University of New York Press pp22-26.

Goldman A. (1970): A Theory of Human Action: Prentice Hall pp33-35.

Popper K. (1972): Objective Knowledge: Oxford University Press pp7-10.

Mudimbe V. (1988): Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge: Indiana University Press pp16-19. Web.

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