Philosophy "True" Knowledge

By far my most favorite qoute of all time is: "true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing". it is what i base my knowledge and all the things i come to accept in my life. To trully comprhend the mening of this qoute is to understand why knowledge is power and pwoer leads to nothing in the end (not trying to start a debate, but trying to get people to think outside of the box). If it were not for people who were to seek knowledge like Socrates and Aristotle, we would not know much of what we know today...but one of the main things that made these philosiphers so great is their acceptance of their limitations. this i s why this is my philosophy:

"To accept ones believes that knowledge is eternally obtainable one must then trully accept that true knowledge only comes when you realize that the knowledge you keep is nothing compared to all knowledge in the universe, thus expanding your horizons and allowing you to gain further knowledge and acceptance of understanding"

 

I see what you mean, Hiro. It seems to be related to what Heraclitus says about knowledge. But, why do you want to keep on obtaining knowledge? Why not just live happily with what you know?


Here are two views on knowledge, if anyone has any more post them!

Plato's Cave


I think I've explained Plato's allegory of the cave in here before, but it's a neat metaphor. Imagine a group of prisoners being stuck in a cave for their whole lives. All that they can see is figures moving around on a wall, this is all they have knowledge of. But, unbeknownst to them, there's a guard in front of a fire behind them casting figures on the wall with puppets!

One day one prisoner escapes and then it hits her(or him) that everything he knew was false. He goes outside, sees that his own body casts a shadow on the ground, looks up at the sun and finds true knowledge. The sun, or The Good, in this case is the knowledge that we must strive to find. What's funny in this story is that afterwards the prisoner goes back to the other prisoners and tells them what he found, and is ridiculed for it - they then say that if any other prisoners try to leave that that prisoner will be put to death.

The point Plato is making is that our knowledge is based on what we have seen, and what we have experienced. We must be objective and look past these things to find the real truth/knowledge.

If the example of the cave confused you, consider the idea of being trapped in The Matrix - in a false reality. Then one day you're out of it and see the real world and realize you've been a battery for robots for all that time.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM - Check these out, the divided line is interesting too, but scroll down to read the Allegory of the Cave.

Heraclitus

Now, Heraclitus has a totally opposite point of view on knowledge. One day he stepped in a river and then stepped in it again and said that when he stepped in the river the second time it wasn't the same river. The water in the river is constantly flowing, the rocks are always moving around, so when you step in it a second time it isn't the same. This also goes for knowledge, there isn't just one truth to things, since knowledge is constantly flowing. Due to this, we can never truly know what the truth is, because there are many truths and these truths change from person to person and from one second to the next.

-I think this is what Heraclitus was getting at, if anyone would like to give their own interpretation go ahead:

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/HERAC.HTM (note: Logos is the word used for "knowledge" in philosophy)

 

For platos part, Ima have to say it depends. You can not really percieve that knowledge is what you see. Especially if it is the first time that you have viewed something. You have no basic knowledge of it so you wont know what it is. Youll see it but you wont know anything about it. Sort of when youre looking at a ghost. You can easily say that you saw it yet you have no knowledge.

Im sorry if my answer doesnt make any sense but this is a really hard topic to think about. And to believe that I have been planning to post for a few days now...


As for H.'s Part (name to long I forgot) I agree with your interpretation.

 

well the philsophy on this depends on the person himself wither they think outside the box or inside the box... I on the other hand have no box of thinking

 

I believe the only true knowledge is when one knows himself and everything around him. You can know everything around you, but if you dont know why, then you have learned nothing.

-K

 

I'm sorry to disagree with you Kaiyon but I honestly don't think it's possible for one to truly 'know' oneself. I'm a bit of a radical skeptisit and i don't believe that we can ever truly 'know' anything. We can perceive that we 'know' something or someone and we can even think that we understand teh enviroment around us but I don't believe that one can ever truly 'know' anything and i think that it can be an absolute that One can never truly KNOW anything but one can perceive that they do.

ooc: lol if only my philosophy teacher could see me now.

 

Something that got me thinking....

The things we learn....the so called knowledge we pass. Could it all be perceptions as well? I mean they make sense....but how many times in life have we been convinced something is right yet we still end up wrong? Perhaps there is no such thing as true knowledge....but rather all just perceptions.

 

That's exactly what i was attempting to get at Vicious. I also belief that life is just full of perceptions and that even this belief is simply a perception. Perhaps even our lives are just something that someone else has percieved and aren't even really what they are or that they are even ours to begin with. Maybe we're simply thoughts or people in a story even (this last sentence coming from reflection over the book Sophie's World.)

 

The whole basis of my philosophy is believing there is no box and that knowledge is only what we percieve which can be anything, so it allows us to accumulate infinite amounts of it, knowledge that is.... Knowledge is what we believe it to be but wisdom is something beyond perception but more of understanding of things we percieve, if you understand what i am trying to say....

 

There is very little truth in our world...Just live with the acceptance of this fact, and you'll be fine.

 

Yes its an interesting quote, however i tend to disagree with it. How can an educated person admit that he knows nothing?A case of low self esteem, perhaps? If quote went like this" True knowledge is knowing that u know very little" then yes i would agree. For example, u r a tribesman in africa and all u know is that there are animals, people, deserts, hunting etc...u think u know everything u need. But if u r a physicist/scientist and u know that earth is only a very small part of universe and u have little to none idea about the rest of this universe, then u start to realize that u know very little, so that is what i call true knowledge.

 

I think that what Socrates meant by "true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing" is that when you come to the realization that what you know can be wrong then you are more willing to search for what could be the truth. Every person's idea of truth is based on his or her experiences. But, what people have experienced is different from the experiences of others. It goes to the Cartesian idea where all of our experiences could be made up, or imagined by us.. take persons who are schizophrenic for example.

I'm going to bring up some definitions that are a huge part of philosophy and critical thinking:

Subjective: Looking at the world from your own viewpoint.
Objective: Looking at the world outside your own viewpoint (ie, from the view of others, through logic, without your own prejudices, etc.)

More or less, when you know that you know nothing you are more likely to look at the world objectively. I'm not saying that what you know could be false, it could very well be true, but you should be open to the possibilities that others are right. Or you'll end up like the prisoners in the cave who laughed at the guy who actually knew what was true.

 

i think i get it now. you assume that u know nothing so u can give everything and everyone equal chances.

 

the truth is simple. there is no true truth, there are no true lies. we know nothing. we only percieve to think we know something. everything is just an idea or a possibility. the realization is that we honestly know nothing, you spend your whole lfe learning new and diferent things but when it comes right down to it, what we know, does even begin to touch the scale of knowledge. but yet with what perceive to be knowledge helps us out in everyday life.

 

Knowledge is information we know, it can be true, it can be false, it can holds truth and it can holds lies.

Wisdom is the knowledge that helps to separate information into such categories.

One quote i have is:

Change for what you can change.
Accept for what you cannot change.
And wisdom to know the difference.

For example, someone tells you about a certain person, thats knowledge. But it is wisdom that tells you whether it is a lie, a rumour or a fact.
Knowledge tells you of the principles forces of life, like physics (the gravitational force of earth). But it is through wisdom that Newton finds a way to express it.

It is also wisdom that says, 'if you claim you know everything, you know nothing, and if you know nothing, you know everything'

To me, wisdom is true knowledge

 

Hmm...I think you may in fact have a point here. But wisdom requires also experience, not only knowledge. And experience comes in years and maybe we dont live enough to have "true" knowlegde with wisdom.


- Kaiyon

 

I think Prosper is trying to point out the abivalence of True knowledge and Wisdom. Each is seperate in their own ways but coincide with each other... such as love and hate, they are polar opposites but both of them are feelings or emotions expressed through one perso or many... I am not saying that True knowledge and Wisdom are polar oppposites but that they both are different types of actual "knowledge", each percieved differently by different people, which is what brings me to what Prosper is trying to say... True knowledge can be taken as Wisdom, but might Be different depending on the persons exceptance of knowledge or that of Wisdom.

 

Eactly Hiro, thats the point i was trying to say. Thanks a million for explaining it a bit further for me.

Kaiyon, you are right to say experiences are the basis for wisdom formation.
But however one does not necessarily learn from experiences. On the contrally, one might keep repeating his/her mistake until the day he/she learns it. And hence so..

...experiences are not equivalent to age. The older you are, said you are experienced, as you had tried many things. But wisdom is not acquired through age.

As each of us, our life lessons are different, the level and expanse of wisdom grasp would be different. (An example would be some of us go through stages of divorce, some of us need not to. Another would be, some of us are sexual orientation problems, but some of us are happy with the gender we are born with)

Therefore wisdom is the true knowledge, either you know it, or you dont. It is also an absolute scale in that way.

 

There is no absolute truth. the reason for this is because something new is discovered everyday. therefore we cannot trully know all when we dont even know whats going on around us. scientists are unravelling things everyday that will further us in life so to say "true" knowledge cant be so because if it hasnt happened yet, you cant know it.

 

If there is no absolute truth isn't that in itself an absolute? If it is true that there is no absolute truth then wouldn't that have to be an absolute but it that's an absolute it contradicts itself so then would another absolute truth be that Life is full of contradictions?