The Ways of Knowing

Natural sciences and history constitute a wide range of the areas of knowledge that play an integral role when it comes to the gaining of knowledge. The most common ways of knowing that are associated with these two areas of knowledge are reason, emotion, sense perception and memory. Ways of knowing, which is all about acquisition of the knowledge by humans in their surroundings, cannot work in disjunction. This insinuates that one area of knowing is not sufficiently enough to acquire the information as well as to understand the various aspects in either history or natural sciences. The network that exists amongst different ways of knowing enhances a deeper understanding of concepts not only in history but also in natural sciences, since it involves the sharing of knowledge that is essential in acquisition of knowledge. The Understanding and eventual gaining of the knowledge depend upon the links that exist among the different ways of knowing. This can be attested to the fact that sharing of information (or knowledge) via various ways of knowing provide varying perspectives as well as methods that are imperative when it comes to gaining of knowledge.

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In both history and natural sciences, intuition and reasoning work in liaison. Reasoning implicates the use of logic or rationale in the gaining of knowledge. In natural sciences, humans depend on the reasoning to acquire knowledge. They use the cause, explanations and justification when presenting different findings in the natural sciences. In these instances, the humans use their power of mind to think and eventually form their logical judgment. For instance when trying to explain an experiment about the heat flow in metals, one will require to apply the techniques of reasoning which include making of comparison or logics in order to draw conclusions. Rationalism, which is all about the use of logical thinking or reasoning to come up with decisions is considered to be the fundamental idea behind the concept of natural sciences. However, reasoning alone as a way of knowing is not enough. For instance, reasoning will depend on the power of the intuition in order to realize a deeper understanding of facts in natural sciences. Intuition constitutes the use of instincts together along with innate knowledge in understanding the various aspects in human beings environment. Response and stimulus is an example that depicts a network between reasoning and intuition. For instance, when one is pricked, a message will be send in the central nervous system. The message send is instinctive which indicates the application of intuition. In the central nervous system, comparisons will be made and logical decisions taken by the brain in order to respond toward the stimulus (pricking).

Sense of perception is also another way of knowing that cannot work in isolation. Its efficiency is only realized when another network of ways of knowing are fully implemented. As an area of knowledge, history depends largely upon the sense of perception. In natural sciences, sense perception work in liaison with other ways of knowing to gain knowledge. Before one is able to apply language or reasoning in life aspects, humans utilize their senses in daily routines. For instance, consider an infant who can neither talk nor reason. The infants will opt to use the sense of touch, sight and smell to compliment with other ways of knowing.

History concentrates on the past events that are recounted through utilization of the past records. Sense perception, on other hand, enables humans to know about a particular phenomenon through what they see or perceive. The use of sense perception in history as a way of knowing puts much emphasis on the utilization of sense in gaining of knowledge. Through this way of knowing, humans will use their senses and memory to perceive and understand the past events. However, sense perception cannot work in disjunction; it needs to import some elements of knowledge from other ways of knowing. For instance, the sense perception way of knowing needs to borrow some concepts of reasoning when trying to gain knowledge. Consider the historical monuments that are conserved at museums. An individual visiting these museums will use the sense perception (seeing) to witness the monuments. In order to make sense of the monuments in the museum, an individual will use the art of reasoning which includes making of comparisons

Language is also another way of knowing that attests how gaining knowledge compels each area of knowledge to use a network of ways of knowing. In both natural sciences and history, language is adequately used as a way of knowing. Scientific language is precise and but carries a lot of scientific knowledge. For instance when learning biology, there are biological jargons that will be used by learners to gain knowledge. Through the scientific language, scientific concepts are able to be communicated vividly. When explaining historical concepts, language is heavily used. In this instance, the use of language can be in a form of oral, written or all forms of communication that use language to pass the message. Individuals are able to listen and read historical concepts that have been presented with a particular language. The methods of seeing, writing, reading and listening, which are predominantly used in language as a way of knowing, depends on other elements of knowledge as well. The knowledge framework for history incorporates various concepts and language. Language is adequately used to express knowledge within history. For instance when tacking the history of Chicanos, English language will be utilized to explain or describe them.

Language shares a lot of knowledge with reason and faith as far as history area of knowledge is concerned. The historical knowledge is believed to be true since they are drawn from written facts. Human beings have total trust and confidence that the historical knowledge they have gained is true. They trust historical concepts communicated to them via writings, recordings or paintings. This approach indicates how language and faith as ways of knowing are working in conjunction in history, one of the areas of knowledge

In natural languages, language also creates a concrete network with other ways of knowing in order to enhance gaining and the delivery of knowledge. Natural sciences are empirical in nature since its factual knowledge depends on the experiments. The scientific knowledge gained from the natural science is delivered with an aid of scientific language as well as scientific jargons. For instance, the scientific researches carried out require extensive reports that have to be written and presented in scientific language. The preferred scientific language is expected to use terms and expressions that depict scientific meanings. The idea of observing or seeing indicates that language also needs the methods of sense perception in order to facilitate the gaining knowledge. Using St Thomas five proves of the existence of God, it can be depicted that ways of knowing depend on each other. On his first argument regarding motion, St Thomas argues that the sense of humans attest that some things are in motion. He alleges that things will only move once the potential motion has been translated into the actual motion. This intimates that nothing can move on its own but depends on something else to trigger its movement. Using this example, it can be deduced that one way of knowing will depend on others in order to facilitate the gaining of knowledge.

Generally, it is clear that the ways of knowing interact with each other in various ways during the process of constructing knowledge as well as formation of knowledge claims. Any simple claim of knowledge will assemble a network of ways of knowing to support it. It can therefore be concluded that, In gaining knowledge, each area of knowledge uses a network of ways of knowing.

References:

Heydorn, W., & Jesudason, S. (2013). Decoding Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma: Themes, Skills and Assessment. Cambridge University Press.

Kim, O. (2009). What are the Four ways of knowing? . TOKTAK (Talking about Theory of Knowledge) , 1-3.

Martin, K. (2003). Ways of Knowing, Ways of Being and Ways of Doing: a theoretical framework and methods for Indigenous re-search and Indigenist research. Journal of Australian Studies, , 203-214.

Theory of Knowledge. (2014). Language. Theory of Knowledge , 1-5.