The Western and Indigenous View of Knowledge Essay Example

Indigenous View of Knowledge

The study of knowledge revolves around the understanding of principles and practices acquired by human beings during their organization and learning about the world. This is commonly konown as epistemology. Focusing on the American Indian natives, individuals get a scope of various perspectives of learning and teaching, which makes the main interfaces of knowledge transmission. Anthropologists found out that this mode of knowledge relied mainly on tribal values, principles, and orientations to contemporarily advocate for the cultural oriented education process (Burkhart 19).

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For proper identification of people, many aspects were put into consideration. These include myths, environmental relationship, traditional arts, tribal communities, and spiritual orientations. They played a crucial part in shaping the ancient knowledge of the American Indians. Any notion of knowledge being put across had to be justified either by use of a different idea of self-justification, in a bid to get the idea or concept embraced. Based on the western traditions, the knowledge framework is not philosophically systemic to provide a solid logic. It is made up of naively built cosmologies, which bare a scope of the natural world. The human knowledge acquired is dependent on the geographical location, with its flora and fauna (Burkhart 20).

The indigenous knowledge is made up of modes of thought that are observed by the native American philosophers, who hold to historical roots that lead to the origin of different groups of human societies. Apart from varied cultures, other interventions, especially the religious believers and human significance, face a lot of unending contradictory answers, as the basis of such beliefs can be established. The natural order in the indigenous methods was protected, and ethnicity could be view as part of traditions. It is an open-ended way of communication because any valuable information could be accessed directly from the sources (Burkhart, 20).

An extended historical interaction of a given society with the natural environments develops a series of reliable skills, understanding, and valuable philosophical developments. The analysis shows that this system of knowledge was designed from a day to day interaction, which yielded experiences and explanations to various phenomena. A lot of this information is unjustifiable, and abstract propositions tend to enhance it. Indigenous knowledge is said to be lived or embodied language. The American Indian philosophy described it as a system where knowledge cannot be written down, but a simple know how, just like the spiritual or song content that does not take any mystical properties (Burkhart 23).

Buddhist philosopher called Prajna believed that knowledge is a type of wisdom that can be kept by one for enlightening. Experiments carried out with the three sisters shows how indigenous knowledge is only involved with individual experience. With this sophisticated system, the information is only valid when localized to people of a particular location, based on encounters or any form of transfer that distorts the knowledge. It is, therefore, transmitted orally using demonstration or imitation, but not in the form of written communication (Burkhart 23). It only arises from daily events and its perfection involves trial and error, while its success depends mainly on the subsequent intelligent generation. It is distributed by people within a population, sharing common characteristics and memories. Typically, the indigenous form of communication, which symbolizes cohesion, ritual, and symbol construction, is used as people's science.

This indigenous knowledge, having prevailed most in ancestral lands, is viewed as the most sacred thing. Thus, any abuse to the norms is believed to cause cosmological damage. According to the American Indian philosophers, the connection and relationships should always be maintained, and one should not try getting out of the standard beliefs, in search of further understanding; instead, he or she ought to find away of understanding them while within (Burkhart 24). Data counting had various dimensions, as many people could not manipulate data or impose generalities. This system lacks any contradictions or abnormalities. The available data is usually synthesized. Native philosophers believe that the only way to end this is by stopping an individual's brain from thinking and observing, which is not easy. This generally involves thought that help to put an idea from the data.

The philosophers also explain that the mind experiences a different notation from the body, thus evoking an individual bias against the personal experience. The Cartesian bias disqualifies events of uncertified experiences. It is on this basis that the stories of coyotes are told because people are compared to corns, which have stuck in the minds and tongues of most American Indian natives (Burkhart 26).

The Western View of Knowledge

Knowledge and information are among the fastest growing and evolving sectors of information. Scientific knowledge involves the application of various laws and observation of significant facts. It entails data analysis, for accountability of facts. The assembled data offer an impressive pool of ideas on problem-solving. This arose with the conception of religion scholars and intellectual, who managed to separate the traditional and cultural beliefs from the scientific knowledge (Jin 24). The secularly-oriented scholars had a profound intellectual knowledge that led to reducing the religious belief of Christianity in the West, to a mere worldly phenomenon.

Employing contemporary hermeneutics, as a branch of philosophy, needs learning, interpretation, and observation of information. The western knowledge puts in consideration the application of analytic and reduction measure, as opposed to the holistic and intuitive values of the traditional understanding. It is always objective and qualitative. Notably, many individuals have tried to introduce their different ways of understanding knowledge (Jin 25). Gettier's challenge Plate's way of understanding scientific information on the inpatient account, and provided evidence to satisfy three conditions of knowledge. He provided an account that did not meet nor support any form of information without knowledge or experimental facts.

It is essential to note that scientific philosophers rely on examination of critical procedures and techniques, which support the existence of any scientific knowledge, its limitations, and how it works practically. The knowledge in this field is always independent and totally irrelevant to one another. Epistemology analysis or resources of the different sophisticated field of study does not employ any form of conceptual analysis on knowledge (Jin 26). Only a clear understanding of the path taken to secure and assess the relevant information is put into the account. In the course of tracing the source of scientific knowledge, one can independently undertake the analysis without taking sides on the success of failures of the conceptual analysis.

Some of the early philosophers, such as Timothy Williamson, tried to put other forms of theories of obtaining scientific knowledge without basically having to carry out conceptual analysis. Williamson's approach is not defined but formulated mentally. He drives away the roots of epidemiology from aims of identifying the primary sources of knowledge from examination. His method relies on suggestions rather than facts. A good representation of an empirical approach to the philosophy of science is the notion of positivism. It involves the use of experiments and observations to interpret the existing phenomenal.

This concept only takes into account the definite knowledge, thus eliminating the possibilities that emanate from human sense. There is no magnitude of emphasis could put any idea into knowledge without experimentation (Jin 28). This line of thought in positivism was employed in fields of philosophy, sociology, and political science. This mechanical view of science provided explanations on structures actions and all relations that existed in the laws of nature. It claims the presence of natural laws, which shape up the order of existence. It does not rely on human opinions or reasoning to explain knowledge.

Contemporary hermeneutics is a branch of philosophy that involves the existence, understanding, and interpretation of a text, based on the complex thinking in knowledge approach and rationality. It gives new insights and a significant contribution to the modern analysis of the concepts of nature. As such, the western scientists found it easy to comprehend reality and establish simple previous shortcoming on findings of knowledge (Jin 30). This aims at overcoming the phenomena of reductionism and holistic, by incorporating them in a more broad perspective, to evaluate complex structures of connections and real-world retroactive relationships.

The western scientific knowledge is characterized by a dominant mode of thinking that has analytical procedures. It is segmented, and each ideal is supported independently and with a lot of specialization. The ways of communication are mainly academic, which involve reading and interpretation of the provided information, sealed by verification experiments. Reductionist and physical objectives mainly characterize this mode of knowledge as compared to the traditional method of knowledge, which is considered more holistic and subjected to spiritual contexts. The data here is created faster and selectively, making the prediction abilities to be more accurate and leaner. The knowledge is expressed in the form of scientific hypothesis, laws, and theories, which emerge after thorough experimentation (Jin 32).

The success of the western scientific knowledge has dwelt on the principle that separates all human beliefs from concrete facts. By analyzing all cultural distinctions, anthropocentric only gives relevance to human beings and not nature. With the modern science technology, the system is short-term and bares a centralized authority that is bureaucratic and heavily regulated. The western scientific knowledge has gained a developmental role to develop the modern societies. It is merely a justified belief, expressed in facts, hypothesis, and theories, which add up to a verified belief in thinking that is confirmed empirically (Jin 34).

Scientific knowledge, however, has several uncertainties and limits including the assumptions that the world is real. It holds that the physical universe exists away from individual's sensory perception. Thus, the ability of humans to accurately perceive and understand the physical universe natural operation is uniform. It is vital to note that developments and various inputs by great philosophers have aided in shaping the modern world. Critical thinking provided a room for innovations and technological advancements that define most of the scientific milestone of the today's society.

Works Cited

Burkhart, Y. What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of the American Indian Epistemology, 2004.

Jin, D. The Great Knowledge Transcendence: The Rise of Western Science and Technology Reframed, 2016. Palgrave Macmillan.