Understanding Methods of Knowledge: A Comprehensive Look
Methods of Knowledge
Cartesian Method: René Descartes
- Evidence: Something is only true if the attentive mind sees it so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all doubt.
- Analysis: To arrive at evidence, it is necessary to break down complexities into as many simple parts as possible to identify and understand them.
- Synthesis: Use the simple parts to rebuild the complex.
Transcendental Method: Immanuel Kant
Rather than laying down rules, this method describes the steps we should take to know something.
- Knowledge begins with the work carried out by our sensibility, ordering the sensations we perceive in time and space.
- We then understand what we have perceived by applying concepts to the object and making judgments based on these concepts.
- Our reason makes a chain of judgments resulting in reasoning.
Dialectic Method: Plato, Hegel, and Marx
Procedure based on dialogue. If the dialogue is fruitful, the differing points of view are overcome, and a consensus is reached.
The difference between an ordinary dialogue and the dialectic method is that in an ordinary dialogue, there are always two or more speakers, whereas in the dialectic method, opposing ideas can be put forward by one single thinker.
Phenomenological Method: Husserl
Aims to describe the sense that the world has for us. In knowing an object, we do not comprehend it as it is, nor do we constitute it as the object itself. The object is revealed to our consciousness, and our consciousness understands it.
The concept of Truth in two different ways. In terms of reality, “truth” is synonymous with “authenticity” and antonymous with “appearances.” In terms of knowledge, truth refers to statements and judgments and is the opposite of falsehoods.
Evidences of Truth
- Empirical Evidence: A statement is true if it can be corroborated by information. – Copper is a good connector for electricity.
- Rational Evidence: A statement is true if reason makes it impossible to doubt it. – The whole is bigger than every part of it.
- Coherence: Any statement should be considered true if it does not contradict other statements that have been previously accepted within a given system. – Maths.
- Authority: Something is considered true if so stated by people or institutions considered infallible or that have greater knowledge than the rest. – Einstein.
- Consensus: Something is true if any educated, rational subject accepts it as such. – We all agree with climate change.
- Usefulness: If the result of putting a statement into practice, or applying what it affirms, is beneficial, the statement can be considered true. – Different types of cures for an illness, but only one works.
Perspectives on Reality
- Realism: The subject knows reality directly without consciousness imposing any kind of order on the object known.
- Idealism: States that the objects of human knowledge are dependent on the activity of the mind. Therefore, we do not know reality directly, only a mental picture of reality (your own filter).
- Relativism: Each era and culture sees reality differently, meaning that what is true for one group of people at any given time in history may not be so for a different group of people.
- Perspectivism: Reality is always viewed from a specific perspective as each individual sees things in a certain way. It is always partial and fragmented. There is a single truth, but it is not within the reach of any specific individual. We should also point out that what each person perceives is neither false nor erroneous—it is just a fragment of the truth.
- Dogmatism: Human beings can achieve complete knowledge in terms of extent and certainty regarding the truth. Complete trust in reason as the instrument of knowledge.
- Skepticism: Puts all knowledge in doubt and claims that human reason is weak and unable to achieve certainty of what is real, regardless of how small it is.