Knowledge

          To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. Does this mean that is impossible to have objective knowledge? Let's break down this question into two parts. To attain knowledge does one have to rely on his/her experience and culture? First of all what is knowledge? According to the Merriam – Webster dictionary knowledge is defined as “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.” Knowledge can only be obtained by experiencing something a few times. Once someone experiences something, he/she begins to understand it and it becomes part of his/her knowledge. And when the person experiences it again he/she will associate the previous experience with the on-going experience. Thus, the person understands something. Knowledge about something, although might be different in different cultures. A particular culture shapes a particular person's way of experiencing something; thus, the knowledge obtained might be different among different cultures. Knowledge gained through experiences or the way of a certain culture doesn't really conflict with objective knowledge. Objective knowledge is not affected by one's views rather it is a general idea which everyone accepts regardless of their viewpoints. For example, one plus one is two. This is objective knowledge and cannot be refuted. So, even though the people coming from different cultural backgrounds have different viewpoints, all the views, ideas and beliefs narrow down to objective knowledge.

           Personal knowledge could be acquired through certain circumstances and situations which one has gone through. Some of the sources of knowledge are language, perception, reason and emotion. Language helps you to obtain knowledge from other people. Language plays an important role from one's childhood to his/her youth to his/her adulthood and throughout one's life. For example, when kids do something wrong, parents tell them not to do it again or might express some sort of body language which might make the child understand that it is wrong. Even though, the child might not recognize that it was wrong quickly, the child might understand it after continuous scolding. Language makes people share their personal experiences with each other, this building up a society with a publicly shared knowledge. Perception, one of the strongest source in obtaining knowledge, makes us understand something through our five senses; sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. But, experience is also essential in perceiving certain things. We might not be able to recognize something which we only experienced once because it might not have been fully depicted in the memory. The experience we get from our culture through these five senses makes u knowledgeable of only what we perceive; not exceeding the limits of what we ourselves experience.

          Another important source of knowledge, reason, is not a matter of culture or experience; rather, is an accurate source in which the obtained knowledge has to be true according to the assumptions. For example, to answer the question “did the apple fall from a apple tree or an orange tree?” is very simple since only the apple tree holds the apples. The answer seemed simple because of the true assumption that orange trees do not consist of apples rather consists of oranges; so the did not fall from the orange tree. Thus, the knowledge that the apple was fallen from the apple tree has been obtained by a true assumption.

          Emotion gives one the potentiality to understand the world he/she lives in. some strong emotions can make one unaware of the reason of a certain situation, changing one's way of perception and language leading the person to a different conclusion; an obstacle to knowledge.

          Culture shapes the way we see things. The culture we were born and bought up in might play a very crucial role in determining the way we look at a situation or the way we understand something. And because what we see in our culture, we tend to think that the way we see our culture do something is the right way to of something not thinking about the situation in a different way. For example, in the Hindu culture some of the animals are considered holy while in most of the other cultures animals are used for food, petting, cosmetics etc. The Hindu culture believes that God has come in the form of animals and nature, while in most of the other cultures this concept is totally disregarded.

            Regardless of the culture and experience, objective knowledge can be present. Culture and experience might only shape one's thinking and might only make one understand something through thinking. But, objective knowledge is what is there or present. Objective knowledge is not influenced by someone's feelings and is unbiased. For example, people in every culture accept the fact that people die after death. Some cultures might say that there is another life after death. Some others say that after our last breath we cannot see, touch, taste, hear, or smell anything, so we are not alive. Also, if a one day year old baby is asked the same question the baby might respond not knowing the meaning of death or life. But, it is definitely possible to have objective knowledge about this issue. Because, when someone 'dies' we fo not see that person smile, talk, more , or even breather. Generally, this state is referred as being 'dead.' this meaning of death is not influenced be any cultural ideas or beliefs. Now is the experience playing any role because the one year old baby can understand the concept of death and life when the baby gets older. So, this is considered as being one of the examples of objective knowledge. Opinions are that this 'objective knowledge' can be wrong too. Someone out there called the state of 'dying' as being death and it eventually became a certainty. 'What if there is another life after death we enter into?' 'What if the soul is still living even if the body is not?' are there considered to be in the state of death? This is where reason and emotion come into play. Because of these doubtful questions about 'objective knowledge' people tend to believe their own reason and emotion. Some people tend to reason death as these questions above 'are we really dying?' they put their strong emotions into finding out the real meaning of death. When talking about the concept of death, the objective part is that only the state of not being alive is death.

          Looking at the past, people shared a belief which they thought to be knowledge, that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. This was believed by the people because their culture said so. But, as time passed this cultural belief or the objective knowledge back then was changed. Likewise, experience can also be biased. As mentioned before experience might be obtained through perception or language, sources of knowledge. If the way of perceiving something or interpreting something is incorrect, knowledge obtained might also be incorrect. Analyzing the example above, the people saw that they were on the earth and everything else was moving. They said to each other that the earth is center of the universe. This belief became common knowledge. Even though this belief changed as time progressed, because the way perception and language changed, those people back in time were unaware of it. As time passes, those philosophers and people who set the objective knowledge might be proved wrong.

          If the cultural beliefs and personal feelings about something is neglected and is just taken the way it is, that might be called as having objective knowledge. Some things that people consider as being knowledge might change from time to time according to one's culture and individual experience but the objective knowledge will be present. It might be just the matter of how people perceive the objective knowledge. Even if something is understood by one's culture and experience, objective knowledge can still be existent.