Soo Young Jeong 9047 VR
“The knower’s perspective is essential in the pursuit of
knowledge.”
To what extent do you agree?
Though not always, we often unquestioningly believe what we are taught. We
habitually assume the knowledge we obtain is unbiased, despite it being heavily
influenced by prejudiced perspective; in many cases, our personal beliefs influence
our means to pursuit knowledge and distort our conviction of what qualifies as
knowledge. Regardless, there have been numerous efforts to minimize bias to seek
the objective truth of the world. Human effort to eliminate the influence of perspective
seems to undermine the statement that the knower’s perspective is absolutely
essential in our contemporary society. Therefore, I will approach the question by
applying this question to two areas of knowledge, natural science and history,
through various ways of knowing focused on reason, faith, emotion, and memory.
We can utilize the phlogiston theory as a real life example to begin the argument
from the area of natural science. Proposed by Johann Becher in 1667, this theory
was the dominant concept of the 18th Century that promoted the belief that every
combustible substance contains a universal fire named phlogiston. This theory
seemed to explain the concept of combustion in a simple fashion despite having
critical weaknesses. To address such weakness, in1783 1, Antoine Lavoisier
proposed the theory of chemical reaction. However, despite evident quantitative
evidence that corroborated Lavoisier’s theory, several acclaimed scientists of the
time, notably Joseph Priestley, refused to accept the new paradigm. This give rise to
a fundamental question: why? Why would Priestley, a well-respected scientist of his
1
American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. . 1999. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier: The Chemical Revolution. .
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/knowledge. [Accessed 09 November 15].
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“The knower’s perspective is essential in the pursuit of
knowledge.”
To what extent do you agree?
Though not always, we often unquestioningly believe what we are taught. We
habitually assume the knowledge we obtain is unbiased, despite it being heavily
influenced by prejudiced perspective; in many cases, our personal beliefs influence
our means to pursuit knowledge and distort our conviction of what qualifies as
knowledge. Regardless, there have been numerous efforts to minimize bias to seek
the objective truth of the world. Human effort to eliminate the influence of perspective
seems to undermine the statement that the knower’s perspective is absolutely
essential in our contemporary society. Therefore, I will approach the question by
applying this question to two areas of knowledge, natural science and history,
through various ways of knowing focused on reason, faith, emotion, and memory.
We can utilize the phlogiston theory as a real life example to begin the argument
from the area of natural science. Proposed by Johann Becher in 1667, this theory
was the dominant concept of the 18th Century that promoted the belief that every
combustible substance contains a universal fire named phlogiston. This theory
seemed to explain the concept of combustion in a simple fashion despite having
critical weaknesses. To address such weakness, in1783 1, Antoine Lavoisier
proposed the theory of chemical reaction. However, despite evident quantitative
evidence that corroborated Lavoisier’s theory, several acclaimed scientists of the
time, notably Joseph Priestley, refused to accept the new paradigm. This give rise to
a fundamental question: why? Why would Priestley, a well-respected scientist of his
1
American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. . 1999. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier: The Chemical Revolution. .
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/knowledge. [Accessed 09 November 15].
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