Theory of knowledge
Essay
Prescribed title: The production of knowledge requires accepting conclusions that go beyond
the evidence for them
Session: May 2019
Personal code: gyz166
Word count: 1431
I declare that this work is my own work and is the final version. I have acknowledged each
use of the words or ideas of another person, whether written, oral or visual.
, The statement above involves words which may be ambiguous and as such require
defining them in text. ‘Accepting’ is the key term, it may mean either believing that something
is true or acknowledging and tolerating it but not believing. The former definition shall be used
throughout this essay. Also, ‘evidence’ needs some clarification, truth is that each area of
knowledge treats something different as the evidence. For example in natural sciences the
experiments are the most important for proving or refuting the theory, on the other hand in
religious knowledge systems the holy scriptures may be treated as ultimate proof. However, it
is the interpretation of evidence that matters as well, quite extreme example is usage of Egyptian
pyramids as a proof for alien intervention on Earth (Drake, 2017), whereas they (probably) only
prove the advancement of Egyptian civilisation. Therefore, when considering different areas of
knowledge the commonly accepted standard of evidence will be that established within the
discipline. There are also various types of conclusions, for example it may be a scientific
hypothesis: if Earth turns around Sun then there should be a force causing this motion. On the
other hand there may be kind of conclusion coming from personal knowledge, especially it may
be effect of deduction based on an anecdote. The latter could go like this: person A got his child
vaccinated and the child got flu, he told it to person B who decided that vaccines cause flu and
are generally harmful. That’s without doubt a conclusion based on evidence and whether
anyone wants it or not it adds to the knowledge possessed by the person. It doesn’t matter for
the leading statement of this essay that the conclusion is wrong and evidence insufficient.
The real issue now, is what comes first the evidence or the conclusion? Before the 20th
century natural sciences were primarily empirical, it means that, in most cases, experiment
preceded theory. That was the case with Ørsted’s experiment with compass and electric circuit
which led to development of electromagnetic theory (Dhogal, 1985), or with Dalton’s theory
of atoms which was initiated by his investigation into different masses of the same elements
(Ross et al., 1998). It was basically essential to conduct the experiment in order to be perceived
Essay
Prescribed title: The production of knowledge requires accepting conclusions that go beyond
the evidence for them
Session: May 2019
Personal code: gyz166
Word count: 1431
I declare that this work is my own work and is the final version. I have acknowledged each
use of the words or ideas of another person, whether written, oral or visual.
, The statement above involves words which may be ambiguous and as such require
defining them in text. ‘Accepting’ is the key term, it may mean either believing that something
is true or acknowledging and tolerating it but not believing. The former definition shall be used
throughout this essay. Also, ‘evidence’ needs some clarification, truth is that each area of
knowledge treats something different as the evidence. For example in natural sciences the
experiments are the most important for proving or refuting the theory, on the other hand in
religious knowledge systems the holy scriptures may be treated as ultimate proof. However, it
is the interpretation of evidence that matters as well, quite extreme example is usage of Egyptian
pyramids as a proof for alien intervention on Earth (Drake, 2017), whereas they (probably) only
prove the advancement of Egyptian civilisation. Therefore, when considering different areas of
knowledge the commonly accepted standard of evidence will be that established within the
discipline. There are also various types of conclusions, for example it may be a scientific
hypothesis: if Earth turns around Sun then there should be a force causing this motion. On the
other hand there may be kind of conclusion coming from personal knowledge, especially it may
be effect of deduction based on an anecdote. The latter could go like this: person A got his child
vaccinated and the child got flu, he told it to person B who decided that vaccines cause flu and
are generally harmful. That’s without doubt a conclusion based on evidence and whether
anyone wants it or not it adds to the knowledge possessed by the person. It doesn’t matter for
the leading statement of this essay that the conclusion is wrong and evidence insufficient.
The real issue now, is what comes first the evidence or the conclusion? Before the 20th
century natural sciences were primarily empirical, it means that, in most cases, experiment
preceded theory. That was the case with Ørsted’s experiment with compass and electric circuit
which led to development of electromagnetic theory (Dhogal, 1985), or with Dalton’s theory
of atoms which was initiated by his investigation into different masses of the same elements
(Ross et al., 1998). It was basically essential to conduct the experiment in order to be perceived
