LOGIC AND LANGUAGE“If you cannot communicate it, it isn’t knowledge.” Agree or disagree and discuss.
...ave knowledge of them? I believe I would possess understanding of them, since I have perceived them and, in my head can exactly picture them. As soon as I myself or someone else gave this species a name, would it suddenly make them existent and only then count as part of my knowledge? Only because we cannot label something or do not know of one specific word for it, it doesn’t mean that we do not possess knowledge of it. One important distinction that should be made is between the outer and the inner or the psychological and the physical world of a person. This distinction is significant to make, because it illustrates clearly how there are things that cannot be communicated to others, but that are an essential part of human knowledge. The outer world would be everything going on around us, experiences we make, people we acquaint with, the objective perception of our surroundings. The inner world is how we deal with these impressions, our emotions, thoughts, feelings and ideas. Both the outer and the inner world belong to a persons knowledge repertoire about the world and about themselves. But what is contained in the inner world is a lot more difficult to explain to others than factual observations and encounters. But if we cannot describe an emotion, we ourselves still know what it is and what it feels like, and thus it is knowledge. Take the feeling of love for example. We all have experienced it at some point and to a certain extent, but it would be complicated to explain through words what the actual feeling is. Of course we can give an account of an instant when we experienced love, but that doesn’t explain what it actually felt like. But to describe an event that we have experienced leads to the next complication; communicating knowledge isn’t always easy. Sometimes people may not be able to relate to what you are describing to them. An example would be telling your younger sister who has never been to a party about the great time you had last weekend at a friends party. Since your sister doesn’t know what it feels like to be at a party, it would be hard for her to relate to what you are saying, and therefore something that seems obvious to you, is unclear to someone who cannot associate with it. Other communication problems include having too little vocabulary, inaccuracy when describing, or forgetting details which might be vital for understanding your description. A certain situation or atmosphere can hardly ever be recreated when describing an event to someone else, exactly the same way it was. Take the example of the party for instance; you might be able to say that the music was great or that you had delicious food, but the person you are talking to would not be able to fully re-enact the atmosphere if he hadn’t been there with you. And even if the person had, he probably would have a different perception of everything and would remember different things. Perception can be linked to the communication of knowledge aswell. Even though there are many different languages people speak, we all perceive the same world. But our responses to it differ and every individual thinks uniquely. Because of this, we might not be able to relate to the way everyone else thinks, and therefore when we express our thoughts people are not able to understand what we mean all the time. If someone living in a developing country for example has never flown on a plain, and you are telling them about your last plain flight, it would be hard for them to understand what you are explaining. But to ourselves we know what we mean and to us this aspect is our personal knowledge. The other persons perception of the conversation would be completely different and it would be hard for them to relate to what you are describing, since they have never experienced it. A different kind of communication would be arts. There are so many painters who try to express their knowledge through their art. This is not a communication through words and can of course be interpreted differently by different people, according to their perception. Artists draw in order to give people an idea of what they are thinking, but sometimes people are not capable of interpreting the drawings. Only because the artist was not able to communicate his thoughts to some people, it doesn’t mean that his ideas aren’t knowledge. Body language is another different kind of communication. Words are not expressed and people might not be able to understand the message someone is giving, but it still is a form of communicating knowledge or feelings, and therefore shows that knowledge doesn’t always necessarily depend on commun...