Experiential knowledge

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Experiential knowledge is knowledge gained through experience, as opposed to a priori (before experience) knowledge: it can also be contrasted both with propositional (textbook) knowledge, and with practical knowledge. [1]

Contents

Experiential knowledge is cognate to Michael Polanyi's personal knowledge, as well as to Bertrand Russell's contrast of Knowledge by Acquaintance and by Description. [2]

A posteriori

In the philosophy of mind, the phrase often refers to knowledge that can only be acquired through experience, such as, for example, the knowledge of what it is like to see colours, which could not be explained to someone born blind: the necessity of experiential knowledge becomes clear if one was asked to explain to a blind person a colour like blue.

The question of a posteriori knowledge might be formulated as: can Adam or Eve know what water feels like on their skin prior to touching it for the first time?[ citation needed ]

Religion

Zen emphasises the importance of the experiential element in religious experience, [3] as opposed to what it sees as the trap of conceptualization: [4] as D. T. Suzuki put it, "fire. Mere talking of it will not make the mouth burn". [5]

Experiential knowledge has also been used in the philosophy of religion as an argument against God's omniscience, questioning whether God could genuinely know everything, since he (supposedly) cannot know what it is like to sin. [6] Commenting on the distinction between experiential knowledge and propositional knowledge, analytic philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig has stated in an interview [7] [8] with Robert Lawrence Kuhn for the PBS series Closer to Truth that because experiential knowledge is appropriate to the mind which does the knowing, in order for omniscience to be a cognitive perfection God's omniscience must entail God know only and all propositional truths and have only appropriate experiential knowledge.

Ecology

Writer Barry Lopez writes about experiential knowledge and how it relates back to the environment, [9] arguing that without experiencing nature, one cannot fully "know" and understand the relationships within ecosystems.

Therapy

Carl Rogers stressed the importance of experiential knowledge both for the therapist formulating his or her theories, and for the client in therapy [10] – both things with which most counsellors would agree. [11]

As defined by Thomasina Borkman (Emeritus Professor of Sociology, George Mason University) experiential knowledge is the cornerstone of therapy in self-help groups, [12] as opposed to both lay (general) and professional knowledge. Sharing in such groups is the narration of significant life experiences in a process through which the knowledge derived thereof is validated by the group and transformed into a corpus that becomes their fundamental resource and product.

Neville Symington has argued that one of the central features of the narcissist is a shying away from experiential knowledge, in favour of adopting wholesale a ready-made way of living drawn from other people's experience. [13]

Culture

Helen Vendler has characterised Seamus Heaney's art as, in one respect, recording an experiential learning curve: "we are earthworms of the earth, and all that / has gone through us is what will be our trace". [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omniscience</span> Capacity to know everything

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<i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</i> 1921 philosophical work by Ludwig Wittgenstein

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Divine simplicity</span> Belief that God is without distinguishable parts, characteristics or features

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Theological determinism is a form of predeterminism which states that all events that happen are pre-ordained, and/or predestined to happen, by one or more divine beings, or that they are destined to occur given the divine beings' omniscience. Theological determinism exists in a number of religions, including Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is also supported by proponents of Classical pantheism such as the Stoics and Baruch Spinoza.

Multiperspectivalism is an approach to knowledge advocated by Calvinist philosophers John Frame and Vern Poythress.

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

Kevala gyana or Keval gyan means omniscience in Jainism and is roughly translated as complete understanding or supreme wisdom.

Ajñāna was one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of ancient Indian philosophy, and the ancient school of radical Indian skepticism. It was a Śramaṇa movement and a major rival of early Buddhism, Jainism and the Ājīvika school. They have been recorded in Buddhist and Jain texts. They held that it was impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it was useless and disadvantageous for final salvation. They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own. Sanjaya Belatthiputta was one of the major proponents of this school of thought.

Logical Intuition, or mathematical intuition or rational intuition, is a series of instinctive foresight, know-how, and savviness often associated with the ability to perceive logical or mathematical truth—and the ability to solve mathematical challenges efficiently. Humans apply logical intuition in proving mathematical theorems, validating logical arguments, developing algorithms and heuristics, and in related contexts where mathematical challenges are involved. The ability to recognize logical or mathematical truth and identify viable methods may vary from person to person, and may even be a result of knowledge and experience, which are subject to cultivation. The ability may not be realizable in a computer program by means other than genetic programming or evolutionary programming.

Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers, for example, that it constitutes a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality and that propositional knowledge involves true belief. Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy focus on propositional knowledge or knowledge-that, as in knowing that Dave is at home, in contrast to knowledge-how (know-how) expressing practical competence. However, despite the intense study of knowledge in epistemology, the disagreements about its precise nature are still both numerous and deep. Some of those disagreements arise from the fact that different theorists have different goals in mind: some try to provide a practically useful definition by delineating its most salient feature or features, while others aim at a theoretically precise definition of its necessary and sufficient conditions. Further disputes are caused by methodological differences: some theorists start from abstract and general intuitions or hypotheses, others from concrete and specific cases, and still others from linguistic usage. Additional disagreements arise concerning the standards of knowledge: whether knowledge is something rare that demands very high standards, like infallibility, or whether it is something common that requires only the possession of some evidence.

References

  1. ↑ Philip Burnard, Counselling Skills for Health Professionals (2005) p. 64
  2. ↑ Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (1954) Ch. 5
  3. ↑ Dadid K. Reynolds, The Quiet Therapies (1982) p. 95
  4. ↑ C. Cheng-Chi, The Practice of Zen (1951) p. 71
  5. ↑ Quoted in Reynolds, p. 95
  6. ↑ experiential knowledge
  7. ↑ "Is God All Knowing? | Closer to Truth".
  8. ↑ "Is God All Knowing? (William Lane Craig)". YouTube .
  9. ↑ Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams (1999)
  10. ↑ Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961) p. 184 and p. 103
  11. ↑ Burnard, p. 64-5 and p. 78
  12. ↑ K. Humphries, Circles of Recovery (2003) p. 15
  13. ↑ N. Symington, Narcissism (1993) p. 88
  14. ↑ Heaney, quoted in H. Bloom ed., Seamus Heaney (1986) p. 174
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