Knowledge as it relates to Truth

Let’s discuss Knowledge.

In my opening blog of this series, I asked the questions “What do you know?” and “How do you know it?”

Before I discuss Knowledge, or what it means to Know, I will narrow down to a subset of the meanings of these words.  The first definitions of “Know” and "Knowledge" in dictionary.com are these:

know

1. to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.

knowl·edge

1.  acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.

Today, then, let’s think about what it means when we say we Know something.  By pointing out the first definition of each of those words, I am limiting the discussion to these parts of the definitions:

“to perceive or understand as fact or truth”  and “acquaintance with facts, truths or principles”
 
I am leaving out the meanings of Know related to, for example, knowing a person (I know you), or having a certain skill (I know how to tie my shoes.) 

My point today is to start to draw the relationship between Knowledge and Truth.  From this starting point, we will further discuss the related topics of Fact and the overloaded term “Belief.”

When we say we Know something, one of the things we are saying is that we are confident that it is True.  Let’s think about some of the clearest things we Know to be True.  And, for my money, that means simple math.

We all Know that “1 + 1 = 2.”  Which is to say, we look at that set of characters and Know that they represent a True statement.  How many different things do we have to Know to Know the truth of that simple equation?  We need to Know what “1” and “2” represent, we need to know what the “+” and “=” symbols indicate when placed next to numbers.  But these are not difficult things for us to Know.  In fact, most of us have internalized these pieces of Knowledge so early in life that they seem to come naturally.  If we faced that equation in a True/False test, we would say True.

On the other hand, if we faced the equation “1 + 1 = 3” on that same True/False test we would rightly say False.  We would Know it is false, but we would never, ever claim to Know “1 + 1 = 3.”  Why not?  Because, when we claim to Know something, we claim to Know that it is True, and “1 + 1 = 3” is clearly False.

The point I want to make today is this: when we say we Know something -- a fact, anyway --  we are claiming something about its Truth - namely that we are confident it is True.

The problem is, sometimes what we Know is not True.  That is, sometimes we internalize a “fact” which is incorrect.  We learn the wrong thing.  Yet, in those situations, we claim to Know the fact – at least until we are faced with the Truth.  Our statement about Knowing something is based on our confidence that what we learned is True.

An illustration would serve nicely here.  Perhaps when you were in grade school, you took a test on the capitals of the 50 United States, and when it came to answering the question for Florida you weren’t quite sure, but you answered “Miami” and for some reason the teacher missed your error.  Happy with the result, you internalized the error, and for years, you thought “The capital of Florida is Miami.”  If someone asked you: “Do you know the capital of Florida?” you would confidently say “Yes, I know the capital of Florida is Miami.”  Yet, when faced with the true answer (Tallahassee) and some reasonable proof that you were wrong, you might be embarrassed, but you would no longer claim to Know that the capital of Florida is Miami.

Knowing, then, is related to Truth when it comes to Facts.  We claim to Know a fact when we are confident that the Fact is True.  Notice that Knowing does not ensure Truth -- it merely states a person's confidence of the relationship between a statement and that statement's truth.

Next time, we’ll continue the discussion by looking at the kinds of things we Know – most especially Facts.