Truth, Knowledge and Learning; Faith, Reason and Authority

What do you know?  How do you know it?  

Is what you know actually true?  If you are told that something you thought you knew is not true, what will convince you that you were mistaken, so you will then claim to know something else?

Are there things which we cannot truly know, but which we nevertheless believe?  How do we learn these things?  Or is there a better description than learning for acquiring these ideas? How do these things which are believed relate to the things which we know.

Do you feel a responsibility to state the truth?  If you feel a responsibility to tell the truth, do you also feel a responsibility to examine your knowledge to determine if you do, in fact, know the truth?

And, very importantly, how are reason and authority involved in, and related to, what you know and what is true?

In my life, I am continually interested in learning.  If you've been following my blog, you will have read my discussions of the Great Courses series, for example.  But while it is the most frequent means by which I have deliberately gained knowledge over the past couple of years, it is not the only way I learn today, and it is certainly not the only way I have ever learned -- not even close.

Lately, I've been extremely interested in the relationship between several related concepts, and how their interaction -- and the value we place on them -- greatly influences our world.  These concepts are listed in the title of this entry today, and they represent a theme I'd like to explore with a series of essays.  They are:

• Truth
• Knowledge
• Learning
• Faith
• Reason
• Authority

As I sit down to write this introduction, the idea of writing a series of essays has been growing in my mind for many months, and I still don't have what I'd call a "plan" for them.  I have been tempted to wait until they are entirely written before posting even this introduction, but I have convinced myself that this delay will likely mean an unacceptable procrastination.

There are many different fields of knowledge involved in this discussion, and I am not a professional in any of them: philosophy, psychology, theology, history, science, ethics.  Those of you who read this blog for my comments on games, movies and TV shows such as Castle, Survivor and Star Trek will probably just skip the essays -- but I'm happy if I'm proven wrong.  At this point, while I certainly hope someone will read the thoughts I have on these topics, I simply feel a need to write them.

If you would like to follow along, I will be using the label "Knowledge Series" to gather them in the blog.  (I will tweet with #KnowledgeSeries as the hashtag.) And, for the time being at least, I have created a "logo" photo.  When you see that photo, you will know whether to read or avoid the blog that day, depending on your interests.