002189-048 Theory of Knowledge Essay

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow. Consider that knowledge issues raised by this statement in two areas of knowledge.

Candidate Name: Sarah Nabila Pribadi Candidate Number: 002189 048 School: Global Jaya International School Session: May 2014 Word Count: 1,589 words

002189-048 4. That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow. Consider that knowledge issues raised by this statement in two areas of knowledge.

Some knowledge may last for a long time, but some others may not. Just like the earth, knowledge that we had in our mind also keeps changing. This caused by abundance of researches that are constantly in progress and new information is being discovered throughout the time. Based on my own interpretation, this statement can be meant as knowledge will always evolve as the times goes by, no matter how perfect it is. History and natural science have a large effect on this evolution; so these two areas of knowledge will become the main discussion of the essay in order to decide whether we should discard old knowledge or keep that in mind as a part our newly discovered knowledge. Aside from that, sensory perception and logic will also involve as the ways of knowing that will be discussed in this essay.

First, the knowledge issue that I am going to point out is to what extent does knowledge in the past should be discarded. History, as an area of knowledge would relates to the knowledge issue because some knowledge that we gained in the past, sometimes can be replaced by the new knowledge that we gain the future. In history, our perception and ideas about truth keeps changing, due to the information that we keep accepting between now and the future. In the context of the real life situation, lets say Suharto as Indonesias greatest dictator of all time. Suharto was actually acclaimed as the best president in Indonesia for three decades due to his New Order movement 1. But now, people might say that hes not a good president anymore due to the secrets that had been revealed after years since his resignation, about the killing
New Order was an order that constructed Indonesia to become stabilized country in order to achieve economic and infrastructure. Suharto coined this term, in contrast to the Socialist movement that has been previously implemented by Sukarno.
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002189-048 of nine generals2. The puppeteer of this case is Suharto himself as a plan to crown himself as a president of Indonesia. It took time for the Indonesian citizen to realize that their opinion about Suharto is wrong because during his regime, he kept manipulated its citizens minds by showing the movie3 as the media of propaganda annually, of course with his own version of the story. People (which includes myself, as a knower) would think that the newer the knowledge, the better it provides the truth because by reassembling information from different sources, we would know which information is the right one by having varieties of perspective from different person. In which manner people would agree the most that is the knowledge I would likely to gain.

On the contrary, I would say that sometimes the knowledge of yesterday should not be discarded, because otherwise, I would state that some knowledge could be still useful and last for a long time. For example, in terms of history, lets say Ancient Egypt; who was the one who began civilization that already been existed since 3150 BC in accordance to the timeline of world history. In fact, they were the first civilians to pioneer the making of paper produced by pith of papyrus plants thousand years before Europeans began to use it as writing tools. Moreover, they were also the one who introduced hieroglyphics, the world the first writing system that combine alphabets and logographic. Even though many people would not use papyrus anymore to produce paper; knowledge of turning a pith of a tree into a paper is still applicable

Before he held his presidential regime, Indonesian communists were accused of killing 9 generals and put all corpses inside a well. It is a one of the strategy Suharto use to become a president since Sukarno became exiled. 3 The movie is called G30SPKI, which tells the story of killing nine generals based on biased perception of Suharto. The film was played in TVRI once a year on September 30, which called as PKI Movement day until his resignation in 1998. Suharto extremely encouraged young generations at that time to watch this movie in order to enrich their historical knowledge about Indonesia, of course in Suharto way.
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002189-048 in todays world, due to its importance as a media of communication around the world. Through this example, it shows that knowledge in the past shouldnt always be discarded and replaces by the latest knowledge. As long as the knowledge is make sense, useful and applicable to our daily basis, I can surely know the knowledge may have a better chance not to be discarded and therefore, last long. If I refer back to previous example, it would be impossible to live without paper and alphabet since it is really useful in our daily life as a result of helping us to communicate better.

The second knowledge issue that I consider in this essay is how do we gain new knowledge in order to discard the old knowledge. Other than history, natural science is also a significant area of knowledge to be discussed. Most of scientific knowledge keeps changing. This occurs due to the new observations being conducted and innovations invented. In the common real life examples, people used to believe that the world is flat, but in 1492 Columbus stated that the world is not flat; it is round. A lot of people didnt believe it because they thought if the earth is round, everything was going to be tumbled down. After spending so many years on discoveries, they finally believed that the earth is round by observing the sun and moons position that always keeps changing everyday throughout the years. When the technology started to become more advanced, they can see it through the satellite thats able to captures the picture of the earth, to show that its shape is really round. Even Columbus used his logic to generate his own theory; If the world is flat, the ship will be falling off if you have reached the edge of the world4.

Who Discovered The Earth is Round - Starts With A Bang. N.p., 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/09/21/who-discovered-the-earth-is-ro/>.

002189-048 From this real life situation, I acknowledge that some ideologies supported with strong and believable evidence will quickly change the way we think on something. Besides believing our knowledge by only using logic or feelings, we should confirm the knowledge itself by finding other evidence to reassure that the knowledge that we saved in our brain is true. For example, to ensure that this theory is true, by using our sensory perception, we should see if our earth is round by seeing the Earths satellite photograph or even go to the outer space to make sure that it is truly round. The only thing we know is the knowledge keeps changing, and we always assume that the latest knowledge we owned is the better one.

In the context of my personal experience, I used to believe that lying on the bed of nails could be hurtful and I was always amazed when I saw magicians did it on television. But after I learned about pressure in physics, I tried to lie down on the bed of nails to know how it really feels. Through my tactile sensory perception, I started to know that the greater the surface area, the lesser the pressure is. Therefore, I wont feel hurt when I did it. The way that sensory perception changed my belief about lying on the bed of nails would be significant since we should believe new knowledge rather than stuck in the same old page. By seeing or feeling it real, we can extensively judge that sensory perception have a powerful role in replacing old knowledge. In terms of natural science, the new discoveries allow us, as knowers to gain greater insights on reality and to prove that theres something that we should know. According to my own perspective, I would believe that new knowledge should me more reliable because it comes up by reassembling the previous knowledge and finding suitable evidence, ergo thats the reason why I found out knowledge of

002189-048 today seems more acceptable. We cant stuck in the wrong ideas all the time; we have to be forward-looking.

Conversely, we should consider the old knowledge that we gain is important because its the main component that made up a new knowledge. Without these old theories, we cant discover new knowledge. It seems impossible to do that without having presumed knowledge and so does this applied to our knowledge issue. Sometimes, in the process of gaining knowledge, we should take it step by step, which means we cant reach into immediate level if we didnt learn the basics.

In the context of real life situation, when I was about to learned biochemical processes occur in living things. I used to hate chemistry, because I cant understand any of the theories. When I chose to study biology in the Diploma, I didnt realize that theres a chapter called Chemistry of Life, which involves basic chemistry that I considered difficult to understand. I regretted that I didnt try hard enough to understand chemistry in 10th grade. After that incident, I realized that its important to learn the base knowledge before learning it in depth and further. In a simple way, I can state that its crucial to learn everything because at the end, youll discover that everything will simply related to one and another. I notice that theres a strong correlation between logic and this counterclaim, because I think by gaining knowledge in chronological order, itll helps us to retain greater understanding and therefore the knowledge that we used to know can be still useful as a reference of newly discovered knowledge.

002189-048 To conclude, I preferably stated that the knowledge of yesterday shouldnt be discarded because the old knowledge that we accepted could be used as media of evaluation to our mistakes. Always remember that mistake is your greatest teacher because it helps us to find the truth. Nevertheless, we cannot always rely on knowledge that we used to believed in the past, because if the knowledge that we accepted is wrong, we cant stuck in the wrong ideology all the time; we have to find out soon.

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Bibliography

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<http://dullwitch.wikispaces.com/Potential+Arguments+to+Explore>.