Knowledge Through the Ages: From Universal to Subjective
From the Greeks to the Middle Ages: Universal Knowledge
From the Greeks to the Middle Ages, knowledge was considered universal.
- For Plato, knowledge was a process of transcending sensory information (appearances) to reach universal ideas, separate from both the individual and the perceived objects.
- Aristotle also believed in universal knowledge, but he focused on understanding the universal features abstracted from the particular experiences of objects in the world. Knowledge of reality was not mediated by the subject, who passively received information through the senses.
It was during the modern era that the idea of knowledge as a result of the subject’s activity emerged.
Two Positions in Modernity: Reason and the Senses
The modern approach to understanding knowledge involves two elements: a subject who knows and an object that is known. In modern thought, empiricism and rationalism offered different explanations for how we acquire knowledge:
- Empiricism: Knowledge begins and ends with experience, derived from information provided by the senses. Empiricists believe the human mind is a blank slate upon which knowledge is imprinted through contact with reality. Hume distinguished between two types of perceptions: impressions (immediate observations) and simple ideas (copies of impressions). Complex and abstract ideas are formed by associating simpler ones according to specific laws. Empiricism is skeptical of ideas that don’t correspond to impressions, such as the concept of cause or the self.
- Rationalism: The dominant philosophical tradition in the 17th and 18th centuries, rationalism emphasizes reason as the primary instrument for understanding reality. The senses play a minor role. Descartes, wary of sensory information, believed in innate ideas as the foundation of true knowledge.
- Kant’s Synthesis: Kant proposed a conciliatory position. He acknowledged the necessity of experience for understanding (empiricism) but agreed with rationalists that understanding involves pure concepts devoid of empirical content. For Kant, our senses provide the raw material of knowledge, but human reason organizes it in a way common to all. The subject actively participates in the process, imposing mental structures onto the world. Therefore, knowledge involves both reason and the senses.
The Subjective Construction of Knowledge
Understanding knowledge requires considering its origin and development at a subjective level.
Sensations
All living beings are sensitive to external stimuli. While each organism exhibits sensitivity in different ways, sense organs are the structures through which the nervous system interacts with the world. Each species has varying degrees of sensitivity to environmental stimuli, leading to different experiences of the environment. However, for sensations to become knowledge, they must be organized and imbued with meaning, transforming into perceptions.
Perception
Human perception is a process of organizing, developing, and interpreting information from the surroundings. It involves assimilating sensations and giving them meaning. Thus, perception requires active participation from the subject. This process relies on other mental faculties like memory, motivation, interests, concerns, and the subject’s social context.
Thinking the World: Concepts
Sensory knowledge is the beginning of the knowledge process. The next step is generalization, the formation of concepts, and ultimately, complex thought through reasoning. Human knowledge operates with concepts. We think about objects through concepts, which are mental and symbolic representations that capture the shared characteristics of objects, regardless of their specific, individual features. In essence, the knowledge process begins with external stimuli that become organic reactions, leading to general, abstract concepts without immediate correspondence to any individual object.
The Social Construction of Knowledge
Human knowledge has two main aspects: it seeks to understand reality and is a socially constructed product. It only gains meaning when shared, built upon, and communicated among individuals. Through socialization, we internalize social norms, habits, and ethical-moral standards that guide our behavior. Simultaneously, we acquire cognitive knowledge about how the world works. Language acquisition is crucial in this process, as it introduces us to ideas shared by group members. As we learn, we assimilate a symbolic universe, a set of meanings that explain, interpret, and help us perceive our social environment.