Sources of Knowledge
Dr. Syed Rifaat Hussain
Professor and Chairman, DSS
Department, QAU, Islamabad
Some basic distinctions
• Ontology – The science of being; deals with
the nature of reality.
• Epistemology. Deals with the nature of
knowledge; studies grounds and modes of
knowledge acquisition.
Sources of knowledge
•Common sense: Every one knows that it is so
•Intuition: I just know it
•Beliefs: it is based on personal conviction
•Tenacity: verification over the years
•Tradition: practice through generations
•Personal Experience: personal testing and experience
•Authority: the word of experts
•Divine and supernatural powers: the revelations of God and of
other powers
•Reason and logic: the intellect can capture truth and knowledge
directly
•Scientific methods: knowledge is derived through empirical
procedures
Four methods of :fixing belief
• The quest for knowledge stems from human
desire to settle the irritation of doubt by
moving into a state of belief.
• According to Charles Peirce, there are four
general ways of knowing or of “fixing belief.”
Four Methods of knowing
• 1. The first is the method of tenacity.
According to this method, human hold firmly
to the truth because they have always known
it to be true. Frequent repetition of such
truths seems to enhance their validity.
Modern version of this method is “cognitive
consistency” and human desire to avoid
“cognitive dissonance.”
Four Methods of knowing
• 2. A second method of fixing belief, according
to Pierce, is the method of authority. This is
the method of established belief. This method
is superior to the method of tenacity as this
method is widely used to disseminate facts
and information on the basis of authority. Life
could not go on without the method of
authority.
Four methods of knowing
• The third way of knowing is a priori method.
We come to accept certain ideas to be true as
they appear to be self-evident and tend to
agree with reason. We accept certain
knowledge claims as true because they “stand
to reason.”
Four ways of knowing
• The fourth method is that of science:
• “to satisfy our doubts….therefore, it is necessary that
a method should be found by which our beliefs may
be determined by nothing human, but by some
external permanency – by something upon which
our thinking has no effect….The method must be
such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall
be the same. Such is the method of science. Its
fundamental hypothesis….is this: there are real
things, whose characters are entirely independent of
our opinions about them.”