What Is Knowledge?

Knowledge is revealed truth that has been accurately interpreted and internalized by a thinker. In short, knowledge is everything you understand about the way things really are. All of the knowledge you have gathered thus far can rightly be called “your truth.”

It’s not yours because you constructed it. It’s yours because you stand in relation to it. It’s “your truth” in the same sense that “your friend” is yours. You don’t construct a friend. You participate in a friendship by sharing yourself with another person. That makes you their friend too.

Moreover, the word “understand” does not mean to stand underneath meaning as though you’re the only one holding it up. When you leave this world, Meaning will not fall into the abyss behind you. You matter a great deal—but you’re not that important.

To “understand” means to stand among, between, and even within Meaning itself. To understand something is to be in relation to the truth of that thing. Understanding happens when we interpret our perceptions in such a way that our beliefs correspond to reality.

Knowledge is borne of the communion of a person’s mind with the world as it really is. Philosophers call this phenomenon “true-belief,” and it is the first of three necessary elements of knowledge.

Next, how do we discern what we properly know from what we falsely believe?

In a previous essay we asked: “What is Philosophy?” We saw that the survival of a disoriented pilot and their passengers depends totally on the pilot’s ability to re-orient their subjective perspective to the world as it really is. To survive, they must become oriented again.

The-Truth must become “their-truth.”

A lost pilot can’t simply accept their false-orientation and wish their airplane to safety. They’re lost, and that matters now! An airplane cockpit is no place for an agnostic. The pilot is embarked, and they’re committed to a belief whether they like it or not.

The disoriented pilot must consult any and all truth available to them, and rightly interpret it to re-establish their orientation to the facts. This involves using reason to evaluate the difference between true and false information.

This process is called judgement.

Sometimes when we get confused, the problem is inside of us. An unsafe flight attitude can be caused by a bad-perception on the part of the pilot. The truth must be established by two or three witnesses. With that standard in mind, consider this fact: the human perception of balance is normally achieved by sensing motion through a function of the inner-ear, and cross referencing that data with information gathered by our peripheral vision. This system integration is automatic, and we take it entirely for granted.

But when pilots fly inside of a cloud, they are forced to go without peripheral vision. In the absence of a second-witness, the balance system will misinterpret motion cues from the inner-ear, and cause pilots to “perceive” motion that is different from the true path of the airplane. In short, our brains can “lie” to us about what’s really going on. Pilot’s call this problem spatial-disorientation. You might call it vertigo.

A disoriented pilot often “feels” like the airplane is spinning out of control, when it is flying straight and level. Sometimes the pilot “feels” like the airplane is straight-and-level, when it is in fact spinning out of control. If the pilot trusts the reliability of their perceptions, and moves the controls in response to their “feelings,” they’re dead—and so are their passengers. Why?

Because our perceptions of reality can be false. So, how do we solve this problem?

We must gather information from sources outside of ourselves. Since perceptions can be fooled, we need to test them against an independent witness that isn’t us. By gathering information from external sources, we can allow them to confirm, correct, or even falsify our subjective perceptions. In the lost pilot’s case, they are trained to gather information about the aircraft’s position and trajectory from a variety of instruments that display truth—information about the way things are.

Sometimes when we get confused, the problem is outside of us. An unsafe flight attitude can also be caused by a flight-instrument malfunction. When this happens, the “bad-instrument” displays data that doesn’t correspond to the way things are. If the pilot moves the controls based on “bad-data,” they will lose control of the airplane.

Sometimes, a trusted source of truth can be false. How do we solve this problem?

By gathering information about reality from more than one source. An airplane cockpit is no place for a closed-minded fundamentalist! We can only find our way to objective truth by not getting trapped in the Charybdis of circular-reasoning. Pilots call this internal hazard tunnel-vision, and its external consequence, a death-spiral.

To avoid these hazards, pilots are trained to sample information from multiple sources, and to integrate truth toward an objective state of mind called situational-awareness. This is the pilot’s worldview. Since all good pilots check and balance their worldview by cross-referencing different truth-sources, including the perceptions of another pilot, we are able to quickly notice when one instrument displays data contrary to the rest.

We can use reason to identify a source of “bad data” and ignore it. Likewise, we can use reason to identify the remaining sources of “good data,” and reference them to stay oriented to the world as it really is. When pilots do this successfully, they can knowthat they are right-side-up, and headed in the right direction.

Are you?

Might your internal perception of reality be mistaken? Might you have tunnel-vision on just one external instrument? Might that instrument be broken? How do you know?

How good is “your judgement?”

The concept of knowledge seems basic and intuitive, but it’s more complicated than we think. Consider this: can a colorblind person depend on their sense of sight to judge the color of a flower? On the basis of their own perception and judgement, can such a person give a true account to another that a flower is in fact red, and not green?

They can’t. Because they lack the functional sense to warrant independent knowledge of the fact in view. They only become aware of this lack by comparing their sensory perceptions to those of others, and by judging their own perspective to be unusual. To properly know the color of a flower, they must gather true-testimony from two or more competent witnesses on color—and the more the better. 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Corinthians 15

Of course, a competent authority on color can’t also be colorblind. A competent authority on anything must be trusted to truly discern the fact being considered, and to not lie about it.

This is where every theory of human knowledge runs into serious trouble. Who is the competent authority on math facts? Who is the competent authority on logical and propositional facts? Who can be trusted to reveal moral facts? The project of science needs all of these facts already up and running to get off the ground. Therefore, science cannot give an account of such facts—and nobody should expect it to.

Socrates’ search for knowledge ended in despair for just this reason. He needed knowledge to ask: “what is knowledge?” He knew that he had run in a circle. After deciding that knowledge is “true judgement with an account,” Socrates couldn’t imagine what the satisfactory account might be. He considered his progress to be nothing more than a “wind-egg.” That’s an egg without a yoke; one that can never grow into a bird and fly.

In short, Socrates didn’t think his ideas about knowledge would ever get off the ground. Why?

Because he couldn’t give an account for their Ultimate-Substance. It is no coincidence that the Greek word translated “account” in Plato’s Theaetetus, is the same word the Apostle John used to describe the Light of the world in his Gospel. John 1:1-5

The ultimate “Account” of human knowledge is the Logos.

It is a foundational rule of meaning (logic) that every effect resembles its cause. In order for knowledge to move from one thinker to another, the first thinker has to have it. Meaning flows from where it is to where it could be, like water flows from a spring into a pitcher, and then from a pitcher into a glass. When this happens with Truth, learning occurs.

Historically, this is why we go to school. It’s where the knowledge is (or at least where it’s supposed to be). It’s in the books we read, and in the minds of those who have learned so they can share meaning with others (teachers).

Knowledge is rightly interpreted information that flows into a thinker through the Truth. To understand something is to “stand in relation” to the Truth of that thing. And since the Truth is perfectly united to the facts, it is possible for thinkers like us to know Reality…

…unless our source of meaning is a liar.

Note well that achieving knowledge requires information to flow into us from a trustworthy Source. Who can be trusted to tell us the way things are? Likewise, who can be trusted to tell us the way things ought to be? On the eve of his trial for capital blasphemy, these were the questions that tortured Socrates. Plato, Euthyphro

Consider this carefully. If I hide my hand behind my back, and ask you to guess how many fingers I’m extending, you will have a 20% chance of guessing right. But you can’t know how many. Even if you guess right, you’ll have to trust me to confirm it to you without lying or cheating. You might hold a true belief, but you’re not in a position to judge whether or not it’s true. In short, your belief lacks accountability. You are what Socrates called “a blind man on the right road. Before you can claim knowledge of my fact, you must judge whether or not I’m a trustworthy source of meaning.

We’re right back to where we began. I’m not a perfect-knower, and I’m not perfectly trustworthy. Of course, neither are you. So how do we measure the truth-value of what we are saying to each other? I can’t establish the necessary meaning, and neither can you. You see, we all stand in need of an Ultimate-Account for our knowledge. We need a Perfect-Logos to stand in agreement with us. If there’s no such thing, then human knowledge is impossible. Socrates recognized this fact, and that’s what made him the wisest man of his generation. Plato, Apology, 21d-23b

Since being mistaken is possible, knowledge is impossible in the absence of true and accountable judgement. Applying such judgement is the only way anyone can perceive the difference between truth and falsehood. In short, you can’t know anything if the Perfect-Thinker doesn’t share His Truth with you.

To know is to stand in agreement with God. John 14:6; John 8:12-31

Do you?

To claim knowledge of any fact, you must first rightly judge the trustworthiness of your account of the truth. Is that account you? Are you a perfect-thinker? Is it someone else that you trust? Are they a perfect-thinker? Think about it soberly. Because anchoring “your truth” to The Truth, is the only way to judge the difference between your knowledge and a potentially deadly false belief.

You may “feel” just fine—but how do you know you aren’t upside down in a fog of confusion as you plummet to your fiery death?

Have you spared any thought for the passengers who trust you with their lives?

Are you worthy of their trust?

Do you even trust “your truth?”

Should you?