Sunday, November 11, 2007
Private Knowledge
The majority vote of my poll shows that the common definition of private knowledge is ‘learned knowledge”. I, however, feel that a more accurate definition of private knowledge is knowledge by acquaintance. There are many different aspects that create private knowledge, but the basic idea of private knowledge is knowledge in which the function is to either duplicate of reproduce experience. Experiences are something that are individual and are unable to replicated for another person, and can only be shared through one’s acquaintance with another; therefore becoming knowledge by acquaintance. Some examples of what private knowledge is are belief, opinion, feeling, sensing, and intuition. These are all examples of what is considered to be private knowledge because they are unique to an individual and can only be experienced through the acquaintance with that particular individual. Because private knowledge is unique to each individual this type of knowledge is difficult to articulate and share with others. While many consider private knowledge to be learned knowledge, it is in fact knowledge by acquaintance due to it being unique for every individual. Anyone can learn the same lesson from an experience, while the feelings felt during the experience is individual for each person.
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2 comments:
Why would private knowledge not be "Knowledge found by yourself"? My opinions, my belief, my feelings, senses, and intuitions are all my personal traites...which would lead me to my private knowledge of something.
An acquaintance could be anybody...including someone I know from fifth grade one who I can not remember their name but will stop and chat with them for a couple of minutes in order to seem friendly...I will NOT be telling them any of my private knowledge!
Experiences of an individual, under your definition, are unable to be replicated for another person. The previous sentence was the definition given for Private Knowledge. This definiton actually backs up my idea of "knowledge found by yourself" because it is knowledge that no one will ever perfectly understand...no one else can be you no matter how much you tell them the same story- they won't see it exactly the same way you do...private knowledge.
When you said "but the basic idea of private knowledge is knowledge in which the function is to either duplicate of reproduce experience" seems a bit biased to me as there no causation yet showing how that is true. Another statement that I found biased was "Experiences are something that are individual and are unable to replicated for another person, and can only be shared through one’s acquaintance with another" and I don't agree with it because I don't see how you can necessarily say that experiences aren't something that can be replicated for another person. Why can't a person do the same thing as the other, feel the same feelings, and end with the same result? You also said that private knowledge is belief and opinion which people could share thus contradicting what you said earlier. Then, at the end, you seemed to admit that the experience could be the same, but still stated that the feelings are different for each person. Who is to say that some people don't have the same feelings from an event?
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