Knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organization of facts.

Discuss this statement in

relation to two Areas of Knowledge.

The statement Knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organization of facts suggests
that knowledge simply involves the collection of data that is known or proved to be true which is
then collated in a systematic fashion. This statement gives rise to the question, What is
knowledge? In my opinion knowledge is the collection, organization and understanding of facts,
data and statistics which have been evaluated, analyzed and interpreted using emotion, reason,
perception, intuition, imagination, language and memory. Facts are pieces of information that
have been proven and the definition of facts differs in different areas of knowledge but facts
usually refer to quantitative data.
It cannot be denied that to gain knowledge about a subject facts are integral but this statement
makes me wonder exactly how far knowledge is just a compilation of facts. While looking at
History and Art I feel that this statement does not completely hold true because in both these
areas of knowledge simply the systematic organization of facts is not enough to gain complete
knowledge about the matter. Emotion, intuition, imagination and language are not considered at
all in attaining this knowledge and although the systematic organization of facts would help to
gain information it would not be enough to gain complete understanding of a situation. In
subjects like history and ethics where the main focus is on studying the actions of human beings
it is very difficult to understand situations without taking qualitative information into account.
Although the compilation of facts will definitely help to understand the sequence of events facts
will not be able to give reasons for the actions of the humans which would mean that a reader
would be unable to gain complete knowledge from an assemblage of facts.
Konrad Adenauer once said that History is the sum total of things that could have been
avoided. History is the study of humans and their interaction with the past. It mainly focuses on
understanding why people made the decisions they did and how that changed the world which is
why knowledge in History is definitely more than just a compilation in facts. Assembling all the
facts about the past would definitely give one a clear picture of what occurred and how it
occurred but that is not enough to get complete knowledge about History as it does not explain
why people chose to make the decisions they did and what the consequences of those decisions
were. History is not limited to the political study of events over time but it is an evaluation of the
social, economic and cultural factors too in that period of time. For example, in our history class
we have studied the British policy of appeasement that Neville Chamberlain used to try and stop
Hitler. Facts can tell us that Neville Chamberlain did indeed engage in appeasement and this led
to Hitler getting more and more brazen and taking over Austria, Sudetenland and then the whole
of Czechoslovakia and finally Poland because he was not challenged or opposed by anyone.
However, just knowing these facts cannot be considered complete knowledge because we
would not understand the situation in Europe at that time just by systematically organizing these

facts and we would not understand the context that forced Chamberlain to engage in
appeasement. After an evaluation and not merely an organization of facts we are able to gauge
that Chamberlain was a very peace loving man who had seen the First World War and wanted to
avoid war at all costs and he knew that Britain was just coming out of a phase of depression and
if he challenged Hitler in the early 1930s Britain probably would not have won. After this
analysis, we start the understand the context of this policy and the reasons as to why it was
embraced and this leads to complete knowledge about the subject, however if we had only
learned the facts about appeasement we would have solely studied what happened in the past and
not how Chamberlain influenced the past and what the consequences of his actions were.
This formula also does not work in the case of History since it is a study of events that happened
in the past it is very difficult to prove that something did actually happen since we were not
actually there. History involves the use of empirical knowledge and very frequently we find that
there are a various opposing facts about the exact same situation from an array of historians. A.
Whitney Brown once said that The past actually happened but history is only what someone
wrote down. This quote clearly brings out how all facts in History are actually tinged with the
Historians own background, his prejudices and biases and his perception of the situation. It is
very difficult for a historian to rise above his or her situation and write about events occurring in
an objective manner because even unconsciously the historians culture and background
influences how he perceives a situation. An example of this is the difference in the way the issue
of Kashmir is described in two different textbooks, one Indian and one Pakistani. In the Indian
text book it says, In 1947, when Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, opted to stay independent,
Pakistani armed intruders from Pakistan attacked Kashmir. Hari Singh then signed an agreement to
join India, and the Indian army was sent in to defend Kashmir. While in the Pakistani textbook

this same event seems to consist of different facts as it says Hari Singh started a brutal campaign
to drive out Muslims from Kashmir. Over 200,000 people in the princely State, supported by the
tribesmen of the Northwest Frontier Province, were successful in liberating a large area of Kashmir
from the Maharajas control. So Hari Singh was forced to turn to India for help and in return acceded
to India.1This means that no fact can be taken as an absolute truth without careful analyses of

the evidence of that fact and the evaluation of the origin, purpose, values and limitations of that
fact. In subjects such as math where we have learned certain facts that have been proven and
have been agreed upon by for instance, it is a fact that dy/dx gives you the gradient of a slope
and the rate of change at a given point in time. This is why a systematic compilation of facts
would be able to give complete knowledge in an area like Mathematics where there is no
subjectivity but in a subject like History where almost nothing is objective and the facts are not
quantitative and carry biases it would be very difficult to gain an understanding of the subject
simply through facts.

1 http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/one-story-twosides/article5124147.ece

A counter claim to this view of history would be that history is a study of events that have
happened in the past and the only way to know what exactly these events were is by
systematically arranging these facts. The word systematically means that something is
presented or formulated as a coherent body of ideas or principles2 which means that the
facts are not simply collected but are put together in a way that makes the situation
understandable. One might argue that facts are the foundation of history because without
facts or the basic agreement about what happened in the past it would be very difficult for
anyone to analyze the events that happened in the past. The statement suggests that
reason is the main way of knowing with the collection of rational pieces of information that
have been proven to be true and if we take history as only a study of the past then this view
would be justified because to know what happened in the past all you would need is the
series of events that took place and an organization of facts would give you this. I was once
talking to my grandmother about History and she said that to her History was solely a
narration of events that have happened in the past which is why she thought that learning
the dates of when an even occurred and knowing what the event was about was all History
consisted of in which case this statement is valid because then taking this definition into
account all someone needs to gain complete knowledge is an ordered list of facts.
However, I feel that defining the area of History as nothing but the study of past events is
very limiting and does not serve the real purpose of the subject which is to study not only
what happened in the world before we existed but why those events happened and facts will
only answer the former question.
The assumption that knowledge is a sum of all organized facts does not seem to be valid in
the case of the Arts either to a large extent. The arts are the various branches of creative
activity such as painting, music, photography, literature, film and drama3. Knowledge of the
arts is something that is very difficult to define because every person interprets art
differently. However, facts in art can be defined as substantive truths about the artist or
the art itself. For example, a fact about the famous Starry Night landscape would be that it
was painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. However, that is the only knowledge we can gain
about the painting through facts. The interpretation of the painting is left up to us and there
are no real facts about it. Some people believe that it reflected his anguished state of
mind because he had just had a fight with one of his closest friends while other critics of his
art feel that the painting was just the view he saw from his room. Art is one area of
knowledge that is not solely based on reason, emotion and imagination plays a huge role in
it and using only purely facts to interpret art would restrict the meaning that can be found in
it. For instance, a fact about the painting would be that the background is blue but this fact
would not add to your understanding of the painting but if this fact was evaluated and you
came to the conclusion that the deep hues of blue usually reflect depression or sadness in
paintings then that would add to your knowledge about the painting.

2 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/systematic
3 Oxford Dictionary definiton

Another assumption made by this statement is that theoretical information is enough to gain
complete understanding about how to create a movie or capture a well balanced picture.
This is not always the case and one personal experience I had reflects this very well. When I
bought my first digital camera I intensively read the guide to try and understand what the
functions were and how they worked and I went on the internet and found all the resources
I could on how to use my camera and after a complete research I thought I would easily be
able to use my camera but I found that it was not like that. Theoretical knowledge is very
different from practical knowledge and in the Arts because you have to physically create
something practical knowledge is integral. Facts only give you theoretical knowledge and
this can lead to a very shallow understanding of how to actually create art. Some of the
most skilled artists today have not officially studied the Arts as a subject but have been
creating art for most of their lives which is why they are now so proficient. An example of
this would be the graffiti artist Banksy. Banksy is known for his satirical street art and he
began as a free hand graffiti artist. He had no formal education in art but today his graffiti is
seen and appreciated all over the world by numerous people.
Facts in the Arts might give you some perspective about the artist which could help in the
interpretation of the art which is why people who agree with this statement might say that
the Arts are the organization of facts about the Artists personal life or the period that the
artist is living in.

If facts in arts are truths about the society at that point in time