KNOWLEDGE: ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH SCIENCE!

© Celeste Duque (September 2004) - Clinical Psychologist (celeste.duque @ gmail.

com)
The human being, since it "knows" still ongoing search for answers to your quest
ions, uncertainties, fears or fears and this permanent quest has, over generatio
ns, providing additional "knowledge" of himself and the world. Trying to answer
questions like:
• • •
What do we know? How, when, where, why, and why we know? What, indeed, to know?
So knowing implies a relationship of an individual with an object (person or eve
nt) external to itself. And it is through the process of knowing that the indivi
dual perceives the nature, substance, and the structure, function or purpose of
a particular object of knowledge (either a natural phenomenon or social). The pr
ocess of knowledge can be immediate (for example, seizure by the senses (and thu
s a physical level), or may mediate (when carried through the mental representat
ion and construction in the absence of objects, ie, without that can be processe
d through the senses). The phenomena and objects that "understand" can be simple
or complex, displaying intricate webs of relationships with other objects. Thus
, the forms these processes take knowledge will inevitably be different ( multip
le) and produce levels of apprehension and appropriation also separate them. Ami
lcar Amorim proposes the following "arrangement" of traditional ways of knowing:
• • • •
Empirical knowledge Scientific Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge philosophical theol
ogy
Then go will be examining in detail each of them.
The empirical knowledge, according to this author, would result from ordinary ex
perience, everyday observations and personal rationalizations or transmitted soc
ially, doctrines and precepts ancestors. It is characterized as a knowledge not
methodical and unsystematic, which only "provide" the necessary domain instrumen
tal to man for their survival and adaptation to
physical and social environment. Lacking validation rules or measurement, degree
of truth it contains. Knowledge, scientific, for its part, seeks to develop und
erstanding of phenomena, in addition to their observation and description, cause
s and laws governing it, determine or influence. The knowledge will be demonstra
ble, verifiable and capable of replicating itself. The method of seizure is syst
ematic, controlled (following a script or protocol) and is based on the notion o
f proof and objective truth. Scientific knowledge is distinguished from the noti
on of empirical verifiability, not merely the perception of the phenomena by the
sense organs or through the tools developed by man in order to achieve greater
accuracy (as a sort of refinement or extension senses), addressing the core of t
he problem, proving it by controlled trial. Philosophical knowledge, has as obje
ct of reflection and research are the realities mediate. So that objects are gen
erally large abstractions and generalizations of problems that the scientific me
thod investigates experimentally but, in this area of knowledge, are interpreted
as mental objects for which relations are established and deductive logic. The
philosophy problematizes the truth in philosophy is a constant not an end in its
elf. The knowledge in philosophy instead of science, it demands a degree of accu
mulation. Theological knowledge is, according to Amorim, knowledge that is not s
hown nor is proved because the subject - God, Buddha, or whatever one calls is i
mmeasurable (not measured, can not match, it is absolute) is based the notion of
divine revelation, know that is not achievable by experience or trial but that
the "divine" reveals.
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John Caraga is located on a more dynamic, process and context, going beyond this
structuralist view, seemingly logical, static and unchanging knowledge, propose
d by Amorim. The interpretation of reality outside the human being is constitute
d as an imperative for survival, primarily physiological, but also of identity.
The "layout or mapping" of the physical and social environment around us becomes
, therefore, an activity instrumental capacity for survival and perpetuation of
the species. These maps (sets of records and representations of feasible sequenc
es of behaviors) serve as repositories of basic knowledge that are needed to int
eract through a given physical environment. Knowledge emerges therefore as an ac
t necessary and viable human survival.€The narrative (memory, repository) of the
action, kept at first in conversations "silent" with himself, will permit the o
pening of another dimension (communication and social) knowledge as an instrumen
t of identity and interaction with others (their like), with which and through w
hich, he discovers more robust forms of collective survival. But within this soc
ial interaction immaterial, apart from the action of physical and material natur
e, one finds that the difference is at the root of identity that subsequently, t
he human being seeks to preserve. This is the level of knowledge that emerges in
simple and primitive communities whose basic need is, literally, survival. Comm
unities to (re) produce simple and similar actions on the physical environment,
such as collecting fruits, grazing, fishing, etc..
Marks an escalation of complexity is the size of group and community whose ident
ity is expressed in the early interactions symbolic representation of artistic a
nd ritualistic or dramatic, life together, and the identity of its individual me
mbers, which results in densification of the communication and shall exceed a di
mension of relationship with the immediate physical environment and achieves som
e explanation of the totality of what surrounds them. Arise, then the dimensions
of religious and magical explanation of the world. Caraga, using a more geometr
ic, defines two action plans on the environment - at the activity level material
: the space they occupy and a community within which interacts and behavior that
individuals adopt in relation to the concrete context of the space occupy. Defi
ning also two levels with regard to human communication (immaterial): persistenc
e (coupled with the ability of choice and the preservation of community in the p
hysical sense) and cohesion (towards greater resilience of the community, in soc
ial terms). Thus the intersection of the planes:
space / persistence - humans begin to dominate technical expertise, space / cohe
sion - humans begin to develop political knowledge, behavior / cohesion - the hu
mans begin to develop knowledge of artistic nature, and behavior / persistence -
human beings begin to develop knowledge of a religious nature.
At this level of knowledge, John Caraça will call "tacit knowledge", because:
Built from the original material and immaterial action immediate, everyday, and
corresponds to a single degree of man's relationship with the physical and socia
l environment.
The aggregation of men in larger communities (cities) characterized by a plurali
ty of types of man's relationship with its physical environment (farmers, fisher
men, craftsmen, shepherds) leads to a greater cohesion of each particular commun
ity, in particular effort replication of their knowledge, and interrelation with
others, in a space that, henceforth, be common and shared. The need for new for
ms of social cohesion (the presence of other communities), and amplification of
the possibilities (materials) for survival leads to increasing explicitness of k
nowledge. These evolving towards more organized, for example, the technique for
the technology, from politics to the right; of magic and primitive art for aesth
etics and fine arts, basic to the moral cohesion. The diversity of groups that e
stablish an inter-subjective relationship to the level of immaterial dimension (
communication) associated with substantial changes in plans with persistence and
 cohesion (the groups have to negotiate among themselves and build their relatio
nship and the difference in the action stuff) leads the acceleration of knowledg
e, whether caused by the concentration of material and immaterial resources in t
he same space.
Thus, cities rise and facilitated the emergence of the need to tackle the inter-
subjective. Responding to it and solving it by the explicitness of the knowledge
that simultaneously facilitate the sharing and use and, also, the proliferation
of knowledge. Cities allowed the emergence of another form of complexity in mat
erial and immaterial - the trade that a new chain of mutual influences strengthe
ned the ability of generating material wealth, as well as greater density at the
level of communication and circulation of knowledge. The intensification of wri
ting and the onset of action is purely intellectual, no longer directly linked t
o the physical environment, will then enable the emergence of more organized dis
ciplinary nature - constitute the basis of the nature of the subject and then a
self-reflective approach to own act of knowing and being human. From here open t
he door for reflection on the method of knowing,€criteria of truth and demonstra
tion abstract that will lead to science moderna1.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Caraga, J. (19?). Amorim, A. (19?).
But there is no reference details, so that it apologizes to the authors cited he
re.
*** *** *** © Celeste Duque - 04/06/2008
1
Supplement this reading with the texts support the subject Introduction to Psych
ology, 1st Cycle - 1st Year - 1st Semester - 2003-2004, including the introducti
on to the text: "Emergence of Modern Science."