Personal and Shared Knowledge

Personal knowledge The knowledge that a particular individual has of the world Experiential knowledge: based on personal acquaintance or practical know-how Second-hand knowledge: Acquired form sources such as your culture, school, the Internet and the news media Academic knowledge – your understanding of academic subjects Informal knowledge – Your stock of cultural and locla knowledge, random facts and trivia

Shared Knowledge The sum total of knowledge which we can communicate to one another Includes: academic knowledge, informal knowledge and that part of practical know-how we can communicate verbally or non-verbally Usually shared by groups: Friends: bound together by shared experiences and knowledge known to them Subject specialists: Own set of assumptions, specialist language (philosophers, doctors, etc.) Cultures: Have their own hidden assumptions and unwritten rules which may be difficult to explain to outsiders

Personal Knowledge Majority is derived second-hand from other sources Background knowledge plays a major role in critical thinking To the ignorant mind nothing is surprising and all knowledge claims, no matter how outlandish or bizarre, will seem equally plausible

Obstacles to Personal Knowledge Ignorance – we need to know what we DON’T know “Illusion of explanatory depth” – you don’t understand something as well as you think you do Apathy – Once we form an opinion about something we don’t want to change our minds Attached to our beliefs because they are: familiar, partly reflect our identity, we dislike the uncertainty we feel when we question them Fantasy – Easy to slip from wanting something to be true to believing that it IS true (wishful thinking)

Obstacles to Personal Knowledge Bias – Difficult to resist the feeling that our way of looking at the world is uniquely perceptive and insightful Easy to spot biases in other people’s opinions, but not our own Peer pressure – Most people would rather be liked than be right We overestimate the extent to which people we associate with think as we do. This is called “false consensus effect”

Shared Knowledge Vast majority of our knowledge Closely connected with language Culture – passing on beliefs and practices from one generation to the next We build on the accumulated achievements of past generations Great amount of research is conducted by teams When people work together they can discuss, check, and critique one another’s ideas Creative new ideas, approaches and solutions may arise from this approach

Dangers of Shared Knowledge Authority Worship Blindly accepting what we are told without thinking about it Nothing should be accepted as true just because someone says so Claims based on authority must be validated in terms of evidence and argument Are we obliged to take the opinions of experts simply on faith?

Dangers of Shared Knowledge Groupthink A form of peer pressure which leads everyone in a group to think in the same way (or act in the same way) Power Distortions Government and corporations have a vested interest in influencing our beliefs and values Power can distort the content of knowledge (changing statistics), influence the direction of academic research, dictate the kind of information people are exposed to

Dangers of Shared Knowledge Fragmentation Due to intellectual specialization Experts struggle to keep up with new developments in their field of expertise

The Internet Changing our conception of knowledge Drawbacks Lack of quality control – anyone can publish anything about anything and say anything they want, true or not Superficiality – Increasingly difficult to concentrate on one particular thing – we no longer look at things in depth Too many distractions Filter bubbles – making us narrow minded, only visit websites that agree with our way of thinking

Cultural Tradition A culture is a map through which a group of human beings try to make sense of the world and it consists of beliefs and practices that are passed on from one generation to another We can learn from other cultures Reminds us there are many ways of being human and many perspectives on reality Remember that the longevity of a belief does not mean that it is true

School Play a key role in transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next Must be careful of indoctrination: the difference between education and indoctrination is not what is taught but the way it is taught Teaching must be balanced, showing both sides, allowing students to make up their own minds

Expert Opinion We rely on expert opinion to justify many of our knowledge claims Sometimes they are wrong Particularly unreliable when predicting the future Have a limited range of competence (no great wisdom outside of their area of expertise)

When to trust experts Credentials: they have the expertise Evidence: support their position with evidence and argument Corroboration: their views are supported by other experts in the field Track record: good record of honesty and reliability Neutrality: do not have biases

News Media Agenda Setting: the tendency of the news media to influence which stories the public consider important Sensationalism bias: “If it bleeds, it leads” Sensational stories attract our attention Focus on the extraordinary Focus on the sensational to the detriment of less dramatic but equally important stories Bad news bias: helps to create and sustain a climate of fear National bias: focused on own country

News Media Framing: The news media’s use of picture and language to shape the way a story is presented Influences the way readers or watchers see the story Blame frames – somebody has to be at fault Pictures – flattering or unflattering can bias an audience