Abdulrahman - Theory of Knowledge - University of Portland - Essay
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Feb 20, 2024
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
Trust is the reliance on the character, ability, strength, or authority of someone or
something. It can be identified as the gap between what we think and what we know is true. I
believe that the Holacaust happened. I am one hundred percent certain that parallel lines do
not meet. The first statement includes elements of reason and faith, showing that I trust the
opinion of certain historians. The second statement, on the other hand, revolves around an
axiom in mathematics, showing pragmatic certainty, which means that the meaning of an idea
or proposition lies in its observable or practical consequences. ‘
Accepting knowledge claims’
is the action of assessing a knowledge claim to be true, such as assessing that the Holacaust is
real. However, ‘
An element of trust’ is the part of the title that interested me the most. I
discovered that the reason behind referring to trust as an element is to treat the concept of
trust as an essential characteristic when accepting knowledge claims. Eventually, I began to
question the validity of this claim. I started hypothesizing different scenarios, such as trusting
something or someone based on authority, or evidence. After that, I formed by opinion on
this title: I personally disagree with this claim because it includes an absolute ‘always’, as I
believe there are certain Areas of Knowledge (AOKs) where trust can be uninvolved in the
process of accepting a knowledge claim.
In order to further explore the applicability and validity of this claim, I chose History
and Mathematics as my areas of discussion, where I will aspire to discover whether or not
trust is always an element of accepting knowledge. I chose History and Mathematics as my
AOKs because each AOK contains different methodologies to one another, which allows for
different perspectives to be explored.
Before diving into History, one must clarify what history is about. History intends to
explain historical events and link them together. Historians intend to study the recorded past
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
for several different reasons, one such as understanding the past to clarify current events
and/or the reasoning behind the current status and ranks of societies. Historians tend to base
their findings on evidence. Evidence in history is very mostly physical evidence such as
scriptures and buildings (Hands On history, n.d.), as well as eyewitnesses. However, the
interpretation of historical evidence can be volatile and therefore dependent on the historian’s
interpretation. Accepting a knowledge claim will always include a kind of trust of authority,
the historian’s or the authoritarian’s interpretation of evidence and shared knowledge, based
on one’s personal beliefs and values on the historical facts. The authorial interpretation of
evidence can also fundamentally influence one’s decision to trust a knowledge claim in
History. An example of this can be the different viewpoints of what is known as the ‘Armenian
genocide’ allegedly perpetrated by the Ottoman emprie in 1917. One may disagree with the
use of the term ‘allegedly’. However, since the current Turkish government and a large
segment of the Turkish population do not accept the term ‘genocide’ (Bora Bayraktar, 2016),
it may be inappropriate to explicitly say that this genocide was perpetrated by the Ottomans.
Without examining the validity of the historical events, this enforces multiple perspectives,
which makes the act of conforming to either perspective dependent on the trust placed on one
single interpretation of evidence presented by those perspectives, therefore validating the
claim proposed in the title. A great influencer of leaning towards certain perspectives is
emotion, which is an instinctive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.
However, it can be argued that historical knowledge can be enforced using social and
political pressure exerted by Historians or Authoritarians or even societal cultures and beliefs
on an individual without having to trust the knowledge claim. This means that although an
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
individual may not agree with or trust a historical knowledge claim, they will still accept it, or
at least conform to it, due to high societal and authorial pressure.
With that being said, I still
hold on to my opinion about this title’s claim because historical evidence is volatile in its
interpretation, which immediately places trust on the Historian’s interpretation. However, this
is not the case for other AOKs such as Mathematics.
Mathematics has drastically different uses and formats compared to History.
Mathematics is a tool that both models the real world and is used to understand the abstract
relationship between numbers. Unlike History, Mathematics is considered indisputable by
some. The reason behind this is that Mathematics is often based upon reason, as well as it
aims to diminish the cultural or contextual influences in the process of generating knowledge.
Mathematics is viewed by many people as a language/method used to model phenomena
around us, as it lacks volatility. Axioms in Mathematics are statements that are taken to be
true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. An example
of an axiom can be: parallel lines do not meet, or a square has 4 sides. These examples have
been proven to be true as Axioms are self-evident and require no proof. Axioms are used to
explore other aspects in Mathematics without manipulating the laws and nature of
Mathematics. Therefore, within the level of mathematical operations, if they are correctly
carried out, there should not be an element of trust in Mathematics because they have been
assumed and proven true. it is important to examine whether these assumptions apply to proven mathematical
theorems. Proof in Mathematics is a starting point of something that is assumed true
(axioms), allowing a logical structure and reasoning to generate new knowledge. It can be
said that mathematical theorems are initially generated by Human creativity, which can then
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
place an element of trust in the mathematician. However, it can be argued that creative
thinking is based on mathematical Axioms which require no trust. An example of this can be
the Pythagoras theorem, which is the theory that explains the relationship between the sides
of a right angle triangle (Praneeth, n.d.). The mathematician has proven their creative thought
based on mathematical Axioms such as
the sides opposite to the right angle is the longest
side of the triangle.
This means that theorems in Mathematics require no trust. On the other
hand, Mathematics nowadays is becoming increasingly difficult to verify (Khamsi, 2006).
The reason behind this is the use of computers to form proofs, which makes proofs less
accessible because there is little Human participation throughout the process of verification.
An example of this can be seen in the many attempts to find proof for the Kepler Conjecture
(KP). A computer code consisting of tens of thousands of lines was created to find proof of
KP, resulting in a percentage of 99% that the proof is correct. The 1% uncertainty that lasted
for several years immediately contradicts the laws of Mathematics, which eventually results
in placing trust in the Mathematician, and/or the programmer for that matter, as human error
is bound to occur, linking back to the concept of authority. However, it can be argued that
trust can be placed in technology, as it is the main tool of validating the KP. However,
although this scenario currently represents niche aspects of Mathematics, it can be a
determining factor of the future of whether Mathematics will involve a certain element of
trust in accepting its knowledge claims.
Limited to the context of the title, I have explored the applicability of this title’s
claim, and whether or not involving an element of trust during the process of accepting
knowledge even made any difference to the knowledge. Though its effect is minimal in
definite AOKs to a certain extent, trust can alter the acceptance of knowledge. Before
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
researching this paper, I immediately thought that trust was not important when accepting a
knowledge claim, however, trust can be the foundation of accepting knowledge, rather than
an element of it, only in certain AOKs such as History. The proposed arguments mentioned
above altered my initial interpretation of this title, as I am now aware that trust cannot be
placed on proven knowledge claims. However, I personally still believe that accepting
knowledge claims can involve an element of trust in certain AOKs such as History, as there is
trust placed in the interpretation of the Historian. However, trust is not involved in other
AOKs such as Mathematics, despite the probability that the process of verification in
Mathematics is bound to shift over the years due to the increasing dependence on
programmers and technological tools and/or algorithms.
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“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss
this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Word count: 1425
Bibliography:
Bora Bayraktar (2016). Armenian massacres of 1915: the Turkish viewpoint
. [online] euronews. Available at: https://www.euronews.com/2016/04/24/armenian-massacres-of-
1915-the-turkish-viewpoint.
Hands On history, B. (n.d.). A Guide to Interpreting Historical Evidence
. [online] Available at: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/history/handsonhistory/a_guide_to_interpreting.pdf.
Khamsi, R. (2006). Mathematical Proofs Getting Harder to Verify
. [online] New Scientist. Available at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8743-mathematical-proofs-getting-
harder-to-verify/#:~:text=A%20mathematical%20proof%20is%20irrefutably [Accessed 13 Dec. 2020].
Praneeth (n.d.). Pythagoras Theorem - Statement, Formula, Proof and Examples
. [online] BYJUS. Available at: https://byjus.com/maths/pythagoras-theorem/.
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