Walter Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 Just wondering if I could get some help with thinking of the reasons knowledge is produced , in relation to the prescribed essay title for the 2015 November: "The main reason knowledge is produced is to solve problems.†To what extent do you agree with this statement?... or just if you want to add anything in relation... cheers! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vioh Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Just wondering if I could get some help with thinking of the reasons knowledge is produced , in relation to the prescribed essay title for the 2015 November: "The main reason knowledge is produced is to solve problems.†To what extent do you agree with this statement?... or just if you want to add anything in relation... cheers! As part of the forum rules, we are not supposed to give you any ideas on what you should write in your essays. You have to think of the ideas yourself. And once you have done that, you can post those ideas that you have come up with to the forum to ask for our opinions. However, since I have some thoughts about this topic myself, I’ll write them here and perhaps these thoughts can help you get started with the essay. In my opinions, there are 2 main reasons for why knowledge is produced. First, we produce knowledge to solve problems (which is exactly what it says in the title). The second reason is because of our curiosity to understand the world better as well as to generalize all that we know about the world into a coherent and organized piece of knowledge. Usually, curiosity is what that gives rise to theoretical knowledge. On the other hand, solving problems is the reason for why we want to produce practical knowledge. So yeah, I only partly agree with the statement in the title. Of course, these 2 reasons mentioned above may sometimes overlap each other. A piece of knowledge can first be produced by curiosity, and then is expanded to solve real-world problems. For example, mathematicians of the past have invented the concept of imaginary numbers, purely because of their curiosity. However, later on, physicists found that imaginary numbers actually have many applications in the real world - e.g. to solve physics problems in particular. And therefore, physicists decided to expand our knowledge about imaginary numbers. The opposite can also happen. A knowledge can first be produced as a mean to solve a problem, but then is expanded because of our curiosity about nature. For example, one of the original motivations of Newton when he invented the so-called Newtonian mechanics was to solve the problems of planetary motions around the Sun. Later on, the success of Newtonian mechanics in describing the world has encouraged Lagrange's curiosity to create his own version of mechanics (the so-called Lagrangian mechanics) that acts as an alternative formulation to Newtonian mechanics. So you see, even though both Newton & Lagrange was working in the same field, Newton's main motivation was to solve problems, while Lagrange's motivation was curiosity. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you have further questions! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.