Knowledge and Its Elements

Description of Knowledge

What is meant by knowledge and the verb to know? This is a simple question, but it is not to be answered simply. Everyone has a direct understanding of this matter, for it is a point of daily experience. In early youth we all learn the practical meaning of knowledge, knowing, and to know. But when we try to analyze this meaning, to reflect upon it and define it, we encounter difficulties. We are much in the position of the great St. Augustine when he was asked whether he knew the meaning of time. “If you mean to ask me,” said the Saint, “whether I know what time is, I answer that I know very well.

But if you ask me to define it for you, I find I cannot?’

Still, in spite of difficulties, we may discover a great deal about knowledge. To begin with, it is a very clear and definite fact. And if this fact will not admit of perfect and exhaustive explanation, it will admit of much and satisfactory explanation. By philosophic investigation we may learn much about the nature of knowledge, its value and trustworthiness, and we may learn to distinguish true knowledge from that which wears its mask, namely, error.

Pritchard says {Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, p. 245) : “Knowledge is simply knowledge, and any attempt to state it in terms of something else must end in describing something which is not knowledge.”

This is hardly a fair statement. True, there is nothing quite like knowledge, and any attempt to state it in terms of something else must end in an imperfect achievement; but not necessarily in a fruitless achievement. Indeed, if no attempt can be made to state knowledge in terms of something else, then no attempt to state it can be made at all, and there is an end of the matter and of all discussion upon the subject. To dismiss the fundamental question of knowledge in this offhand manner is to dismiss all philosophy and to discredit all scientific exposition.

We are not prepared to make such a sweeping surrender to skepticism and silence. We proceed to find out what we can about knowledge, very willing, and anxious, to state it in terms of something else.

If one asks a clear-headed man what is meant by knowledge, one may be told that it is something which men and brutes have—men in a much higher and finer way than brutes—but which plants and lifeless things appear to lack. Pressed for a further word, the clear-headed man may say that to know a thing is to get the thing somehow into one’s head.

The clear-headed man is right. To know a thing is to get the thing into one’s self, to grasp it, to possess it, and yet to leave the thing in its own proper state (its “objective otherness”) unaffected by the fact that it is possessed, grasped, known. To grasp a thing and leave it unaffected by the grasp; to possess a thing and leave it unaltered by the act of possession; to get a thing “into one’s head” and leave it where it is—this it is to know the thing. We shall develop this matter presently. Here we pause to consider the meaning of some valuable terms which indicate the principal elements of knowledge.

Elements of Knowledge

Knowledge involves three chief elements, viz., the one who knows; the thing he knows; the act by which he knows.

The one who knows is called the subject of knowledge, the knowing-subject, or simply the subject. It is important that the term subject be carefully noted.

This is a common term, capable of varied, and even opposed, uses. We speak of the subject of a sentence, the subject of a king, the subject of a discourse, the subject of an action, the subject of a state of being. The etymology of the term gives us an understanding of the point which the different uses of it have in common. For subject is derived from the Latin subjicere, “to throw under,” and is really the passive past participle of the Latin verb. Thus it means something “thrown under,” something “underlying.” The subject of a sentence is “thrown under” the application of the predicate. The subject of a king is “thrown under” the rule of the monarch.

The subject of a discourse is “thrown under” the attention, consideration, and remarks of the speaker.

The subject of an action is “thrown under” the action as its origin or source. The subject of a state of being is “thrown under” its influence as the one affected. In our present study we employ the term subject of knowledge as the one who has the knowledge, is the originator of the knowing-act, is affected by knowledge. The subject is the one who knows.

The thing which the subject knows is called the object of knowledge, or simply the object. The object may be considered in two ways, viz., before it is known, and then it is a knowable object or a knowable; during or after the act by which it is known, and then it is an object known. The object is something outside the subject, which the knowing act brings into the subject as the latter’s possession.

When we say that the object is “outside” the subject, we do not mean that it is outside the subject’s body.

Many things are knowable objects although they are within the body of the knower (the subject). Such things, for example, are muscular contractions, pains, movements of joints, hunger. These things as knowables (that is, before they are taken into the subject by the act of knowing) are not outside the subject’s body, but they are outside the subject as subject, that is, as knowing; they are outside the knowing-power of the subject. Indeed, all the objects of the external senses must be impressed upon their respective organs, must be intra-organic and thus intra-bodily, before they are sensed. Thus they are within the body of the subject, but outside the subject’s knowledge, until they are sensed. We shall speak of this matter again.

The act by which the subject knows the object is called cognition. This word is a direct Latin derivative, and comes to us from cognitio, “knowledge,” which, in turn, comes from cognoscere, “to begin to know, to learn, to become acquainted with.” To sum up: The chief elements of knowledge are subject, object, and cognition. We have defined these terms accurately according to the technical usage of Criteriology. The student is now warned to be on the alert for the use of the terms in a transferred sense. Scientific writers are likely to employ them loosely. Thus the term cognition, which is the act of knowing, is sometimes used for the fruit of the act, that is, for knowledge itself, as in the Shakespearean line, “I will not be myself, nor have cognition of what I feel: I am all patience.” Again, the term knowledge, which is the product of cognition, is sometimes used for the object of knowledge, as in the expression, “Mathematics is a branch of knowl; edge.” Sometimes the term object, which is the thing knowable or known, is used in the sense of worth or purpose, as in the remark, “What is the object of this research? What object does your study serve?”

When subject, object, and cognition come together, the result is a piece of knowledge in the subject. We say “a piece of knowledge,” and not simply “knowledge,” because the latter term is usually employed to designate all or some of the fruits of the subject’s cognitions, and not the single product of a single act of cognition.

Summary Of The Article

In this very brief article we have given, in a broad and general way, a description of the thing called knowledge, and of the meaning of the verb to know.

We have indicated the chief elements involved in knowledge, viz., the subject, the object, and cognition, and we have defined these terms with technical exactness. We have made the prudent resolution not to be misled when our reading shows us the terms in transferred or inexact application.