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AMADO, Coleen M.

III-37 BSE Physics

G-SS 04

Dr. Guillermo Q. Roman

UNIT II

KNOWLEDGE

We may not notice it but humans always seek for knowledge. I guess it is part of human

nature to desire to know and understand things. This is clearly manifested in the value that we

put in education. Most of the parents even consider education as the greatest gift that they

could give to their children. But our great desire for knowledge doesnt guarantee that we could

attain it, that we could know everything. I believe that it is impossible for us to know everything.

One reason is that human mind has its limitations. Another thing is that there are people, if not

circumstances which set limit to what we could know.

Immanuel Kant, in his Copernican revolution, differentiated noumenal from phenomenal.

Phenomenal is reality as that appears to us through our experience while noumenal is reality as

it is. It is said that we can only acquire phenomenal but not the other one. This is for the reason

that we rely most of the time from our experience. We know something because we experience

it. But the nature of things, that is, the thing itself, we couldnt know. For example , we know that

something is blue in color because this is how our eyes perceive it. But the nature of color blue,

again, we dont know that. Another one is the presence of God. We know that there is God base

from what the church or the Bible says. But the nature of God, of course, we dont know that.

These clearly show that we couldnt know everything because of the limitations of our minds.

Another example is the fact that we couldnt read the minds of other people. We are not

given such ability. Unless people put whats on their mind into words, we wouldnt know of it. We

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could make inference, but still, we wouldnt be absolutely sure. If other people lies to us, we

would be fooled because we dont have a way of knowing what runs on their minds.

Aside from the limitation of the human mind, another reason why we couldnt know

everything is that there are people or circumstances that limit what and how much could we

know. We dont know everything because they hinder us from knowing everything. Its like they

sieve knowledge and only part of the whole is given to us or allowed for us to know.

Examples of this would be the numerous political and social issues that the country is

facing at present. Theres the issue on Sin Tax bill and the RH bill. On these issues, there are

always two sides that oppose each other. Each side has their own arguments with regards to

the certain issue. And it become very confusing as to which side is telling the truth and which

side to believe in. Yes, their arguments may be true, but the question is, is it the truth? Again,

that, we couldnt know.

There are those controversial crimes which up until now, have not yet been given clear

resolution. Though there are people who are paying the price behind the bars, theres a

possibility that they shouldnt be the one being subjected to such. Most of these crimes have

what we call mastermind who planned and ordered his/her men to execute. But these people

are very powerful and rich so most of the time, they are not being apprehended. Another

example is the justice system that operates in the country. We couldnt trust the verdict of the

judges because we know that bribery is very much possible. So how could we know the truth

behind such cases?

You see, there are several factors why human couldnt know everything. It is not

possible do to such. What we can know is only limited to the ability of our minds to know, which

is not absolute, and to what the others want us to know.