Bertrand Russell's Theory Of Knowledge Analysis

“Without APPLICATION in the world, the VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE is greatly DIMINISHED.” Consider this claim with respect to TWO areas of knowledge.

We shall see that, on average, people rarely assign value to knowledge, as they may display utter indifference towards it. However, should they do, generally, the value that most people choose to assign to a piece of knowledge will be proportional to the frequency and apparent effect of its application on the scale of their lives. However, knowledge itself comes in different forms and there might be a thin line between application and non-application of knowledge, and the scale of value for knowledge might not be that well-defined. Consequently, the answer to whether or not the value of knowledge is

I prefer a more developed version of Russell’s theory, which includes a third category; procedural knowledge. I shall now attempt to muse over the nature of each category, and its applications. Knowledge by acquaintance, which refers to first-hand awareness of one’s experiences (DePoe, n.d.), I assume, will find application in influencing the knower’s future decisions and in re-counting the said experiences to others; as a child who has experienced the burning of fire would avoid fires and warn others against playing with fire. Similarly, procedural knowledge, which refers to knowledge of how to do things (Dunn, 2013), I believe, finds application in the actual performance of the concerned deeds and in the passing on of that knowledge to others. Propositional knowledge, which has to do with facts (Dunn, 2013), I believe, finds application in the generation of more propositional knowledge and in the teaching of this knowledge. This is the knowledge whose application in the world is prone to much

Scientific knowledge finds application in industry and in the development of further theories. To a physicist whose work involves drawing from the existing theories to probe deeper into nature through development of further theories, every single theory in the natural sciences ought to be very valuable; from Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Because of the nature of the evolution of scientific knowledge- scientists build on past theories, discard the ones that fail tests and assume new ones in their replacement- it is not unexpected that even the discarded theories are so well regarded by scientists; for even those theories did pave the way for more correct ones. This reasoning shows that even when a piece of scientific knowledge no longer finds application, as is the case with the geocentric model which is no longer used to describe the universe, its value in the eyes of the scientists remains