Knowledge Vs. Shared Knowledge

It is commonly believed that new-born infants have no knowledge of the world. Their minds have often been compared to a blank slate which is subsequently written over with the knowledge that they gain through sensory perception, a way of knowing that refers to what we learn from the five senses that we are born with.
Since the infant is neither in a position to communicate what it experiences nor to obtain knowledge through language, it follows that its knowledge is entirely personal knowledge. It is only later when it learns the language spoken by parents or its care-givers that its store of knowledge is supplemented by shared knowledge, the knowledge that it obtains through interaction with its social environment. In brief, personal knowledge


I will attempt to answer the knowledge question above using a well-known example from Geography, an area of knowledge that is a part of the Natural Sciences. It obtains its knowledge in various ways such as Sensory Perception, Reason, and Experimentation. I will show how ways of knowing can be used to answer the knowledge question above.
Consider the case of Christopher Columbus who is now famous for having discovered the continent of America. He firmly believed that Europeans could reach India and China by sailing westwards. His knowledge was based using Reason to infer that the world was round. More specifically, if the Portuguese had discovered a sea route to India by sailing east, then if the world was round one could also reach India by sailing west
His problem was that in the 15th century, it was thought that people believed on the basis of sensory perception that the world was flat. In other words, his personal knowledge was contradicted by shared knowledge. He needed to prove what he believed by using other ways of knowing such as experimentation, which he could do only by making an actual

It is now known that centuries before Columbus, Leif Ericsson, a Nordic explorer had reached America by sailing westwards from Europe. It is possible, although there is little evidence, that Columbus could have known about the voyage in which case his knowledge is based on shared knowledge.
What seems certain though is that when he attempted to convince others (using only language as a way of knowing), nobody believed him. He did not succeed in transforming his personal knowledge (at least as far as the Spaniards were concerned) into shared knowledge. He could only convince his fellow country-men when returned to Spain and supported his claim by using sensory perception as he bought back all kinds of materials from the islands where he landed.
On balance, one can conclude that, in the case of this particular example, personal knowledge turned out to be more useful than shared knowledge. The reason that I make this claim is that if he had accepted that the shared knowledge of his time (before he made his voyage). He would have not made the discoveries for which he became famous. He may also have been lucky for the Portuguese had already found India by sailing eastwards from Europe for which reason he had no choice but to go west. However this choice still required him to believe that the world was