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Two Ways In Which Mankind Can Produce Knowledge

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2. “There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge: through passive observation or through active experiment.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? In order to answer the question in the title, let us explain the terms that seem to play an important role in developing an answer. What is knowledge and how can humans produce it? What do we understand by passive observation and active experiment? Knowledge includes everything that we have learnt through our personal experiences, skills that we have acquired during our life, access to information structured in different areas of knowledge. Knowledge is a combination between personal and shared knowledge. The adventure of gaining knowledge never ends, that is why …show more content…

By active experiment, I understand an action made to demonstrate a certain premise in experimental conditions, analyzing the results. The aim of this essay is to find an answer to the main knowledge question that is raised: ”To what extent can there exist any other ways in which humankind can produce knowledge, excepting passive observation or active experiment?”. Natural sciences is the area of knowledge that is always developing through observation and experiments. Passive observation, I might say, it is the foundation of every science. How could have Newton develop the Universal Law of Gravitation without observing how the apple was attracted by the force of gravity, and fell on his head. Extrapolating his thoughts, he realized that everything in the universe draws every other object – a gravitational pull – which is in proportion to its mass. Thus, observation was, at least until the years of the Industrial Revolution (sec. XVIII-XIX) a stronger way of producing knowledge than through active experiment. Nowadays, scientists generate knowledge through active experiment. So, the balance seems to tilt to the knowledge produced by the active

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