Archive for the ‘epistemology’ tag
Justified True Belief
Education for Human Flourishing, Cover
After rattling the reader’s cage by exploring Have you been properly educated?, Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis argue:
Most of the abilities that we associate with knowledge in the educational field turn out to be mostly a capacity to recite. … As humans we are constantly engaged in mental activities. We constantly access and categorize everything around us. We experience the world around us and we have beliefs about the world, some of which are true and some of which are false. We justify our ideas through our rational capacities, by which we set up a system of understanding that arbitrates what can be constituted as knowledge, what is and is not an accurate depiction of reality.
To claim we know something implies we have sufficiently good reasons to say the things we believe are as we say they are. Knowledge is justified true belief. Each of these categories — justification, truth and belief — plays a necessary but not sufficient role in determining knowledge, and each should be explained in order to see how belief, justification and truth form an integrated concept of knowledge. – Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective.* InterVarsity Press, 2009. p.103-4) .
Questions …
- Are Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis on track with their definition of knowledge? Note: earlier they distinguish three types of knowledge
- technical knowledge or what is more commonly called know-how
- propositional knowledge, which is knowledge of facts
- knowledge of acquaintance, which is knowledge about something in direct awareness (78-80, 103).
- How do you define knowledge and describe it’s acquisition in general, in your discipline?
- What scholars/resources/books have you found most helpful in shaping your understanding of knowledge?
*Find the title appealing? Then check out the Preface & Precis of Book and Chapters.
Have you been properly educated?
Education for Human Flourishing, Cover
Educational standards are the foundation of the modern educational endeavor. Statements about educational success imply standards. Measuring whether or not students are being properly educated involves testing them in particular subjects with its prescribed set of grade-appropriate standards that they must meet or exceed (Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis. Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective.* InterVarsity Press, 2009. p.100).
The battery of standardized tests which Spears and Loomis go onto describe and critique in Chapter 3: Who Knows? Education and epistemology are not just applicable my fourth grade twin girls, as I hear a variety of students/educators in higher education discuss standardized tests with some frequency (particularly at PSU-Hershey Medical Center). Here are the questions Spears and Loomis bring to our attention:
- What do such tests actually tell us about the student’s intelligence, ability, creativity, insightfulness or grasp of reality?
- Do current standards provide an accurate way to assess a genuine education?
- What does it mean to be educated?
- How do educators determine the success or failure of our educational project? (p. 100)
Any responses? Do the “answers” vary depending on the level, sphere of education
- Fourth graders
- Medical students
- Undergraduate History major prepare to teach Secondary Education versus preparing for Graduate School
- Computer Science PhD student headed to Microsoft versus a Faculty position involving Research/Teaching
- Vo-Tech student
As you’re mulling these things over, here are the three types of knowledge the authors discuss in chapter 2 and remind the reader of in chapter 3:
- technical knowledge or what is more commonly called know-how
- propositional knowledge, which is knowledge of facts
- knowledge of acquaintance, which is knowledge about something in direct awareness (103).
More coming from Chapter 3.
*Find the title appealing? Then check out the Preface & Precis of Book and Chapters.
