What is propositional knowledge? How does it differ from practical knowledge?

Propositional knowledge is the knowledge of a fact or the truth of what is believed;

justified fact. While practical knowledge is the knowledge that is acquired by day-to-day
hands-on experiences and is often called know-how because it is the ability to know how to
do something. This type of knowledge is implicit or unconscious and is the knowledge that we
utilize every day. Propositional knowledge is different because it is more theoretical knowledge
(reading books, learning through manuals) while practical knowledge is the outcome of gaining
the theories learned.
2. What does it mean to know? What are guesses, opinions, and mere beliefs about
knowledge?

As stated by Nicolas Rescher that knowledge is not just an activity, whether a

mental or psychological process. But to which is a condition that one comes to gain
the relation of information thus attaining knowledge of something. Beliefs, guess
and opinions are not enough to consider as facts since it is based on personal
biases of the person to person his or her own “knowledge”. When someone says “I
believe” it is not the same as you would “I know it” since it is always mixed with the
personal experience and biases of the person to implicate the so-called knowledge
with or without based on the actual justified true belief. This also may not lead to
the receiver’s correct or factual statements thus it would lead to confusion.

3. Why do we need knowledge? And why do we need a Theory of Knowledge?

As Aristotle quoted that humans seem to be inquisitive, thus curious about almost
everything. As per with Nicholas Rescher, knowledge brings great benefits and frees
humans from ignorance of life. As a need for understanding nature, knowledge is
one of the most fundamental demands of human nature or condition. As for the
theory of knowledge, we need to validate the knowledge not only on the level of
subjectivity but also on the level of objectivity.

4. What is the Problem of Knowledge?

The problem of knowledge starts when one begins to think of uncertainty of ideas and
becomes doubtful. Some established the condition of philosophical skepticism, which can be a
problem in building those ideas. But because of these problems that arose, there has been a
positive outcome on which others suggested that it is fear that has led to the development of
Epistemology.
In Lorraine Doston and Peter Galison's work Objectivity, they wrote:

All epistemology begins in fear - fear that the world is too labyrinthine to be threaded by reason; fear
that the senses are too feeble and the intellect too frail; fear that memory fades, even between
adjacent steps of a mathematical demonstration; fear that authority and convention blind; fear that
God may keep secrets or demons deceive. Objectivity is a chapter in this history of intellectual fear, of
errors anxiously anticipated and precautions taken. But the fear objectivity addresses is different
from and deeper than the others. The threat is not external- a complex world, a mysterious God, a
devious demon. Nor is it the corrigible fear of senses that can be strengthened by a telescope or
microscope or memory that can be buttressed by written aids. Individual steadfastness against
prevailing opinion is no help against it because it is the individual who is suspect.

Objectivity fears subjectivity, the core self. Descartes could discount the testimony of the senses
because sensation did not belong to the core self as he conceived it, res cogitans. Bacon believed the
idols of the cave, those intellectual failings that stemmed from individual upbringing and predilection
could be corrected by the proper countermeasures, as a tree bent the wrong way could be
straightened. But there is no getting rid of, no counterbalancing post-Kantian subjectivity. Subjectivity
is the precondition for knowledge: the self who knows.

This is the reason for the ferociously reflexive character of objectivity, they will be pitted against the
will, the self against the self. This explains the power of objectivity, an epistemological therapy more
radical than any other because the malady it treats is radical, the root of both knowledge and error.
The paradoxical aspirations of objectivity explain both its strangeness and its stranglehold on the
epistemological imagination. It is epistemology taken to the limit. Objectivity is to epistemology what
extreme asceticism is to morality. Other epistemological therapies were rigorous: Plato's rejection of
the senses, for example, or Descartes's radical doubt. But objectivity goes beyond rigor. The demands
it makes on the knower outstrip even the most strenuous forms of self-cultivation, to the brink of self-
destruction (pp. 374-375).

Question:

Why did Epistemology begin in fear?

Reflect on the foregoing paragraphs and write an essay (Don't ask me how long should the
essay be; the rigors of your reasoning will determine the length of your essay.) on the battle
between objectivity and subjectivity.

As Aristotle said “humans are born to be intuitive’ and believed that human beings by rationality desire
explanations of things. thus the human’s thirst for knowledge grows day by day. but since every human
has its interpretation, hence the act of gaining knowledge has been divided into two: objectivity and
subjectivity. Using objectivity means the gained knowledge is not influenced by personal feelings in
considering and representing facts and truth. While subjectivity is based on personal feelings and
opinions. Whilst objectivity fears subjectivity due to its denying the truths of the knowledge, we cannot
deny the fact that the human intellect is frail and senses are too feeble.

Humans are vulnerable to uncertainty thus fearing that they become more doubtful of the truths
handed to them and humans become paranoid in knowing what is truth or not, as quoted by Daston and
Galison. And because humans seeks the truth and because of that fear led to the need for a Theory of
knowledge to unveil and strip off subjectivity from objectivity and thus epistemology began.