Can We Have Beliefs or Knowledge Which Are Independent of Our Culture
BAFOKENG SEKALELI TOK ESSAY
CAN WE HAVE BELIEFS OR KNOWLEDGE WHICH ARE INDEPENDENT OF OUR CULTURE?
The main aim of the essay is to find out if we have beliefs or rather knowledge which are independent of our culture. To do my investigation, I am going to follow different areas of beliefs and culture that I need. Culture is roughly perhaps a range of activities which are cultivated as a pattern of behaviour in a group of humans over time, and the manifest fruits of that behaviour. This would presumably include manifestations like the arts as well as structural behaviours such as organisational ethics.
The next thing to do is to look at the word, independent. These days, it implies separation or lack of relation between two entities. It can also mean that there is no clear relationship and hence we can imagine the two entities in this case to be culture and beliefs/knowledge to have little to do with each other. Belief is faith, trust or theory that doesn’t need corroboration or evidence. Also, a belief is a system of thought that is compromised of the information we have accumulated and stored in our brains. Collectively this provides a worldview and mechanism by which we interpret new information and assess how our experience in the world should be managed. What is important to understand is that such a belief does not have any intrinsic validity beyond the fact that it is the way in which data has been organized within our brains and it appears to provide us, individually, with a model against which we interpret the world around us. Beliefs can be religious or societal.
Furthermore, Knowledge according to my definition is the means by which "facts" can be gathered to reinforce, or refute, different aspects of the information contained within our belief system. Often, it is asserted that something is "true" or "factual", but neither of these are actually relevant since the only consequence of knowledge that we
CAN WE HAVE BELIEFS OR KNOWLEDGE WHICH ARE INDEPENDENT OF OUR CULTURE?
The main aim of the essay is to find out if we have beliefs or rather knowledge which are independent of our culture. To do my investigation, I am going to follow different areas of beliefs and culture that I need. Culture is roughly perhaps a range of activities which are cultivated as a pattern of behaviour in a group of humans over time, and the manifest fruits of that behaviour. This would presumably include manifestations like the arts as well as structural behaviours such as organisational ethics.
The next thing to do is to look at the word, independent. These days, it implies separation or lack of relation between two entities. It can also mean that there is no clear relationship and hence we can imagine the two entities in this case to be culture and beliefs/knowledge to have little to do with each other. Belief is faith, trust or theory that doesn’t need corroboration or evidence. Also, a belief is a system of thought that is compromised of the information we have accumulated and stored in our brains. Collectively this provides a worldview and mechanism by which we interpret new information and assess how our experience in the world should be managed. What is important to understand is that such a belief does not have any intrinsic validity beyond the fact that it is the way in which data has been organized within our brains and it appears to provide us, individually, with a model against which we interpret the world around us. Beliefs can be religious or societal.
Furthermore, Knowledge according to my definition is the means by which "facts" can be gathered to reinforce, or refute, different aspects of the information contained within our belief system. Often, it is asserted that something is "true" or "factual", but neither of these are actually relevant since the only consequence of knowledge that we