Which Sources of Knowledge- Books, Web Sites, the Media, Personal Experience, Authorities or Some Other- Do You Consider Most Trustworthy, and Why?
Which sources of knowledge- books, web sites, the media, personal experience, authorities or some other- do you consider most trustworthy, and why? In this essay I will be looking at the statement above in relation to the problems of knowledge, using where appropriate my experiences as a knower. To determine which source of knowledge one can claim to be the most trustworthy one would have to define them all first. The proposed sources are: books, websites, media, personal experience and authorities. After I have defined each source of knowledge, I will be looking at the reliability of each source, helping justifying my findings with the help of the problems of knowledge we have identified in class. Truth plays a large role in considering which source of knowledge is the most trustworthy. With truth there are many problems involved, for something to be true it has to be believed to be true and there have to be good grounds for it to be believed to be true. This links to perception, truth I think largely depends on the way one perceives it to be reliable. . . When talking about books one can already distinguish between the fiction and nonfiction books. Fiction is usually defined as fantasy and non real yet sometimes the author of the book makes it seem like non-fiction. This makes it sometimes hard for the reader to say if it is fiction or not. Due to the fact that fiction is fantasy it can be said that it is not considered to be true. Therefore fiction is not trustworthy as a source of knowledge. The other type of book is non-fiction. In the Oxford School Dictionary it is defined as "writings that are not fiction; books about real people and things and true events." With this one can already identify a problem of knowledge: how can one say that something is true or not? Yet it has become a type of "to deem worthy" in society that nonfiction books are seen as reliable sources of knowledge. With these non-fiction books one must always be aware of possible biased