The Value Of Knowledge

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“It is only knowledge produced with difficulty that we truly value.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? In both natural science and human science, reason and emotion are used to assign the value of the knowledge and whether it is produced with difficulty. Knowledge can be shown through justified true belief which includes personal and shared knowledge, proven facts, experiences and claims. The pursuit of value in knowledge is driven by the desire to create meaning through reason or emotion, and to improve people’s livelihoods. In today’s society, knowledge related to natural science is most valuable and people believe that it is the key to innovation, comfortable living and wealth. This belief has led most countries to provide…show more content…
In natural sciences, a lot of time and effort is spent on experimentation but the outcomes are not always valuable. For example, NASA’s space shuttle program, whose purpose was to pave the way for space exploration and reduce the cost of space access. The shuttle cost in excess of $200 billion US dollars, and required 17,000 employees to keep it running. Yet after years of effort, the program did not fulfil its goals. It was shut down without leaving any obvious value. Perversely, the low value we may assign to a particular knowledge can increase the difficulty of acquiring it. For instance, I have little interest in how the current landscape was formed from millions of years of lava explosion or coastal erosion, they are simply too long ago for me to relate to, and offers me little value. Thus, my lack of interest in geology made it very difficult for me to learn and study…show more content…
The hierarchy of knowledge depends on historical development and is continuously changing throughout the years. Knowledge becomes obsolete with every new discovery. For example no one values steam engines or mechanical looms even though they both represented hard won breakthroughs at the time of their invention. Similarly, Roman aqueducts represented significant progress in European Antiquity; yet today, they are valued by historians and museums. In the 6th century, Pythagoras stated that the Earth was flat through physical theory and observational evidence. The flat view of the Earth continued to be widely held until the 17th century, which is no more than a curiosity today. In the arts, the famous French painter Vincent Van Gogh was an outcast socially and his artwork was ignored throughout his entire life. His true recognition followed only after his death, as his works began to sell and became more valuable. This shows how art becomes more valuable over time as people need to understand the historical context of the art piece and what it represents. These are example of knowledge whose value was only recognized decades or centuries

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