Difference Between Personal And Shared Knowledge

Ways of knowing operate differently in personal and shared knowledge in some circumstances, but operate quite similarly in others. This is due to either unexpected or extraordinary circumstances, or differences in personal beliefs. Personal knowledge refers to the way in which each individual person understands, creates, and interprets knowledge presented to them either through observation or in the form of shared knowledge. Shared knowledge refers to “facts” or claims or theories that are generally accepted by the consensus of people. As an example, if an English class is reading a novel, then each individual student may have a slightly or wildly different interpretation of what the novel is about, however, there are likely to be one, or a few, common interpretations that are presented by the teacher. The individual interpretations are personal knowledge, but the material presented by the teacher is shared knowledge. It is worth noting that personal and shared knowledge …show more content…
As an example within the way of knowing that is sight, each person may see the colour green slightly differently and it would be impossible to tell, but excepting colourblind people there is definitely a general consensus that leaves and grass is green, despite slightly differing personal knowledge. It can also be argued that every person’s interpretation of shared knowledge is slightly different, and therefore when shared knowledge is applied there is always an aspect of personal knowledge. The ways of knowing operate slightly differently within each area of knowledge, and so in order to assess the claim presented this essay will debate the claim within the areas of maths, ethics, and literature.
Within the area of maths, there is a discord between personal and shared knowledge, in that shared knowledge