Is Knowledge Rational Or Justified

How do we know what we know? That is a question that has been asked by many different people, and has many different explanations. These answers vary from saying we are born knowing certain things, to everything we learn comes from experience. Each of these have different arguments to them, however, they each have a different idea of the basic definitions of knowledge and belief. There are also the questions of whether or not beliefs are rational, and is knowledge justifiable. The standard definition of knowledge is “information, understanding, or skill that you get from experience or education.” (knowledge." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2014). This definition of knowledge is close to my own personal definition of it. I believe knowledge is information that you have acquired through experience that has a low possibility …show more content…
This one is a bit tougher because as mentioned before, beliefs can be disproven therefore making them invalid. However, while they may not be formed by observations they are formed by rational thinking, and in Descartes’ case innate ideas. I think that beliefs are mostly justified however, there are a few problems with this. An example of the positive way that beliefs are justified would be the different theories for God’s existence. The reason why this is justified is that while all of these theories are different they were all formed using rational thinking, logical deduction, and in some cases observation of the natural world. While the evidence might not be as concrete and the theories may change, what does not change is the amount of thinking that people went through to get their own answers. The problem shows up when it comes to the sense, as many people have different religious experiences therefore feeling different things. This makes beliefs a bit unjustified in the sense that it cannot be agreed on by everyone in the same