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**TOKish ** Come on baby, light my brain! "I do not know whether we will ever reach mature adulthood. Many things in our experience convince us that the historical event of the Enlightenment did not make us mature adults, and we have not reached that stage yet. However, it seems to me that a meaning can be attributed to that critical interrogation on the present and on ourselves which Kant formulated by reflecting on the Enlightenment. [...] "I do not know whether it must be said today that the critical task still entails faith in Enligtenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty."(1)

NATURE OF KNOWING

• In English there is one word “know”, while French and Spanish, for example, each has two (savoir/connaître and saber/conocer). In what ways do various languages classify the concepts associated with “to know”? • In English, French, Spanish or Chinese, for example, what is the relationship between the different ways of expressing “know”: “they know of it”, “they know about it”, “they really know it”, “they know that person”, “they know that this is so”, “they know how to do it”? Are there other ways of using the verb “to know”?

//How did I come to know what I know about the world and myself? What ought I to know? What would I like to know that I don’t know? If I want to know about this or that, where can I get the clearest, best and latest information? And where did these other people about me get their ideas about things, which are sometimes so different from mine?// (H.G. Wells)

"Knowing" variously interpreted

• How do “believing that” and “believing in” differ? How does belief differ from knowledge? • What are the differences between the following: information, data, belief, faith, opinion, knowledge and wisdom?

People know many things: they know when they are cold, or sick; they know if they are sad or happy, lonely or in love; they know how to make fire; they know that the sun will set and rise.

Nonetheless people rarely stop to think about the processes by which knowledge is produced, obtained or achieved, nor about why, under what circumstances, and in what ways knowledge is renewed or reshaped by different individuals and groups at different times or from different perspectives or approaches.

Ways of Knowing


 * = [[image:EMOTION.JPG width="317" height="166" link="Emotion"]] ||= [[image:knower.jpg width="267" height="203" caption="KNOWER - Personal and Shared Knowledge" link="Knowledge issues, knowers and knowing"]] ||= [[image:SENSE_PERCEPTION.JPG width="352" height="138" link="Sense perception"]] ||
 * [[image:imagination.png width="348" height="184" link="Imagination"]] || [[image:INTUITION.png width="341" height="191" link="Intuition"]] || [[image:MEMORY.png width="311" height="201" link="Memory"]] ||
 * [[image:REASON.JPG width="358" height="146" align="left" link="Reason"]] || [[image:FAITH.png link="Belief and Faith"]] || [[image:LANGUAGE.JPG width="353" height="131" align="right" link="tokish/Language"]] ||

Areas of Knowledge


 * [[image:maths.jpg width="318" height="282" caption="MATHS" link="Maths"]] || [[image:natural_science.jpg width="243" height="270" caption="NATURAL SCIENCES" link="Natural Sciences"]] || [[image:history.jpg caption="HISTORY" link="History"]] || [[image:art.jpg width="274" height="258" caption="THE ARTS" link="The Arts"]] ||
 * [[image:social_sciences.jpg width="349" height="217" caption="HUMAN SCIENCES" link="Human Sciences"]] || [[image:ethics_good.gif width="285" height="221" caption="ETHICS" link="Ethics"]] || [[image:religious systems.png caption="RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS" link="Religious Knowledge Systems"]] || [[image:indigenous knowledge systems.jpg width="291" height="185" caption="INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS" link="Culture"]] ||



--- (1) Foucault, Michel. What is Enlightenment? - Extract taken from []