How can you really know anything?

In philosophy this week, we are exploring the concept of knowledge and what it mean to actually ‘know’ anything. And I have to write an essay. The first essay I’ve had to write since high school. Great. To say I’m anxious about it would be a massive understatement. In fact, I’m so excited that I’m writing this blog post and watching Cody Miller on YouTube instead of working on said essay. I’ll be sure to post it on this blog when it’s done and handed in, but that won’t be for a couple of weeks yet. Alright, on to the content…

Philosophers have been asking this question pretty much since we were able to ask it, and while reading the textbook for this class (co-written by one of the professors at my Uni) so many questions and comments and statements were popping into my head that I didn’t know what to do with them all. Is this the beginning of my philosophical work? Maybe. After all, this is only my first philosophy class, so there’s plenty of time to get disenchanted by the topic. I don’t see that happening though.

One of the reasons I’ve waited so long to get a degree is because I really didn’t have a passion for anything that was being taught. A little life experience though and I think philosophy is a good fit for me. Why? Well mostly because I’ve spent my life so far in an exploration of what it means to be human through yoga, meditation, mindfulness, teaching, leading, observing etc. My favourite part about life is having conversations about these topics with people.

Trying to come up with a set of conditions that quantifies knowledge has been a fun experiment and really opens up the idea of being unsure if you can really know with certainty anything at all. If you’re interested in the topic drop me a comment and I’ll write some more posts about it. For now though, I have to focus on my essay.