Ladd’s “Philosophy of Knowledge,” page 130.
XVII
THINKING AND KNOWING
One morning a teacher was awakened by a noise, the like of which he had never heard and hopes never to hear again. It was unlike anything in his former experience. Soon he began to distinguish the hissing of steam and the moaning of men, but the cause was still a mystery. Later, he learned that the blast furnace in the neighborhood had exploded, and that several men were killed and others had been seriously injured by the explosion.
Interpretation of sense-impressions.
The cause of the noise could not be inferred, because there was nothing in his former experience with which it could be compared. The escaping steam and the voices of the suffering workmen were recognized because they could be interpreted in the light of what he had seen and heard before. In order that any one may derive definite knowledge from sense-impressions, there must be something in past experience to give meaning to the new experience.
Observation that issues in knowing is coupled with a process of thought in which the new perception is linked to the ideas which the mind brings to the perception. In other words, observation always involves the element of thinking; without thinking, sense-impressions cannot give us knowledge.
Knowing is impossible without thinking, and yet not all thinking gives ripe to knowing. What is the relation between the two?
What is knowledge?