The Importance of Knowledge

August 7. 2012 To understand something completely we must first let go all of our prejudices and our pre-conceptions about such subject. Since we are born and we are being raised In a certain family with certain beliefs, In a region were traditions are taught from a very young age, we start being molded for what we will believe and respect the rest of our lives. Each time we learn something new or analyze a new subject, we, Judge the subject with our own prejudices and pre-conceptions, even if that is not our intention, and that is what it makes more difficult to analyze a subject deeply with a free intellect.

Probably no one or very few people are able to see a subject without any former prejudices or pre-conceptions, and if that is possible it has to be extremely difficult. Since the day we come out of our moms womb we start being raised by our parent’s. They teach us important values and start molding us with the knowledge that probably we would use all through our lives. As we grow and we start acquiring knowledge, we start forming our personality and we learn and adopt what we see in the environment we live In.

This could be very helpful because some of the things we learn when we are young help us later in life, but in the field of philosophy this can be very harmful because this knowledge and pre-conceptions will affect the way we see each subject and the way we will analyze it. We learn new things everyday and we also wonder new enigmas and questions that are currently unresolved or that we don’t know the answers yet.

When we face these enigmas and try to solve them, we start “attacking” them with the knowledge we have already acquired, we don’t attack the problem from zero, with a free intellect, and that blocks us from the mall objective, that Is to acquire knowledge as pure as It can be, without prejudices, without any feelings getting hurt or without the stubbornness we show when someone tries to change something we thought we knew already. Even if we wanted or not our senses and our conscience interfere with the truth, or with the true knowledge.

Using the free Intellect has to be Impossible, or near impossible, because a person does not simply forgets or is able to ignore all his senses and his prejudices and approach a subject freely and in an impersonal way. If someone is able to use the free Intellect there Is only a few subjects or questions In which those people can use it because it is very difficult that one person can use the free intellect in all subjects, due to the fact that the majority of people feels closely attached to the knowledge they already possess about the world and its enigmas.

We value everything we have learned in our lives very much, because some of that knowledge has come to us the hard way, by past experiences or long nights without 1 OFF sleeping and thinking about the questions we don’t know the answers yet. Probably why it is so difficult to approach a new subject or question without using those experiences, that had helped us solve other problems. But if we want to completely understand a subject, we have to be able to let go our prejudices and pre- conceptions and see the world freely, see the world as God might see it.