KNOWLEDGE

The Nature of Human Knowledge

"Whoever follows a path in search of knowledge, Allah will ease the path of Paradise for him/her. The angels lower their wings over the seeker of knowledge, being pleased with what he [she] does. The inhabitants of the heavens and the earth and even the fish in the depth of the oceans seek forgiveness for him [her]. The superiority of the learned man [woman] over the devout worshipper is like that of the full moon to the rest of the stars (i.e., in brightness). The learned are the heirs of the Prophets who bequeath neither dinar nor dirham but only that of knowledge; and he who acquires it [knowledge], has in fact acquired an abundant portion." (Narrated by Abu-Darda in Abu Dawud and At- Tirmidhi, 13/1388)

  1. Eurocentric History is an expression of European Power. It places European at center stage of civilization and excludes all other contributions. To cleanse our minds of this poison, it is necessary to see all of humanity as having woven the fabric of civilization together.

  2. Massive misunderstandings about the nature of knowledge were created by Logical Positivism. These persist, and continue to confuse and mislead people.

  3. In particular, this was one factor which led to the Deification of Science -- the extremely harmful idea that science is the only source of valid knowledge about the world.

  4. Materialism: Another consequence of Positivism was the idea that invisibles do not matter, and knowledge can only be of the material world. Thus the wrong side was chosen in the battle between Materialism versus Idealism Another aspect is the pursuit of material comforts, pleasures, and wealth, instead of the true spiritual and internal determinant of contentment.

  5. Power/Knowledge. In the battle of ideas, theories which prevail often have to do with which party is more powerful, and not which theory is right. This is also called the "political economy" aspect of economics.

  6. UNLEARNING: Large numbers of our ideas about the world are part of received wisdom which is wrong. Unlearning these is required to clear the path to acquisition of knowledge

    1. Islamic views on the nature of knowledge, and the centrality of teaching, learning & education.

    2. Mistakes in development of Social Science.

    3. How these Impacted modern Economic Theory.

    4. How these mistakes affected Econometrics.

While important insights have been neglected, treatments of the problem were much impaired by the empiricist illusion that the facts could speak for themselves. Geoffrey Hodgson: How Economics Forgot History