KNOWLEDGE AND THE KNOWER

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE?

Zayn Malik. Photo of him and newborn daughter. Instagram, 23 Sep. 2020, source

This is a picture, british singer and former One Direction member, Zayn Malik posted on Instagram after the birth of his first daughter. As a fan myself, I have knowledge that Zayn has mentioned the importance of his family and how he is happy because he is creating one. For this reason, one can assume that he can be happy and excited to have this new chapter of his life. However, I am just a young woman with no children that has grown up completely different from a british man that turned into a celebrity at a young age. This means that our process of gaining knowledge is different due to our culture and upbringings. For this reason, I can only use my own imagination to attempt to understand what he felt like when he became a father. For example, I am able to think of Zayn as a good father due to the fact that he has two younger sisters with the use of my imagination. This is relevant because I have a younger sister, meaning that from my own experience I can create an assumption of Zayn having a similar caring relationship with his sisters. Nevertheless, this is still just an assumption. Going back to the image, we can realize that Zayn now has the knowledge of what it is like to meet their first child and what it takes to be a parent. I will not have knowledge of what it is like to be a parent until I have a type of parental relationship with a child or even have a kid of my own. This happens because I would need to be able to have similar experiences as Zayn because I will learn what it is like to love someone unconditionally. I am able to know that a father should love his child, due to a rational point of view. However, it is different to knowing how it feels like to love a child the way a father does due to the lack of experience I have. All of these examples show the importance of the relationship between personal experiences and what type or amount of knowledge one person can have. In Philosophy, this is known as the theory of Empiricism.

Harry Styles. “Manchester, Live on Tour.” Instagram, photographed by Hélène Pambrun, 10 Apr. 2018, source

This is the second image I chose and it is about another former One Direction member, but in this case, he is on stage for a show in Manchester that was part of his first world tour without his former band. Harry Styles is my favorite singer and a big inspiration for me. However, as shown in the picture, I am not the only one that thinks highly of him. His growing popularity has allowed him to gain knowledge in how to be a professional singer and handle fame. Most people can become famous at a later point in their lives and have a difficult time controlling the consequences of being well known, however, since Styles became famous at a young age, he has a different scope of knowledge than others. In my case, since I was a little girl I have always enjoyed singing and at some point dreamed of becoming a singer. As I grew up, I realized that fame was maybe not for me. From personal experience I gained knowledge that when being in front of big crowds I can get extremely anxious. Apart from not being able to sing well, that is one of the main reasons why I have decided not to follow my dream of becoming a singer. Styles may even continue to gain more knowledge in what techniques work better when he sings and this happens because as he grows older he continues to have more experiences. At the beginning he always seemed nervous and maybe with a little lack of self confidence, but as he continued to experience fame, he became a real star like the one shown in the image. This shows how the scope of knowledge that Harry Styles has helped him become self-aware of what needed to be improved in order to grow as an artist. This example shows how knowledge can also be subjective since it can be guided by emotions and experiences.

Torta Española made by my mom. 10 Apr. 2020. Author’s personal collection.

For my last object, I have a picture of a Torta or Tortilla Española made by my mom. Firstly, it is important to mention that my grandparents from my mothers side of the family are from Spain. It is most likely that if my grandmother were not from Barcelona, then she would not have learned how to cook this dish. She eventually gave my mom the recipe and someday she will give it to me. The relationship between personal experience and knowledge is that my grandmother had to have learned the recipe to make a Torta Española from her family. When you are trying to cook something, you eventually gain knowledge in this area due to the fact that you already experienced cooking the recipe and know what to do or not to do. My grandmother always says that in order to learn or gain knowledge on how to cook, you need to experience it yourself, otherwise you will forget what you did and do not have the knowledge of how to do it again. For example, my mother and grandmother have been making Torta Española since before I was born, so while growing up I would constantly see them cooking one, but I have never experienced making one myself leading to me not having the full knowledge of how to make the recipe.