1.3 Sources of human knowledge

From ancient time, man used several sources to get knowledge to enable him of understanding the world. Among these sources were the attempt and the mistake, the personal experience, the contemplation the inductive approach and deductive approach. Then, the scientific method is discovered.

It's possible to classify the knowledge sources in five kinds:

1.3 Sources of human knowledge

The experience

it is a familiar source of all of us, amongst the most used sources. We can reach many answers to our

questions by using our experiences.

Despite the benefits of the experience, it has its shortage as a source of truth. If a person affected with

specific event depending on his personality. Many individuals get different experiences from the same

situation .The person in need to know things can't be learned by the experience.

The people of confidence

means those the persons who have an experience in the problem which we study, such as the experts

There are aspects of shortage in the people of confidence as a source for knowledge. We sometimes

find contradiction among the people in some issues.

The inductive approach

The idea of induction is old not new, it is outdated since Aristotle, who adopted the idea, induction

means to trace the idea to come to the conclusion, through a comprehensive survey of that idea...

1.3 Sources of human knowledge

...and compare the other approaches that are used in the search, we find that the induction which

Aristotle adopted is based on the generalization, or we find some particles in all, when these particles

are found, there can be here generalization in judgment, and we can use these particles or some and

generalize on all, we find that it moves from particle to another through it. We find Aristotle is the first on

drawing an approach to reach the correct knowledge; we can trust it on the basis of the actual viewing

"Bacon" It is a diverse, there are a full induction, and incomplete induction.

The deductive approach

The Greek philosophers were the first who put an organized way to getting the knowledge, Aristotle and

his companies were the first who used the deductive approach that can be described that it is the

operation in which the person moves from general to particular, with the use of specific bases of the

logic. It is a way to organize the information for reaching conclusions. It's possible to achieve that by the

use of the dialectical logic. The dialectical problem consists of a group of phrases have a relationship

among them. The final phrase called the result.

In the deductive approach if the premises were right, the result is the necessarily right. The deductive

approach enables us to organize the issues in types that give decisive demonstration of the...

1.3 Sources of human knowledge

...validity of the result.

But the deductive approach has its aspects of shortage the person must start with right premises until

reaches the right result, and the result can't exceeds the premises content. Whereas the deduction of the

results is necessarily a kind of the redundancy in the present knowledge in the past, it's not possible to

make the scientific investigation with the use of the deductive approach only, because of the difficulty in

showing the complete truth to many of the phrases that treat scientific phenomena. The deductive

approach is useful in the process of search, despite his aspects of shortage.

The scientific method

When we compare the scientific method with other sources of knowledge, such the experience or the

people of confidence or the inductive approach or the deductive approach, we find that the scientific

method is the most effective and stable.

Also the inductive approach and the deductive approach have a limited value, if they used individually.

The researchers quickly learned to achieve the integration between the inductive approach and the

deductive approach in a single way, called the deductive inductive approach, or what we call the

scientific method.