Knowledge is continually growing and an unthinkable amount of knowledge has existed within an unthinkable length of time. This means some knowledge may never be knowable to particular knowers due to the nature of the knower and their perspective.  

For this exhibition, I have chosen a picture of my CAS journal which contains written reflections of past experiences that I had within the IB. From my perspective, my CAS journal is a good source of posteriori knowledge as it reminds me of how I felt during CAS activities. In addition, I may remember some information about the activities making this knowledge more reliable to me. This means that I could say I know how I felt and what happened due to the evidence in the journal and my memory. However, from someone else’s perspective, they may read the journal and have interpretations on how I felt and an understanding of what happened but this knowledge is unknowable to them. This is because of the limitations the journal has in providing the truth. For example, details may have been missed or hidden and the language may be misunderstood. Their perspective also means that these experiences aren’t personal to them, leaving gaps in their knowledge. The knowledge could also become completely unknowable as it could be lost within time. For example, it’s unlikely that the journal would be intact several years later, meaning the knowledge inside could be unknowable to the knowers of that time period.  

The CAS journal shows how subjectivity is an important factor in determining the acquisition of knowledge as it highlights how one knower may know something while another knower can’t know that same knowledge. However, can knowledge be objectively unknowable? For example, reality could be unknowable to everyone. This has caused immense debate especially in philosophy. It’s argued that senses (empirical knowledge) can be deceiving and therefore nobody can be certain of or know reality as most of the knowledge we gain about reality is affected by our senses. Additionally, we may never know if we’re hidden from one single true reality or if that reality exists in the first place. This can cause panic amongst knowers as they may start questioning their existence/truth. 

Overall, some things are unknowable to individuals but also to communities of knowers. This could be viewed positively and negatively depending on the knower’s perspective and could also cause knowledge issues and limitations. 

Knowledge is acquired by the knower. This makes knowledge subjective as each individual will accept or reject knowledge in multiple different ways due to their different perspectives. This makes defining what counts as knowledge an incredibly difficult task.  

In this exhibition, I have used and highlighted the image of onion cells under a light microscope of x100 magnification. This image was taken from my IB biology class while we were examining cells. In today’s science, this image is presented as a form of knowledge because scientists (the knowers) have found this out and accepted (acquired) it. From their perspective, it’s true that onions are made of cells and that these cells look like the image above. However, scientists before the cell theory believed in the spontaneous generation theory (the idea that living organisms came to life out of non-living matter). This theory clashes with the cell theory therefore this image may not have been enough to be counted as knowledge for those scientists as it goes against their truth. This emphasizes the idea that knowledge (and what counts as knowledge) is subjective and depends on the individual’s values and whether the knowledge is true to them.  

This implies that anything could be knowledge even if it’s not true to an individual because it could be true to another individual. However, could false knowledge count as knowledge? For example, a lie could be counted as knowledge because the person who believes in the lie thinks it’s true therefore it’s knowledge to them. However, the person who told the lie knows it’s not true so they will have a different view on the situation. Perspectives could also change. For example, the person might find out their knowledge was false, causing them to reject the lie. This might make them stop counting the lie as knowledge as it no longer corresponds to the truth. A knower could also reject knowledge even if it still counts it as knowledge. For example, the person who was lied to finds out the truth but refuses to accept it as the truth. This could be the person rejecting the knowledge even though it very likely counts as knowledge.  

Overall, knowledge could be true, false and rejected and there are numerous ways to count knowledge. It could be just about anything.