Some areas of knowledge are discovered and others are invented. In order to explain this we must first set definitions for our terms. Knowledge is data in human usable form. For example, the contents of a telephone book is knowledge. However, it we mix the contents so the names, addresses and phone numbers do not match, it becomes only data, and useless data at that. Discovery is the uncovering of something that is true and was true before the discovery.
Since we are dealing with knowledge, we must qualify this and say that discovered knowledge was true when the first discovery was made by the first human who discovered it. Invented knowledge is that which some intelligence, in this case, a human, created. It did not exist its creation. These terms are a bit slippery, so we set them within these boundaries so that our argument does not become an argument of English word meanings. In order to clarify this we will give examples of each and discuss them.
Discovered Knowledge
Descartes, precisely because of his unhistorical temper, was the first to succeed in the historic act of liberation. For he never merely took over conclusions but re-embodied in himself the original power of philosophical thinking.” (Cassirer 13) It was he who made one of the most memorable discoveries: “I think, therefore, I am.” (Descartes 1631) In his Discourse on the Method he outlines a set of principles that he sees as true without doubt. He calls his method “hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt”, and it is sometimes called “methodological scepticism”: he rejects any ideas which can be doubted. (Copenhaver, Rebecca 2009) Descartes broke down scientific method into four parts in order to figure out what he knew.
He discovered what he knew by using his invented method for examining truth. Basically, his theory of knowledge followed this pattern: trusting only what you know by first-hand observation, breaking down all knowledge to its smallest parts, examining everything thoroughly in small parts and keeping careful records.
Using this method, we discover facts. However, when we try to justify the knowledge or find the origin of the discovery, we may begin to invent knowledge. The invention of various gods over the centuries is one case in point. Most of these, or possibly all, were invented and were knowledge for the time. That the existence of the various gods may not have been true is not relevant.
Remember that knowledge is data in human usable form. The invention of gods to explain the existence of everything else is human-invented data. Knowledge is not necessarily truth. However, knowledge is based upon fact. Rescher proposed that fact is an actual aspect of reality while truth is its linguistic representation.
Descartes on Method
“The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.
And the last, in every case, to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.” (Descartes 1631)
“Truths are linguistically formulated facts, correct statements which, as such, must be formulated in language (broadly understood to include symbol systems of various sorts). A “truth” is something that has to be framed in linguistic/symbolic terms–the representation of a fact through its statement in some language–so that any correct statement formulates a truth. A “fact,” on the other hand, is not a linguistic item at all, but an actual aspect of the world’s state of affairs. A fact is thus a feature of reality. (12) Facts correspond to potential truths whose actualization as such waits upon their appropriate linguistic embodiment. Truths are statements and thereby language-bound, but facts outrun linguistic limits. Once stated, a fact yields a truth, but with facts at large there need in principle be no linguistic route to get from here to there.” (Rescher)
Invented Knowledge
As stated before, we often invent knowledge to explain discovered knowledge. This does not make it untrue, as truth or untruth of knowledge does not change its being knowledge. The data of the knowledge may be true when it is invented, but it can become untrue afterwards. The earlier example of gods invented to explain cosmology is an area where the knowledge was true for its time in the sense that it organized the universe and the world but was later replaced by different (also invented) knowledge.
Actually, the knowledge did not change, only its qualities changed. That is, some still ascribed the existence of everything to gods, but the gods changed in their form and character. (Stace 139) Stace poses the idea that any “thing” can have dual or plural existence, and our knowledge of it may not be complete. “The mind, having invented a construction for the purposes of simplification and convenience, meets with new facts which do not square with the constructed belief.
It is forced either to retrace its steps, abandon the ground which it has gained, and give up the construction or even the system of constructions (which may well constitute a large block of its scheme of knowledge), or, in order to avoid this, it is compelled to manufacture new constructions or systems of constructions which will reintroduce harmony and avoid contradictions. In this way, human knowledge grows as well as by the accumulation of new facts and inferences.” (Stace 159)
Mathematics is a very good example for both discovered and invented knowledge. The perfect ratio in nature was discovered in the time of ancient Greece, and they called it the golden ratio and incorporated it into many of their buildings.
The pyramids at Giza follow the same pattern. “Mathematically, these ratios are such that the longer segment is 1.618054 times the length of the shorter segment, while the shorter is 0.618054 times the longer. …..Not only are the figures after the decimal point identical in both, but each is the reciprocal of the other (that is, the number 1 divided by either yields the other). These are the only two numbers that demonstrate this property.
Unlike pi, another fundamental constant in which the decimals extend to infinity (3.14159…), these factors are exact after the first six decimals.” (Gedney, Larry 2009) While the ratio has been there, probably before the advent of man, the number systems by which we measure it were invented. After all, ratios are constant and numbers only describe the ratio.
One very controversial example of this is Darwin’s theory of evolution versus creationism. Darwin’s work was based upon first-hand observation and his later interpretation. Darwin discovered that species which got a beneficial trait due to the normal rate of mutation could survive longer and have more progeny. From evidence of changes over the centuries, the theory of evolution was developed. The large acquired pool of data allows us to posit a progression of inheritance and descent.
This may or may not be true, but it is knowledge because we use it. Creationists cite the Bible as their source for refuting the findings of evolutionary science. This may also be true or not, and it is also knowledge because we use it. As we discover more knowledge, one might suppose that we invent less, but this is actually opposite to the truth. Every researcher seeks knowledge in existence, then adds his or her own in interpretation of the discovered knowledge, thus inventing even more.
Stace goes further when he declares that the existence of other minds is discovered fact, “other minds are found existing. They are not invented or constructed by my mind. Their existence is factual, not constructive.” (Stace 169) Thereby he pushes a definition of discovered knowledge and implies one of invented knowledge, and declares that discovered knowledge must be factual. It is the definition of “factual” here that makes the difference.
Stace assumes that “factual” implies a permanent truth, while I exclude permanence and truth from the definition of knowledge since data does not necessarily represent truth or permanence. It is true at the moment of its use and is often assumed to be permanent. However, even science admits that newly discovered knowledge might change what is current knowledge.
Conclusions
Discovered knowledge is that which was true before the discovery was made and it is often assumed to be both factual and permanent. Invented knowledge is generally created to explain discovered knowledge, and is considered to be factual at the time. However, it is not assumed to be permanent and may not be factual.
The traits or attributes of either kind of knowledge may change without the actual knowledge changing. We invent new gods to explain newly discovered knowledge of cosmology. Knowledge exists only as long as there are human to use it. It was invented for human use in order to organize thinking.
References
Descartes, 1998, edited by John Cottingham (Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Descartes, 1631, Discourse on the Method.
Copenhaver, Rebecca, 2009, “Forms of scepticism”. Web.
Cassirer, Ernst. The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel. Trans. William H. Woglom and Charles W. Hendel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950.
Gedney, Larry, 2009, Nature’s Golden Ratio Article #716, Alaska Science Forum. Web.
Rescher, Nicholas. “Textuality, Reality and the Limits of Knowledge.” The Review of Metaphysics 59.2 (2005): 355+.
Stace, W. T. The Theory of Knowledge and Existence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.