Methods of

acquiring knowledge
Philosophers and educationists have bought out
specific methods of acquiring knowledge. Thus
there are different ways of knowing knowledge.
From the Indian point of view, knowledge is named as Vidya. It involves
facts about reality.
Knowledge, as defined by Oxford dictionary, is
● What is known in a particular field
● Awareness gained by experience of fact or situation
● The theoretical and practical understanding of a subject.
Religious Interpretations:- Various religions have interpreted
knowledge differently
Hindu Scriptures presents two kinds of knowledge:-
(A) Paroksh Gyan:- It is knowledge obtained from books, hearing
lectures etc.
(B) Aproksha Gyan:- It is knowledge obtained by direct experiences.
Some methods of knowledge acquisition are given below:
Let us now have an explanation of them one by one:-

1.Appeal to authority:-Comes from authority or specialist in a

particular field of.For example scientists, philosophers, professor,
economists etc.
2.Appeal to Tradition:-
We depend on our traditions for the solution of many problems we
might face in our life.So, we have accepted various traditions of our
forefathers or our culture.Everything that we have accepted from
our traditions might not always be valid.
Over the time, people have rejected those wrong traditions.
Therefore we should always evaluate the knowledge acquired from
traditions before accepting it.
3.Appeal to Senses:-
Knowledge is drawn through five senses.
The more the senses are involved in process of acquiring
knowledge, more comprehensive would be the knowledge
acquired.
4.Inductive and Deductive methods:-
The inductive method starts with particular examples. Here
learner tries to arrive at a certain conclusion. This may lead to
the formulation of a law, generalization or principle.
In deductive method learner starts with a generalization or
rule, then he comes to particular examples.
So we can say that knowledge is gathered both by inductive
and deductive methods.
 5.Appeal to experiences:-
Knowledge can also be gathered by experiences.
Our personal experiences or experiences of other people
are the most familiar and fundamental sources of knowledge.
We learn many things from our day to life and what goes around
us.
6.Intuition:-
The knowledge gained out of intuition is spontaneous and
sudden.Senses and mind are not involved during intuition.
Anyone can experience it at different points of time.
7.Concentration and meditation:-
● Concentration is a mental activity where the person
concentrating focuses his mental energy on aids like a candle
flame, idea. breathing, mantras etc.
● In meditation, person meditating concentrates for a
longer period of time. Both of them are foundations of
attaining knowledge.
While meditating or concentrating a person can make inferences.
He can even make a link of facts of knowledge to something
meaningful.
8.Observation and related processes:-
Four sub-processes of attaining knowledge are observation,
explanation, prediction and control.
● Observation can be internal or external. It can even be a
scientific observation.
● An explanation is the elaboration of facts of knowledge
in a logical manner.
● Prediction is a process related to cause and effect. In
this process, results are predicted. One needs to
understand about causes and their effects.
● Control is the process in which results are filtered out
by exercising control on certain factors.