According to a textbook I'm currently reading, people gain knowledge about the environment mainly through four different ways: authority, observation, logic, and intuition. One may argue that some are better than the others but I'm not here to judge. Much.
The four ways of knowing may be used simultaneously as well as separately, or one may put a higher priority on some, that is, put things on top of other things.
I had to do it.
For example, belief systems such as religion and government mainly value authority and intuition over observation and logic, whereas the priorities are quite the opposite for science. Philosophy, on the other hand, resembles science in many ways, except it values logic over observation. To make things more clear:
from most to least important ways of knowing
Religion / Government: Authority-Intuition-Logic-Observation
Science: Observation-Logic-Intuition-Authority
Philosophy: Logic-Observation-Intuition-Authority
In conclusion, the ways in which we gather information are principally quite few and that different belief systems rely on different sources of information. It's up to people to judge what to accept as valid information, and the different variations in priorities are many in number. I do realise that this post might bias the outcomes of the poll but honestly I don't give a flying fudge.
Never stop thinking, again.
