what is the nature of knowledge? do we have the capacity to acquire it?

Answer 1

Yes, we certainly do. The field of epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. And a critical component of the scientific method is its insistence that knowledge acquired must be verifiable through repeatable experiments, observations, logic, peer review, and rational thought.

Answer 2

The nature of knowledge (epistemology) rests on the nature of metaphysics. An irrational metaphysics, (mysticism, subjectivism) produces an irrational epistemology; there is no way of validating facts, nothing is certain, everything becomes a matter of faith, or feeling, or fiat etc. A rational metaphysics produces a rational epistemology; knowledge is validated by a process of reason against the facts of reality.

"All knowledge is in terms of concepts. If these concepts correspond to something that is to be found in reality they are real and man's knowledge has a foundation in fact; if they do not correspond to anything in reality they are not real and man's knowledge is of mere figments of his own imagination."
[Edward C. Moore, American Pragmatism: Peirce, James, & Dewey, New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 27.]

" 'Knowledge' is... a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation..." Ayn Rand

Answer 3

Knowledge, to me, is like a Black hole. It keeps collapsing on itself.

...We can aquire knowledge, but not use it's 'full potential.'

Answer 4

Age and wisdom comes to us all. F17