How Do You Know What You Know? Three Levels of Knowledge

How do you know what you know? How do you know that you know what you know? We all have three different “levels” of knowledge: firsthand knowledge, secondhand knowledge, and what we could call “faux knowledge.”

Firsthand Knowledge

Firsthand knowledge is knowledge you’ve discovered or tested for yourself. That is, you know it’s true because you’ve seen and evaluated evidence for it with your own eyes.

I mean this in a fairly broad sense. That is, to belong to this category, I’m not saying you have to have, for instance, been the one to discover the theory of gravity. But you’ve experienced gravity for yourself — seen that you don’t just float on air, observed what happens when you drop an object, etc. Or maybe you read the published studies about a drug, even though you didn’t conduct those studies yourself.

There may still be some degree of trust involved here, but you, personally, have seen and evaluated the evidence for the claim at some level.

Secondhand Knowledge

Secondhand knowledge consists of things you know because someone else told you they’re true and, while you haven’t looked at the evidence yourself, the person telling you referenced evidence. In other words, even though you haven’t evaluated the evidence for yourself, the person sharing the information with you has specific reasons for believing it’s true.

Maybe they’ve never experienced an absence of gravity in space, but they tell you there’s a lack of gravity, pointing out that they’ve seen video of astronauts floating around in the space station. Or maybe they’re telling you that a drug has drowsiness as a potential side effect, and they cite a particular study. Even if you haven’t read that study yourself, you have some reason to believe they got that information from somewhere.

Faux Knowledge

Faux knowledge (for lack of a better term) is knowledge we have — or, rather, think we have — because someone told us, without providing any basis for the claim, and we just simply accepted it on blind faith. This is more common than you probably think, especially when it comes to “general knowledge” — things taught in school that “everyone knows.”

For instance, we were all taught that fossil fuels are, well, fossil fuels. Nobody ever gave us a concrete reason for believing that fossils are the source of petroleum and similar substances — because they can’t. This claim was never based on evidence; it was a theory that was introduced, which began to be taught as fact, until it was so widespread no one even thought to question it anymore. “Everyone knows” what fossil fuels are, right? But, as one of my favorite quotes goes: “what everyone knows is not necessarily true.”

What About It?

We all have some things we take on faith. As finite people, it would be impossible to personally examine the evidence for every single piece of information. We have to trust people. But we don’t (generally) have to trust people blindly.

It’s wise to be aware of which of our knowledge fits into which category. As a general rule, we should hold more loosely to secondhand information than to firsthand information, and more loosely still to “faux” information. If you believe something purely because you were told it’s true, without its being rooted in anything, then when someone comes to you with an alternate claim, it makes sense to consider it — especially if that someone is bringing evidence.

It’s not sin to have some faux knowledge. In fact, it’s probably unavoidable. But when society is comprised of people who have faux knowledge inherited from people for whom it’s faux knowledge, inherited from people for whom it’s faux knowledge, and so on down the line, our foundations become shaky and truth is marginalized. It’s important to be open to questioning those facts and ideas we’ve just “inherited” on faith.

Knowing the difference can also be helpful when you’re having a discussion on the topic with someone else. If you believe vaccines are completely safe and effective because people have told you they’re completely safe and effective, without giving you any specific data to back that up, and you’re talking to someone whose child was injured by a vaccine, how do you think that conversation is going to go? Your knowledge is faux knowledge, while hers is firsthand. If you want to have any hope of a meaningful conversation you’re going to have to bring something more solid to the table.

Faux Knowledge Isn’t Necessarily Incorrect

Some of you read that last paragraph and are upset with me because you think I’m assuming something about what’s true. I’m actually not.

“Faux knowledge” isn’t “faux” because it’s not real information, but because you don’t really know it. You just think you know it. You believe it.

It isn’t necessarily incorrect. It becomes most problematic when it’s incorrect, which is why it’s important to be aware of the phenomenon, but the mere fact that no one ever offered you evidence for a thing doesn’t make that thing untrue. In fact, a complete absence of evidence among all of human society doesn’t necessarily make a thing untrue. Maybe fossil fuels are really fossil fuels.

How Much Do You Really Know?

How much do you really know, and how much do you just think you know? Does that change your perception of society and the world? Does it have any impact on who you trust?