Knowledge Vs Belief Analysis

Knowledge vs. Belief

There is a quote by an unknown person that says, "In all the world there are only two kinds of people, those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters." The quite adequately describes my knowledge that my father loves and cares for me. I know, based on life experiences, that my father loves me.

I choose to classify my father 's love for me as something that I know to be true and factual because the way in which I can explain and prove this falls within the parameters of the truest definition of knowledge. In addition, I am able to provide empirical evidence of the knowledge.

Many children grow up being told that their parents love them and will take care of them. The children that are lucky enough to experience the love and care of a
parent know that there is nothing like it in the world. Logic tells me that someone who provides food, shelter, clothing, and kindness is a person who has some feeling of love for me. My father provided all of the mentioned for me through my childhood and young adult life. True, some of these elements fall into both empirical and logical evidence. For now, I want to focus on the logical. Every night my father would say my prayers with me before I went to sleep. After I said my prayers and got into bed my dad would tell me, "I love you from here to the moon and back." Obviously, I never actually traveled to the moon, however, I was aware of the extreme length of distance from our house to the moon and back. I believed that my father loved me, and loved me very much.

I was blessed with many cousins, aunts and uncles. When ever I would visit my extended family with my dad I realized how loved I was by my father. Even though I enjoyed being playing with my cousins while my dad visited with my aunts and uncles, I never felt the security that I did as when with my dad. I believed that my dad would do his best to keep me safe and loved. He did both of these with love and devotion. One particular aunt and uncle lived near an amusement park that I loved to visit. They would also invite me to spend the night at their house and then take me to the amusement park during the day. I enjoyed being with them, but ultimately new how much my dad loved me when he would volunteer to take me to the park because he new I didn 't really like to stay away from home. It would have been much easier for him to simply tell me, "either stay with your aunt and uncle, or you won 't be able to go to the amusement park." But, no, my dad did not do that. He lovingly allowed me to go home, and then the next day drove the two hours to bring me to the amusement park. Now, that is what I believe to be love.

Now, as I stated in the beginning of this analysis of knowledge vs.
logic, I can say without any doubts that my dad 's love for me is based on empirical evidence. The first example of this is how hard my dad worked to put me through private school from grades one through twelve. My dad often told me that he wanted me to have the advantages of a private education and the benefits of a small class size. My dad could have sent me to the public school in our area. The public school that I would have gone to was only five minutes away and I would have been able to ride the bus to and from school. My dad chose to take the hard road. He sent me to a private school that was thirty minutes away. This meant that he had to leave earlier than needed in the mornings to get me to school. He then took his lunch hour at my dismissal time so he could pick me up and bring me to his office. As if this wasn 't proof enough of his love for me, he worked a part time job from home to pay for the cost of the school. Dad did not have to physically do any of these sacrifices. He did them because he loved me and wanted me to have all the advantages of a private school with small
classes.

Each night after dinner, my father would go over my homework with me, help me study for any tests, and then read with me. I know for a fact that all of my friends did not have this experience with their parents. I did because I know my dad loved me. He worked long hours and still took the time to go over my school work with me and read with me. In addition to experiencing these moments with my own father I also experienced moments with my friends and their parents when I would be at my friends house. My friends had good homes with good parents. I experienced their daily routines and I know how fortunate I was to have a aren 't how worked so hard for me, took time for me every day, and still was able to make me feel my dad 's love.

My knowledge of my father 's love for me clearly comes from experiences of the physical world. Yes, there are beliefs that I hold to be true, such as my dad telling me that his love for me goes from our house to the moon and back. I believe this and logically, I know it is true based on how my dad took care of me.
After reviewing the evidence I do still maintain my original categorization of knowledge and belief. I believe my dad loved me, and I know that he did because of what he did for me each day. As I stated in the beginning, "There are only two kinds of people, those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters." This is the knowledge of my father 's love for me.

References used: www.ils.unc.edu/-loses/b5/node9.hyml www.conferences.inf.ed.ac.uk/cogsci2001/pdf-files/0364.pdf