Reason as a Way of Knowing

Reason is a way of knowing in which we construct meanings together through modifying and improving individual opinions and ideas, in order to reach a plausible or logical conclusion. In other words, reason is the ability to help people decide what is true and what is not. Most of the time, reason is more commonly related to math and science subjects, where logic is put into place in order to obtain logical validity and justify claims. Through observations and experiments, we can prove, within reason, whether a hypothesis is true or not, and in the end, broaden and individual’s knowledge. On the other hand, reason can cloud knowledge to a certain extent, in the case of different culture beliefs as well as more creative subjects such as music and art. This is because we also rely on emotion and perception. Moreover, don’t we require the use of emotion and perception in order to gain reason? Isn’t there a difference in reason depending on culture and beliefs? How can we gain truth through reason when the will always be a sense of individuality and different viewpoints? Reason can help us gain knowledge, but only to a certain extent, therefore, there are strengths and weaknesses in the case of reason as a way of obtaining knowledge.

In the case of music, reason can be seen as both an advantage as well as a disadvantage when gaining knowledge. Emotion is also closely linked in the form of music, as it is an important asset in understanding music. As I am an IB Music student, I know that emotion is the main asset when composing a piece of music. Compositions are almost always based on the composers’ emotions in order to convey a message or a feeling to the listening audience. It can even be telling a story in the form of music, invoking it into the listener. In music class, we are currently composing music based on shocking images, for example: child abuse, child soldiers, and starvation. Emotion is required firstly to identity the emotion portrayed by the picture,