Improtance of Knowledge

Improtance of Knowledge

For me, scientific knowledge is divided into mathematical sciences, natural sciences or sciences dealing with the natural world(physical and biological sciences), and sciences dealing wth mankind(psychology, sociology, all the sciences of cultural achievements, every kind of historical knowledge). Apart from these sciences is philosophy, about which we will talk shortly. In the first place, all these is pure or theoretical knowledge, sought only for the purpose of understanding, in order to fulfill the need to understanding that is intristic and consubstantial to man. What distinguishes man from animal is that he hnows and needs to know. If man did not know that the world existed, and that the world was of a certain kind, that he was in the world and that he himself was of a certain kind, he wouldn't be man. The technical aspects of applications of knowledge are equally necessary for man and are of the greatest improtance, because they also contribute to defining him as man and permit him to pursue a life increasingly more truly human.

But even while enjoying the results of technical progress, he must defend the primacy and autonomy of pure knowledge. Knowledge sought directly for its practical applications will have immediate and foreseeable success, but not kind of important result whose revolutionary scope is in large part unforseen, except by the imagination of the Utopians. Let me recall a wellknown example. If the Greek mathematicians had not applied themsevles to the investigation of conic sections, zealousy and without the least suspicion that it might someday be useful, it would not have been possible centuries later to navigate far from shore. The first men to study the nature of electricity could not imagine that their experiments, carried on because of mere intellectual curiosity, would envetually lead to modern electrical technology, without which we can scarcely conceive of contemporary life. Pure knowledge is valuable for its own sake, because the human spirit cannot resign itself to ignorance. But, in addition, it is the foundation for practical results that would not hava been reached if this knowledge had not been sought disinterestedly.