At the moment I am applying for jobs in Holland, and it seems that companies make use of a new hype to select their employees. For example, for one job I had to do a test which measured my intelligence based on 9 different tests (meanings of words, mathematical questions and general knowledge). It seems explainable that when I apply for lets say 5 companies, and do the tests, at the fifth company my mind is trained in a way (the questions seem familiar, I understand better and quicker what is expected). Does that mean I have gained intelligence? Is it possible that our intelligence changes when we acquire knowlegde? Isnt intelligence something like acquiring insight? Or having the capability to acquire insight?
maybe it is an idea to look at the different types of knowledge. Spinoza differentiates between opinion, belief, and knowing. The first form is the sense-organs (opinion) and belief, which are acquired through the testimony and influence of others. With regard to knowing, spinoza (and in some way sokrates) argues that real knowledge is only acquired through God (“universal truth”, as the cause of all). Sokrates also indicates that knowing is nothing more than remembering. For example, I see something which reminds me of something similar, which is different from the original object, than we would have to admit that someone having this thought was already familiar with the object before being reminded of it. In this way Sokrates argues that before we were able to see or hear (or use our other senses) we already had some knowledge about abstract things. How could we otherwise explain that a new born knows how to drink or eat? If we have acquired this knowledge (and maybe also other knowledge) before we were born, then we have this knowledge our whole life. In this way, knowing is having knowledge of something and keeping this knowledge without loosing or forgetting it. So there are 2 options, or we were born with knowledge and we have knowledge our whole life (I think this is argued to be the “static” personal intelligence), or the people of which we say that they have learned something along the way, do nothing else than remembering, and learning is remembering.
When we recognize something, doesnt that mean that the object or process seems familiar and it reminds us of something else? The recognizing-process you refer to is also related to understanding, having the insight, and knowing.
Sokrates is a wise man for stating that the only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing. Although maybe this is more related to the relation between our dynamic universe and we as mortal beings. In order for us to recognize things, as was stated in the reply, isnt there some a priori knowledge?
One rough and oversimplified explanation is that a priori knowledge is independent of experience, while a posteriori knowledge is dependent on experience. I wonder whether we can say that someone is born with intelligence (The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge) or whether we acquire intelligence through experience.
Or do you argue there is no such thing as intelligence?
In order for you to write that a cause (if knowledge is justified true belief) will result in a consequence (there cannot, by definition, be a priori knowledge), isnt that a form of knowledge? Knowing that the two are not related…
What I was meaning is that if intelligence is measured by tests, then to be intelligent all you need to know is the right answers to the tests. You don’t need to know why they are right. All any qualification is is proof you can remember how ever many right answers where needed to obtain that grade. At school I got the highest grades, people assumed I was ridiculously smart and knew everything, I used to tell them I knew enough to pass, no more.
It’s a paradox. Can you really know you know nothing? And if you don’t know you know nothing, how can you claim to know nothing? At best Socrates thinks he knows nothing, he may very well know something, but he can’t be sure of it.
I guess theres different ways to talk about intelligence; Potential intelligence and functional intelligence. IQ tests test functional intelligence (they are accurate to some degree no matter how flawed they are, they test people in relation to their peers on an abstract knowledge base) now a person could do an IQ test, come back 20 years, and have a functional IQ of double what they originally had, its not likely, but people can become functionally more intelligent.
That being said intelligence is real. Take putting a rocket to the moon safely, you couldn’t just take a classroom full of students and train them (a random classfull from like grade1) and hope that they’d all be able to do their respective tasks. Some of those people in the class-room are going to be unable to meet the necessary requirements for math, ability to problem-solve, whatever it is.
We know some kind of intelligence exists and differs between people because its largely up to like 50% heritable.
Ass to being born with ‘innate’ knowledge, we’re born with a lot of innate mental mechanisms.
that includes the ability to learn language, eat/drink from instinct, fear tigers, folkmechanics (expectations about how the physics of the natural world work) and so on and so forth.
I don’t know if this could be called ‘knowledge’ but its programmed expectations that we’re born with, ,or at least born with the genes which will one day set up these innate programs. Not suer what thathas to do with IQ tests though.
