The following essay will attempt to answer the Knowledge Question “To what extent can passive observation and active experimentation be used to ‘produce’ knowledge?” through the lens of mainly the Human Sciences and Natural Sciences as Areas of Knowledge as well as ways of knowing such as deductive and inducting reasoning.
Before beginning the analysis, it is important to identify and explore the key terms the question entails. Active experimentation is most commonly associated with the Natural Sciences and refers to controlled experimentation wherein experimenters can have a human subject or animal subject perform a trial or answer questions. One often relates this to the conception of an absolute or concrete answer attained by careful first
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Inductive reasoning is a way of knowing for human science and natural science that allows generalization upon a pool of evidences. In order to create a pool of evidences, one needs to repeat others observers’ or experimenters’ production of knowledge, and hence justify the generalization. This way of knowing also serves to make the knowledge produced obey the first characteristics of knowledge as stated by Plato - truth is public. The publication of production of knowledge by active experiment and passive observation allows for repetition, hence the procedures are disclosed to the public. It is imperative hence, that scientists who conduct active experimentation do not conceal anything about their work, to allow for the justification of the statement. For active experiment, in the case of the physics study related to the loss in energy on the bouncing of a ball mentioned earlier, the experimenter sets a definitive procedure of conducting the experiment which must not be altered in any circumstance. All those who choose to follow up and repeat the experiment then contribute to the evidences gathered for the