"The quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it" with reference to two areas of knowledge and real life examples. A discussion

Resumen o Introducción

This text discusses the claim that : "The quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it" with reference to two areas of knowledge and real life examples.

People generally assume that there are multiple ways of measuring the quality of knowledge just as the title implies, by suggesting that measuring the amount of people who accept certain knowledge, is the best way of measuring its respective quality. But even though most people I know would also agree that different layers of quality exist, the same people would fail to name these different layers of quality or explain ways of measuring the quality of specific knowledge. Looking specifically at the method of measuring the quality of knowledge through how many people accept it, the question arises of what accepting knowledge even means. According to the dictionary, accepting something has multiple different meanings such as to “consent to receive or undertake”, “believe or come to recognize (a proposition) as valid or correct” or “tolerate or submit to”. Therefore, accepting something could either be interpreted as if it means to only blindly trust certain knowledge, or as if it means to also understand or believe in that certain knowledge. In this essay I will maintain that accepting knowledge means to believe in the knowledge even if understanding remains incomplete. Since the method of measuring knowledge and the respective ranking of quality of knowledge varies greatly depending on the different areas of knowledge, this essay will focus on exploring these differences and links. I will also do this by exploring another method of measuring the quality of knowledge with the specific areas of mathematical knowledge and ethical knowledge.