How Do We Know What We Know?

We know what we know through many different forms of knowledge. There is being familiar with something or knowing something (as in a fact). There's Knowledge by Introspection which is knowing something by knowing your own emotions. Knowledge by Practice is knowing something because of the repetition of doing a task. (e.g. knowing how to ride a bike). Knowledge of Acquaintance is knowing something by being so familiar by a person and their mannerisms. We use all these types of knowledges to for a net of ideas, or a paradigm. This paradigm is how we see the world around us, and this has drastic consequences (e.g. racism; sexism; etc.). Knowledge by Authority is particularly dangerous when it is mishandled, especially since people have a tendency to believe anything someone says based on the ranking that they hold. Instead of reviewing the information ourselves, we assume that based on the title a person holds (e.g. Dr. etc.) that the person has done that already and found the information to be valid. The reputation is held to be more valid that the information itself and this is extremely dangerous and tends to be easy to manipulate for outside purposes.