My thoughts

 Hey guys, I had a few thoughts on the following title as a part of my school coursework. Let me know what you think!

"The production of knowledge is always a collaborative task and never solely a product of the individual". Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.

Progress in the pursuit of knowledge, specifically societal progress, is fueled through the production of knowledge—a process that involves the assimilation of pre-existing knowledge to create new conclusions through experimentation, theorization, and observation. Knowledge production is a paramount process in our daily lives, evidenced through the constant reinterpretation and revision of our understanding of the various branches of knowledge on a regular basis, as seen through the lenses of language, sense perception, emotion, reason, imagination, faith, intuition, and memory. Dependent on the primary method of knowledge acquisition in a specific area of knowledge, this production of knowledge can then be classified under either personal and shared knowledge. In tandem, both can be used to explore the concept of knowledge production in society, and more specifically, both can be used to question whether said production of knowledge is a consequence of individual knowledge acquisition (through the production of personal knowledge) or rather invariably, through collaborative knowledge acquisition (the production of shared knowledge). Utilizing the natural sciences and the arts as the two areas through which we can investigate our conundrum, this essay would therefore explore the extent to which the production of knowledge is collaborative in the natural sciences and the arts.

Primarily, however, in order to analyze the production of knowledge, we need to first understand what knowledge is. Over the 20th century, philosophically speaking, knowledge is largely considered to be "justified true belief". From the JTB analysis, we can view knowledge to be the pursuit of truth, wherein for any A to know B (where A refers to a subject and B to the proposition being known), B must be true, A believes that B is true and A is justified in believing B is true (Ichikawa & Steup, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). These 3 preliminary conditions can then be used whilst questioning if knowledge is being produced by any individual, i.e. does individual A "know" proposition B. The catch here lies in the necessity of validating the production of knowledge—in order to justify A’s belief in B (third condition), A’s knowledge of B must be validated by an external observer. Hence, any knowledge produced can be deemed void unless validated by other such individuals, thereby outlining the need for collaboration in knowledge production. Therefore, we arrive at our claim—the production of knowledge is nullified without validation, and is hence, always a collaborative task. 

The conclusion above can be investigated extensively through the context of the Natural Sciences. This knowledge system serves to be a potent area of knowledge (as referenced in prior), which aims to produce knowledge through the scientific method by observing, hypothesizing, testing, and concluding. In order to verify the knowledge produced, however, the natural sciences often avail to peer review. Peer review is a process that involves the reviewing of scientific findings by other individuals before publication and hence accepting the knowledge acquired as a part of the shared knowledge system, hence showing a prevalence of collaboration in the production of knowledge. For instance, Paul Dirac’s work on the electron and positron in Physics was paramount in his discovery that modeled the equation of an electron. However, for said knowledge to be accepted as the “truth” and hence a part of shared scientific knowledge, it had to first be validated by previously established theorems by scientists of the theoretical physicist community, without which his discovery would’ve been disregarded. From the same, one can interpret that although Dirac’s work was assimilating personal knowledge, since it would be meaningless without validation it invariably becomes a collaborative task. Again, it is crucial, at this point to remember that the production of knowledge is a continuous process, and hence the pursuit of truth in a discipline is done through the contributions of several individuals in collaboration, directly or indirectly. For instance, one can view the progression between Newton’s classical take on mechanics which was then built upon by Einstein’s theory of special relativity—eventually, both individuals produced knowledge through a personal means, yet in tandem form a collaborative quest for the pursuit of truth in the physical sciences.  

However, the pursuit of knowledge and hence the truth in the natural sciences is a relatively objective venture. As a result, in the natural sciences, knowledge can be defined to be objectively produced, if it contributes to the pursuit of truth in the scientific community (shared scientific knowledge). However, in a discipline as subjective as the Arts, one can argue that artistic knowledge can’t be defined objectively as the pursuit of truth, as the Arts are often used as simply a means of “self-expression”. Consequently, one can interpret the knowledge produced in the arts can be a product of the individual. Therefore, we arrive at a counter-claim: the production of knowledge cannot be defined objectively and is rather shaped by individual perspectives, hence being a product of the individual.

We can analyze the above by taking a deeper look into the arts. In any artistic piece, there are primarily three subjects of significance: the artist, the artwork created, as well as the individual that views the artwork. The artwork in this case exhibits the knowledge, which is then left for interpretation by the viewer and shaped by artistic intention. We can then state that for the primary individual involved in knowledge production i.e. the artist, the creation of the artwork is an individual affair: something that is built as a product of individual intuition, emotion, and imagination. The viewer, however, is also involved in knowledge production. Likewise, we can state that the interpretation of an artwork by a viewer is also an individual affair, something that is built as a product of individual sense perception, emotion, and memory. Therefore, any artistic knowledge produced through the endeavor is one facilitated as a product of each individual involved. An example of this is the concept of optical illusions. An example of the same can be seen through the artworks of the infamous British artist-cum-activist Banksy. Through his artworks, Banksy communicates and builds awareness on contemporary global issues using his individual style, which is then left to be understood differently by the onlooking viewer; something accentuated through Banky’s self-destructive painting, which is interpreted differently for different individuals. Similarly, one can see the “Banana of a wall”, artwork by Maurizio Cattelan wherein the artist simply stuck a banana on a wall in an art exhibition and left individual onlookers to interpret the artistic intention and hence produce knowledge as a product of the individual. 

That is not to say that there is no collaboration in the artwork, however. One could build on our previous understanding, and extend it to say that although the artwork is a product of the individual onlooker; it is also nudged through artistic intent i.e. the individual’s own understanding as well as the artist’s intention for the artwork work in tandem and hence collaborate to produce the knowledge gained from the artwork. Further, one can see the popular musician John Cage’s song, 4’33” demonstrates that there is music in every activity by utilizing the audience’s sounds as a part of the ensemble - effectively implying that the artist and the viewer worked collaboratively to produce knowledge. 

To conclude, the question as to whether the production of knowledge is a collaborative pursuit or rather a consequence of the individual is one that is rather subjective and open to interpretation. On one hand, if we define knowledge objectively, such as through the pursuit for truth, in subject disciplines such as the natural sciences and mathematics we can conclude that the production of knowledge is meaningless without validation, and hence is collaborative in nature. On the other, however, we cannot neglect that our definition for knowledge is not always accurate, especially in more subjective subject disciplines such as the arts and the religious knowledge systems, giving rise to the fact that knowledge being produced is as a product of the individual. Hence, since there is a prevalence of collaboration in the production of knowledge to a great extent, it would never be \textit{solely} simply a product of the individual. However, that is not to say that in more subjective disciplines there is not a prevalence of personal knowledge in tandem with the collaborative knowledge being produced.