I believe that it is possible to know anything as knowledge rests on specific experience. During our lifetime, we make assumptions about the physical world around us. These assumptions form our knowledge, making us believe that we know something. It also contributes to the emergence of a particular fact existing in our minds. In other words, it is possible to know anything as facts are linked to our personal series of experiences. Indeed, the sense of knowledge comes from the facts we possess and can link to specific experiences.
An American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, proposes that everything that we believe to be true is “based on your experiences and thoughts, feelings and sense impressions”. The external world, such as buildings, cars, or any other objects, is observed and sensed by people. Thus, we know that they are real and exist. It means we form knowledge about it and consider these objects a part of our reality.
At the same time, it is essential to determine whether the facts we know are real. Nagel mentions that an individual’s perception of both outside and inside (e.g., memories) comes through the mind, called solipsism. Following the given idea, the real object only exists in our mind. In other words, everything is in mind, and it only comes into existence if it relies on some relevant experience associated with it.
However, in some cases, solipsism can be too abstract and sophisticate the understanding of reality. Therefore, I think that we know that something is valid from the knowledge that is proven empirically, meaning that it emerged from observation and experiment.
For example, we can see that the sun is round, and the concept of “round” stems from the realization that spherical things in our environment have no sides. The conclusion comes from the lens of perception, as it was stated above. We smell, feel, and hear the external world. In such a way, we have a perception of something formed in our minds.
However, colors look different to people who have color blindness disease. This example breaks the assumption that we know something is true through observation. Therefore, it seems that belief plays a crucial role in determining our knowledge. We are told that something is in red, and we believe that the color “red” actually exists.