Theories and Practices of Knowledge and the Universal Particular in Epistemology

This contribution offers a critical analytical overview of the main theories of knowledge in addition to exploring practices as to how knowledge can be achieved. Such theories as the cognitive, the constructivist, the behaviourist, the humanist and the connectivist theory are explored in this chapter. Additionally, the paper juxtaposes learning practices in the theoretical disciplines with those in the positivist disciplines. In this respect, law as a discipline is compared, for instance, with other theoretical disciplines but also with positivist disciplines. Furthermore, considering the interdisciplinary nature of this contribution, the author proceeds with exploring key findings and ideas in the area from such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, law, and pedagogy. When it comes to the practical ways by which knowledge can be attained, the deployment of reason (Plato), the senses (Aristotle), ideas of the intellect (Descartes), conditioning (Pavlov), experience (Russell, Polanyi & Kolb), association (modern discipline of psychology), kinaesthesia and play (ludo and experimental pedagogy) are all given consideration. The chapter concludes with the idea that knowledge, indeed knowledge in law, can be attained through multiple and diverse practices, whereas the different theories of epistemology may be explanatory of certain modes and patterns of knowledge as opposed to them acting as grand theories that explain the totality of angles and facets of knowledge. The paper advocates the thesis that knowledge per se is not a relative matter but the ways by which different individuals attain knowledge may often be relative to learner, the pedagogue’s key task being the deployment of multiple and diverse approaches which will cater and cover for the needs of as many learners as possible. In this respect, the chapter promotes the idea that the quest for universals in epistemology is one that would be achieved through the due recognition of the particular and the relative in didactic operations.

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