Following on from an earlier post about knowledge and belief, I recall an interesting analogy that came to me some time ago. It illustrates the intricate relationship between different types of knowledge or more precisely between knowledge and, what in legal matters, is actually called "hearsay".If at a certain point in the day, my young son were to ask me whether it was high tide, he might "gain knowledge" of such by at least three different routes.
First, he might look up the tide timetable, confirm that the time in the book matched the given time, and conclude from that it was in fact high tide. Most people would say that at that point he "knew" it was high tide. Knowledge gained from books.
Second, he might ask someone whether it was high tide. Assuming that the person he had asked "knew" whether it was or not, based on their answer, high might be able to claim that he too "knew" it was high tide. Knowledge gained from people.
Third, as a result of spending significant amounts of time down on the beach (dwelling with the tide), and by observing the movement of the tide in and out, he might recognise the turning of the tide, and from that "know" it was high tide. Knowledge gained from revelation.
In the first two cases, my son's "knowing" that it was high tide was in fact dependent upon sources external to himself. It was second-hand. Furthermore, it would be possible for both these sources to be wrong - in which case his "knowledge" would be flawed. In a court of law, this type of evidence or testimony is usually inadmissible because of its unreliability. Hearsay is defined as "information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge". Consequently, contained within the definition of hearsay, is the notion that knowledge must be direct.
The direct nature of knowledge echo's the assumption that knowledge is an encounter with something that is a priori and ab extra. The creation of knowledge then becomes quite a spiritual process wherein some aspect of other (archetypal) is revealed to an individual - like the turning of the tide is "recognised".
Perhaps in the first two cases all we can say is that my son believed it to be high tide, based on hearsay, but in the third case, he knew it to be high tide. This illustrates a subtle, and important epistemological and spiritual distinction between what we know and what we think we know (or what we believe).
There is no substitute for knowledge.