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Dr. Syed Rifaat Hussain Professor and Chairman, DSS Department, QAU, Islamabad
Sources of knowledge
Common sense: Every one knows that it is so Intuition: I just know it Beliefs: it is based on personal conviction Tenacity: verification over the years Tradition: practice through generations Personal Experience: personal testing and experience
Authority: the word of experts Divine and supernatural powers: the revelations of God and of other powers Reason and logic: the intellect can capture truth and knowledge directly Scientific methods: knowledge is derived through empirical procedures
The quest for knowledge stems from human desire to settle the irritation of doubt by moving into a state of belief. According to Charles Peirce, there are four general ways of knowing or of fixing belief.