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Gaining Knowledge from Experience Essay

Decent Essays

Each day throughout life people learn more about themselves and about the world around them. It is everyone’s goal to acquire as much knowledge as they can because it generally leads to satisfaction in their life. Experience allows to better understand oneself and the surrounding world. Faust and Michel Montaigne highlight the importance of learning from experiences and what occurs without this learning. Because of their work, learning through experiences is known to be very effective and therefore is incorporated into many teaching techniques. Gaining knowledge from experiences helps to unlock parts of the world. In his book “Faust”, Faust focuses on how experiences, or lack of experiences, shape the surrounding world. Faust studies and …show more content…

Michel Montaigne writes in his essays “I am scribbling here a record of my life’s experiences, which is sufficient for purposes of inward health” (Montaigne 361). He is saying that experiences are the root of being internally satisfied. Montaigne focuses on the art of law which deals with the mind and soul, along with the art of medicine which deals with experiences of the body. He suggests that these are equally importance to a person to become complete. A person needs to find the appropriate balance between these things, in order to achieve happiness and contentment. Experiences shape every element of an individual, especially how they form their thinking process. In regards to faith, experiences dictate what to believe in. Going to church, partaking in mission trip, or a death of a love one are all experiences that bring a person closer or further away from their faith. By tracing back to the origins of where one gets their faith, it shows that it is rooted and influenced by experiences. Circumstances can incorporate faith into one’s life, but can also bring about doubt. Undergoing similar situations can bring up doubts and hesitation to rethink beliefs and faith. However, reason is used to come to a consensus to these doubts. Experiences play a key role in providing evidence and proof to justify facts and feelings. If a person has experienced something, that serves as their logic behind their beliefs and actions. Faith, doubt, and reason, all serve as tools to

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