To What Extent is Sense of Perception an Accurate Way of Knowing?

Sense of perception is an important way of knowing, for sure, because without it there is much that we would not otherwise be able to learn. How accurate it is is totally different. Our sense of perception is accurate in that most times it tells us what we need to know. For example we wanted to know what the texture of an orange was, both its skin and the fruit itself. We would use our hands and be able to feel that the orange was not quite smooth, and was slightly bumpy. Through our tasting, we would be able to know that the orange is sweet, and possibly slightly sour. In this sense, it is an accurate way of knowing, because it provides us with an accurate feel of what an orange is like. Sense is an accurate way of knowing, because it gathers experience from all over to provide us with a knowledge bank of how different things look, taste, feel, smell, or sound like.

However, when these senses are fooled into thinking that an object is something else, then it is not accurate. For example, if we were not allowed to use any other senses other than our sight, and there were two glasses. One is filled with water, the other clear vinegar, we could easily be fooled into believing the glass with water was actually vinegar. This information is clearly false, and so causes our sight to not be an accurate way of knowing. Also, senses are useful only as long as we can actually sense them. This is to say that, quite often we simply overlook things and do not notice it. What we do not notice, cannot be known to us, and so cannot be an accurate way of knowing.

It is evident that our senses are very important to us in our daily lives, and that we rely on them a lot. However, there are instances where these senses fail us as an accurate way of knowing, and must use other methods as our accurate way of knowing.