Finding Reality: Four Ways of Knowing

How do we know something for sure? How do we decide what's true? In Finding Reality , author Dr. Edwin E. Olson shows how the best answers to these questions emerge from the interaction of four ways of knowing: Insights: what we imagine based on experience Authority: what others have taught us based on their beliefs Empiricism: what others have discovered based on evidence Praxis: what we learn through our senses Drawing from a range of human systems dynamics and scientific, psychological, philosophical, and religious sources, this guide discusses how each way of knowing provides a different approach to reality. When the four ways of knowing interact, creative outcomes for personal development and exploration of important issues come to fruition. Praise for Finding Reality "This is a wisdom book for twenty-first century seekers of truth and for organizations that need to change. ... Here is a book that identifies and honors multiple ways of knowing reality. Using down-to-earth examples, the reader is skillfully and expertly guided through ways of knowing which, when brought to bear on our personal and corporate life situations, results in creative emergence-the surprising solution that is born when intuition, facts, inherited wisdom, and practice converge. I highly recommend this book." - Bruce Sanguin, Author of Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos "Ed Olson has provided a practical and inspiring map to guide inquiry for personal growth and development in uncertain times." - Glenda H. Eoyang, Executive Director, Human Systems Dynamics Institute