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