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Shane Williams®

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Field NoteTruth and Sensemaking1 min read

Naming the Mode of Knowing

A short field note on intellectual honesty.

When you say you know something, do you know how you know it?

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Much confusion clears the moment we name the mode of knowing.

A claim from direct experience, a claim from careful research, a claim from intuition, and a claim from inherited assumption can all sound identical in a sentence. They are not identical. They carry different weights, invite different tests, and fail in different ways.

The discipline is small: when I share something, I try to say not only what I think but how I have come to think it — what I have observed, what I have read, what I sense, and what I am still unsure of. It costs a little certainty and returns a great deal of trust.

This is also a courtesy to the reader. It leaves room for discernment rather than asking for agreement — which is, I think, the only honest way to share a perspective at all.

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