Analysis Of The Analogy: There Is A Hammer, A Nail And A Piece Of Wood

Consider the following analogy: There is a hammer, a nail and a piece of wood. Your task is to hammer the nail into the wall and split the wood. You effortlessly hammer the nail into the wall. However, splitting the wood is quite problematic. You can certainly bash the wood to the extent where it splits, but you cannot achieve optimal results. Like this analogy, as a student studying chemistry and art, I use reasoning to gain knowledge about the concepts in chemistry as it is more pragmatic, but I need emotion to truly establish an empathy, connection and understanding in Monet’s painting ‘Impression Sunrise’ in art as it manifests a type of knowledge only intrinsic to me beyond what can be attained if I were to use empirical reasoning. This simple analogy does not only apply to the problem encountered in attempting to cut a piece of wood when we are condemned to only a hammer as our tool, but also emphasizes a number of prospective issues that we may encounter in the pursuit of knowledge when we only use one way of knowing. To what extent, then, does Maslow’s analogy hold?

In some respect, we can say all problems begin to resemble nails when the only tool we have is a hammer, which is typically seen in natural sciences – depending predominantly on rationalism (a tool defined as an intrinsic common sense to the knower) to solve scientific problems and generate theories. Isaac Newton discovered the Laws of Gravity through empirical and deductive reasoning when he observed an apple falling, where he rationalized thus: “The apple is accelerated, since its velocity changes from zero as it moves toward the ground. Thus there must be a force that acts on the apple to cause this acceleration.” He then extrapolated this line of reasoni...

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...heless, regardless of how partial we are in using our tools, we are always held between the two extremes of the scale. And in using only one or over-relying on one way of knowing may limit our pursuit of knowledge like that of the Enlightenment and Romantic period. But when we start accepting and perceiving other tools available to us, it may broaden our horizons and approach of pursuing knowledge like that of Keynes’s model. Moreover, we should also consider the problem we are dealing with in order to choose the right kind of tools that will enable us to tackle the issue effectively and optimally. That being said, it is worthwhile to note the irony of the difficulty in pursuing the knowledge of Maslow’s statement through language as his statement opens doors to many different interpretations contingent upon the person and the tools being used to approach his quote.