Figure 1: A photograph I took of my abridged version of the Catholic Bible given to me as a gift for my first 

The first object I chose is my copy of an abridged version of the Catholic Bible in Italian. This Bible has a great significance to me, as it accompanied me through the process of my first communion, but importantly, my religious maturing. The prompt poses the question of whether things are unknowable, and the relevance of this object to the prompt is the question of whether we can know if its contents are true or not. Our world is served with questions that do not have answers, and one of which is: Is God real? 

The reason why this object is justified to be included in the exhibition is that it is the text that led to the posing of the aforementioned question. The presence of God is heavily disputed, but is unanswerable. This aspect of it means that it is unknowable knowledge.

On the other hand, the central issue around this debate is that no knowledge proves the existence of God, simultaneously no knowledge does not prove the existence of God. Does the fact that we do not know whether there is a God need certainty to be ‘knowable’? There are only two possible outcomes, God exists or he does not. Therefore, the argument could be made that his existence is in fact known. This calls into question the definition of knowledge. According to Plato, knowledge is defined as a justified true belief (Ichikawa, Jenkins, Steup). In this case, the knowledge of all possible outcomes would not be considered as knowledge due to the lack of specificity needed to be counted as ‘true’. 

From a more general perspective, religion, but in this case Christianity, is based on belief as opposed to knowledge. This is due to the fact that there are elements of uncertainty which are present in the discussion of religion. In relation to the prompt, and the theme of religion and knowledge, this object serves as a great example and symbol of the lack of certainty that revolves around religion and how there are some things that can be considered unknowable. 

This object is a picture of Danta Wright, a teen who was accused and convicted of killing another teenage boy. The real-world context of the image is his trial and his emotion in reaction to the mother of the victim crying. More specifically, his smile as the mother of his victims commemorates her child. In terms of its relationship to the knower, the object offers a counter-intuitive emotion which will be further explained, thus it is justified to be part of the exhibition. 

This object, but more importantly that smile, turned viral in 2017, the year of the trial. That is due to the apparent unremorsefulness that Wright shows in this picture. This calls into question whether Danta Wright’s feelings were unknowable. For many, smiling is a coping mechanism, or it is a natural occurrence in situations of high stress. What this means is that we can not correctly adjudicate his inner emotion, hence, we do not know. Smiling has been shown to help ease stress-induced hormones which in turn decreases fatigue. This aspect could be an example of what could have been happening inside of Wright’s mind. However, to reiterate, we do not know. This unknowable aspect calls into question the reliability of facial expressions. 

Facial expressions and body language are constantly used in communication, yet can create ‘red-herrings’. This uncertain element to them shows the extent to which there are certain aspects of people that are unknowable except to the person themself. There is also the element of interpretation. How I interpret a face is not the same as others. Especially in this case, as it is a scenario where the facial expression at hand is the antithesis of the expected one. One can see a theme of knowledge and language emerge due to the importance of communication, and how language is only one portion of the holistic effort of communication. 

The picture is controversial, and its interpretation has two possible outcomes. Either he is remorseful or he is not. Despite our knowledge of the two outcomes, I can easily conclude that the veracity of emotions is unknowable.

This object is my textbook for 10th grade American History, but more specifically the American Civil War section of said textbook.

History is a topic that has an innate debate-style characteristic. Studied by historians, they are bound to have different opinions about the unfolding or causes of certain events. The textbook in question, and other textbooks alike, all provide different historiographical perspectives to aid the reader in understanding the situation to a better extent. This means there could be multiple interpretations and explanations for one event. This creates the issue of whether the true fact is knowable, which is why it is important to consider this object in the exhibition. 

In the case of the American Civil War and the object at hand, there is a lot of debate around the reasons for secession. There is the more generally accepted claim, such as that of Elliot G. Stroke who claims that secession was a product of slavery. On the other hand, there is the other claim by historians such as William G. Brownlow and Joel T. Headly who claim that slavery was not the reason behind secession but instead the loss of power in the federal government was (Donnelly). These opposing views remind me of the theme of knowledge and politics and the role of truth and certainty within it. 

These two claims both offer valid evidence and reasoning, yet it is impossible to adjudicate one of them wrong. However, this does not mean that one does not have more merit than the other. This very important distinction which, once again, introduces the role of certainty. A probable outcome and a certain outcome are what can differentiate between knowledge and belief, which is why certain aspects of history are unknowable.