Full understanding requires both scientific and indigenous ways of knowing

Evidence

In indigenous ways of knowing, we say that a thing cannot be understood until it is known by all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit. The scientific way of knowing relies only on empirical information from the world, gathered by body and interpreted by mind. In order to tell the mosses’ story I need both approaches, objective and subjective. These essays intentionally give voice to both ways of knowing, letting matter and spirit walk companionably side by side. And sometimes even dance. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 37

Categorization

• XREF: Core bridge to the Kimmerer thread of the polyad — this essentially states the whole epistemological frame Braiding Sweetgrass and Eco-Justice rely on. — connects to: Ecojustice educators must honor indigenous knowledges without appropriating or speaking for them — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1568; Western botany frames plants as objects while Indigenous science treats them as subjects — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 150; Western science vocabulary defines the boundaries of what it can know — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 176 (+10 more)
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the observation-method framing of Osprey Wilds field-reading practice: it names why interpretive field study must pair empirical detail with felt relationship.
• SEED: A movable definition of the four-aspect way of knowing could anchor an essay contrasting completeness of understanding with scientific empiricism alone.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Traditional ecological knowledge arises from systematic observation, the intellectual twin to science. #corroborates (0.90) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 413
• Knowledge lives in conversation, with science as one valued strand #corroborates (0.88) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 368
• Indigenous guidance pairs with the science of perception to reveal unseen life #exemplifies (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 70
• Broadening participation validates diverse cultural ways of knowing the land #corroborates (0.80) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 335
• Unified human knowing requires one knowing subject #expands (0.75)