I am interested in the six most basic ways we come to know something. It includes four basic interior mental modes, which are sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, and intuition. In addition to these four basic interior mental modes, there are two major synthetic mental modes which are authority and “science”. I agree with Lewis that almost all of our knowledge are come from these six modes and these modes also related to how we develop and choose values. As Lewis explained, “these four basic and two major synthetic mental modes nor only describe how we approach things in general, they also describe how we develop and choose values. Many value systems are based on the short-cut of authority; others are based on deductive logic, sense experience, emotion, intuition, or ‘science’” (Lewis, 11). Our personal values are developed from our daily life. The ways that we connect to the life are the six modes. In addition, Lewis mentioned different people have different emphases, as he described, “One person may emphasize emotion very strongly, but still rely on the other modes. Another person may emphasize sense experience and loathe emotional judgments without ever completely escaping them” (Lewis, 14). I agree with him that maybe everyone has own emphases but all six modes are connected together.

This article includes many thought provoking statements, and I did not fully understand them. For example, I did not totally understand the argument of “academic specialty” that Lewis proposed. As he stated, “Ideally we should have a new academic specialty, one devoted solely to an overall account of values, but such a specialty does not yet exist” (Lewis, 17). My question is: why we should have a new academic specialty? I think everyone is different so everyone’s personal values, personal evaluations or personal beliefs are different. Even though we do not have the academic specialty we still can have own special personal values with own personal evaluations and beliefs.