Whitney Houston’s 1985 hit How Will I Know is, on the surface, a bright, effervescent pop song about romantic uncertainty. With its infectious melody and youthful energy, it captured the anxieties of falling in love when trust and evidence seem elusive. Yet beneath its glossy veneer lies a question that resonates far beyond matters of the heart: How will I know? This simple yet profound inquiry sits at the very heart of epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, its sources, its limits, and its justification. The song becomes a cultural artifact through which we can explore the challenges of knowing — particularly in domains where the stakes are emotional, subjective, and resistant to empirical verification.
At the core of epistemology is the question: what does it mean to know something? Traditionally, philosophers have defined knowledge as “justified true belief,” a formulation famously explored and problematized in Plato’s Theaetetus and subsequently challenged by Edmund Gettier in the 20th century. In How Will I Know, Houston gives voice to a similar dilemma: she believes she may be loved, but she cannot tell if that belief is justified or true. “I say a prayer with every heartbeat,” she confesses, revealing how faith and desire substitute for evidence in a domain where certainty is rare. This highlights an epistemological tension between what one feels and what one knows. Emotionally, she feels drawn to her beloved, yet intellectually she is suspended in doubt.
The song’s chorus — “How will I know if he really loves me?” — is a paradigmatic example of an epistemic question. It is a request for criteria. To know something, one needs some method or standard for distinguishing truth from falsehood, belief from knowledge, appearance from reality. Houston’s plaintive question suggests the difficulty of finding such standards in love. She suspects her judgment is clouded: “I’m asking you ‘cause you know about these things.” Here she appeals to another’s expertise, an acknowledgment that knowing often depends on testimony — a central topic in epistemology, which asks how and when we are justified in trusting the word of others.
Moreover, the song underscores the problem of underdetermination. The available evidence — glances, words, gestures — can be interpreted in more than one way. Is he sincere, or is he merely playing a game? “Falling in love is so bittersweet,” she sings, expressing the instability of belief in the absence of certainty. In epistemology, this resembles the skeptical challenge: how can we ever know that our perceptions and beliefs accurately reflect reality? Skeptics argue that any belief could be wrong; there’s always the possibility of deception, self-delusion, or incomplete evidence. Houston dramatizes this worry in the intimate context of romantic relationships, but the epistemological structure is the same.
Interestingly, the song also highlights the role of affect in belief-formation. “I’m shaking,” she admits, and her passion colors her judgment. This evokes concerns about the epistemic reliability of feelings and intuitions. Are her emotions a guide to truth, or are they obstacles to clear judgment? Contemporary epistemologists have debated the place of emotion in rational inquiry. While classical models often treat emotions as irrational, some argue they can play a constructive role by directing attention and motivating inquiry. In Houston’s case, however, her emotions seem to exacerbate her uncertainty, making her more vulnerable to wishful thinking.
Finally, How Will I Know raises the question of the practical limits of epistemology. In love, as in other areas of life, we often have to act without certainty. Houston prays for guidance, but she also keeps dancing. This suggests that even in the absence of knowledge, we make choices and take risks — a recognition that epistemic humility does not preclude engagement. This connects to the idea of practical reason: the need to act under conditions of uncertainty, using the best evidence available, even if it falls short of proof.
In conclusion, Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know is more than a pop anthem of youthful doubt; it is a poignant encapsulation of the human condition as seen through an epistemological lens. The song illustrates the challenges of knowing in the face of conflicting evidence, emotional bias, and the limits of testimony. It reminds us that knowledge is rarely easy, and that the search for certainty — in love or elsewhere — is often what defines our lives. In its enduring popularity, the song testifies not only to Houston’s artistry but also to the universality of the question it asks — a question that epistemologists, no less than lovers, continue to wrestle with: How will I know?
Edge Induced Cohesion 
“You need to know, and KNOW that you know!”
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No unknown knowns are acceptable here.
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I’m not the one that said it, nor do I accept the premise behind the quote — that we need to be so sure in our understandings, whether developed by ourselves or received from others, that we affirmatively refuse to consider contrary facts or alternative theories. Doing so amounts to a “Once deceived, always deceived” lock into a belief system, regardless of its truthfulness or legitimacy in one’s acceptance.
As for “unknown knowns,” those are not included in Rumsfeld’s famous quote. As a former military intelligence professional, I can attest that we do all possess more knowledge than we realize. No matter how sophisticated the database, or how smart any of us are, there is information available to us of which we are not conscious. As a result, the assessments we did on my deployments were not static conclusions. We were constantly not only taking in new information, but reassessing information we already possessed. Thus, our understanding would change over time.
We didn’t consider this invalidating our work, because, of course, we were never so pretentious as to claim that the living Christ made a matter clear in our minds, or that our INTSUMs (Intelligence Summaries) were are the most important written material since the Bible. Nor did we lay such an idea on others to pressure them to accept our assessments. Other units, even those below us in chain of command, could readily reach different assessments.
That said, our commanding general made the final decision as to courses of action based on intelligence. And we all had to follow those orders. You see, it was a military setting. It was not an ecclesiastical one. There is a difference — a big difference.
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The known unknowns of Rumsfields misadventures in military intelligence are far more troubling but unknown knowns makes for a funny joke if you know the context.
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(I don’t know the exact context of your “unknown known.”)
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The joke about unknown knowns is referring to your original quote that states that people must know what they know, to which I was giving humorous assent. There is a joke along similar lines that if the German engineering firm Siemens knew what they knew they would be a great company.
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Sometimes a person can not-know something they know, and it have some very serious consequences. Are you a Browncoat? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9SF7TOyHQ&pp=ygUYU2VyZW5pdHkgb3BlcmF0aXZlIHN3b3Jk
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I am, but considering the immense consequences of believing wmds to be present and using it as a justification for war, I would hardly argue that as a point in favor of a double standard with regards to earthly warfare that you deny with regards to spiritual warfare.
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(My reference to Rumsfeld was solely to head off some people’s misconceptions that he might’ve used that particular phrase, and give a lead-in to my using my military experience to discuss literal “unknown knowns.”)
There is no double standard. You are blurring the human and the Divine, as well as information with direction. My focus was on accessing information and developing understandings. The reference to the commanding general giving directions (orders) was to head off some who would equate or analogize one’s relationship to a military commander and one’s relationship to an ecclesiastical leader.
In spiritual warfare, the commanding general is one’s deity or messiah-figure. It is NOT a human ecclesiastical leader making unfounded claims about being given divinely-guided decisions, only to be proven wrong later. Nor is there an obligation to follow the commands of such a leader or his ministers with the same near-absolute obedience owed to a military leader — most especially when the ecclesiastical leader and his ministry base their authority on an alleged historical succession which not only is not in evidence, but which is virtually precluded from being the case by the history that is in evidence. https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2025/03/reference-to-followers-of-armstrongism.html?m=1
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A little story that might fit here, albeit the analogy and dichotomy is notably different (I may have mentioned this before): My sergeant on deployment was a fairly quiet fellow when it came to issues of the day. However, once when we in the office had a discussion on the existence of God — this was back when you can get away with something like that — he did pipe up, taking shots against arguments in favor of the belief. Constantly taking shots. Vehemently. It was very unlike him. So later, as he and I walked back to the hooch after chow, I told him I understood his position, but I wondered why he was so vehement. First, he acknowledged that he could not say 100% that there was no God. So he had to hold out that little tiny sliver of a possibility that there was a God. But his motivation to actively resist accepting the existence of God was that he did not want to give up his “independence.”
Now understand: We were Missouri Army National Guardsmen on federal orders in an overseas hostile-fire zone. We were in uniform and literally bearing arms as required by command policy, and could be ordered at any moment to go kill people that we had never met and had nothing against personally. And we would have to yield those arms simply at the order of a superior (even our Second Amendment rights were limited!). We couldn’t leave the post without permission. We were limited in communications with the outside world. And holding Top-Secret security clearances, we had to take particular care in our associations, as well as restrain what we said of what we knew. In short, we were in probably the LEAST-independent condition an American citizen can be short of prison. And this guy was wanting to maintain his “independence”?
Of course, he was talking about his independence of thought and conviction. He could reach his own conclusions regarding truth in the great cosmic reality. If there was a God, however, he would have to submit that judgment to Him. And my sergeant and friend did not wish to do that. He had to follow orders from his military chain of command. But he didn’t have to agree with them on the higher things of existence.
When an ecclesiastical leader issues an edict or fatwa or Pastor General’s statement declaring something to be THE answer from the living Christ, then it is expected that said utterance be adhered to as if it came from God Himself. That figure is “as God” to his ecclesiastical community. He is Moses, King David, Peter, Paul, or whatever other biblical figure offers a recorded action best suited to justify that ecclesiastical leader’s command. And to defy it would be to defy God.
Such an ecclesiastical setting takes what the late Ronald Dart labeled in a conversation with yours truly a Christian’s “INDEPENDENCE in Christ” and surrenders it to a human ecclesiastical leader. One is expected to “know, and know that one knows” what is given to them to “know” by that leader. They “know” it because they are told to know it. And whatever weasel words might from time to time come from him or his ministers, the truth is that that leader might have no intention for the members to put Scripture before that (April 1979 GN).
In spiritual warfare, a believer follows his God. He is not so bound to follow his minister (cf., 2 Corinthians 1:24). Conflating the two is all too common an error in Armstrongism.
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You’re engaging in some seriously fallacious false dilemmas here. The Bible clearly indicated that Jesus Christ is the commander of the army of God, but ministers are clearly also in the place of sergeants or Roman centurions, much like your conflicted sergeant in deployment. One need not consider someone in a position of authority to be God or anything close to it.
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“One need not consider someone in a position of authority to be God or anything close to it.”
Yet that was how things were said and done in the old WCG. It was that mindset and training that enabled Tkach to pull off in one 3 1/2 hour sermon what innumerable critics have been unable to do in decades.
Truly, this may be an area where your relative youth does put you at a disadvantage. As I pointed out before, I was a baptized adult member when you were still crying about not getting to watch Saturday morning cartoons like your friends at school. (Hey, I get it!) You may not have picked up on statements like, “Unless there is a very strong reason not to do so (weasel words), whatever a minister says, in a sermon, just take it like it came from God.” Armstrong/Tkach was “as God” to members, per that statement about Moses. (You have a ministering in UCG who said that to me in supporting to Tkach in 1995.) It really was that way, and don’t pretend it doesn’t still influence UCG. I was there.
As for the NCO analogies, I do I have two responses for now:
You’re actually edging toward the “presbytery priesthood” (my term) concept you rejected before, making ministry basically junior/lower rank versions of what Christ is. Just a heads-up.
Understand that most Christian churches don’t see ministry this way. I mentioned to a never-was-an-Armstrongist friend about the discussion that came to a head circa 1990 over whether a Black minister had authority over a White member. He was almost incredulous at the whole idea of ministers having “authority” in that sense. Also, a fellow on TruthSocial who was posting Armstrongist material and claiming to follow the “churches” following Armstrong was completely in denial when I mentioned “rule by ministry.” Between that and seeing the April 1979 GN article, he stopped posting Armstrongist material.
(Btw, you need to add TruthSocial to your sharing list (if the site does that), if only to cancel out having Bluesky. And get your own account on TS. Follow me at LTWalker03.)
But being so subject to ministry, you need to make sure that you are obeying the correct one (and I don’t mean which ACOG): https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2025/03/reference-to-followers-of-armstrongism.html?m=1
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My point is that you automatically make false dilemmas any time dealing with the church of God comes up. It’s not honest or fair rhetorical practice and I will continue to call you out on it until you stop this dishonest practice. As far as sharing goes, I allow all options that are available, and if Truth Social had a widget for sharing I would certainly add it.
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TruthSocial needs to get one of those!
As for false dichotomies and such, we have actually discussed that before. Armstrongism is largely based on binary extremes. “Ditch jumpers,” one now-COGaWA minister called us all. He facetiously said that if we decided the person can serve in the military (as I was arguing), then we all should join up and go to Iraq. What exactly we would’ve done there after Desert Storm but before 9/11, I do not know. My calling him out on that is what got him to use that term. The point is that such is your ecclesiastical culture. Again, I was there. Perhaps it has improved in UCG. If so, fine. But it is a place where you all will have departed from your heritage.
I remember Armstrong defending his top-down hierarchical view of the “Government of God” by saying that bottom-up governance would mean that people govern God. It would “go all the way up,” or something like that. He was very explicit. False dilemma much?
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Tu quoque fallacy now. Just stop making bad reasoning. Level up your rhetoric so that you can engage in good faith dialogue.
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Glass houses, friend.
At least you acknowledge Herbert Armstrong did exactly the same thing. I trust that you would have written him, the “apostle” and “End-time Elijah,” as strongly as you have written me had you been of age at the time.
You remind me of a very liberal civilian contractor/advisor we had in Kosovo. It was 2007. He complained about Ann Coulter, but didn’t say a word about Keith Olbermann. He said that Ann Coulter should be silenced because she was so… whatever it was he said. What he really meant was that she was effective, and so she had to be Canceled when Canceling wasn’t cool.
I understand your point, and I actually will take it into consideration. It is, after all, your blog. Now, please take my point into consideration: Armstrongism is fundamentally about dichotomies and absolute binaries on things that aren’t necessarily binary. Armstrong actually disfellowshipped his wife because she insisted on wearing makeup. Right? Thus, in countering it, it should be expected that some of the shots will be the same way. Insisting one side unilaterally disarm is hardly “honest or fair.”
Some years ago, there was a phrase on the political Right: “New Rules.” They — OK, we — had tired of the double standard, and started throwing back at the Left the same way they have been throwing at us. The enemy sets the rules. And if we have learned that lesson after 9/11, there have been no Afghanistan or Iraq Wars, just some radioactive glass. Just saying.
So again, your blog = your rules. And I will strive to stay within your rules… For real, if your leaders weren’t so cowardly, and were willing to engage in an open conversation, none of this would be necessary.
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Once again there is the issue of timing here. As I was 4 and a half years old (to the day) when Herbert W Armstrong died, I didn’t have the chance to make myself a pest to him by calling out bad logic and false dillemas and the like, as by the time I was active in writing he was dead.
Underlying a great many of our discussions are some very broad brush assumptions that you make. One of them, for example, is that I must have been longing to watch Saturday morning cartoons like everyone else when in truth I never thought about them because my family had a tradition of getting up and having long breakfasts and conversations until it was time to get ready and then head off to church (where my grandfather was in charge of the information table and we arrived early and left late) or to the prison bible studies that he sometimes hosted. The thought of watching tv never crossed my mind or even came up as a subject of conversation. You seem to assume, though, that everyone who grew up in Worldwide or another Church of God would feel themselves deprived because they couldn’t watch Saturday morning cartoons, when even to this day I barely think of television at all, much less watch much of it.
This broad brush also finds itself in full force when you speak of the Church of God. You seem to act as if there was no real difference at all in the practice of mindset of someone in United Church of God (which in many ways, at least as far as I can tell, is fairly close to the territory of Ron Dart and others of like mind) to someone in Restored Church of God or Philadelphia Church of God when we would not see ourselves to be that close at all. While someone in Philadelphia or Restored would certainly consider you (or me, for that matter) to be beyond the pale when it came to close personal dealings, your treatment of people in United as if they were followers of Pack or Flurry would be intensely offensive and would merit you being blocked from discussion as someone who clearly didn’t know what they were talking about or had the necessary respect that is a precondition for the healthy dialogue you claim to desire.
Concerning the aspect of fair play of rules, you seem to think that by asking you not to use horrible logic when talking to me that I am asking you to disarm yourself rhetorically. If all of your weapons are bad logic and inability to properly distinguish (a major failure in rhetoric), then perhaps you should be disarmed until you are better trained to handle your keyboard properly in the manner that someone who was a terrible shot in your world might have to take a lot of remedial time at the range to improve their pitiful accuracy before they went off firing live rounds all over the place. That said, I wholeheartedly agree in repaying others by their own currency. Unlike, say, woke people obsessed with identity politics, I don’t believe that the children or grandchildren of such people should pay for the sins of the fathers, per the example of Ezekiel. If you consider me an enemy on the level that we would both consider the leftist activists or radical Islamists of the world, then I would submit that in our contemporary climate no polite and open conversation would be possible, and that would be why it does not happen.
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You take my Saturday morning cartoons reference just a bit too literally.
That’s all. Thank you.
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Just in case you’re not: https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2025/01/brief-firefly-promo.html?m=1
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