How Do We Ever Know?

A question that I think about often is, how do we know? I have thought about this off and on for a while now, before ever having heard the philosophical term for it, epistemology, and how we come to "know" things, which I just learned of a few days ago. It seems that this is the branch of philosophy that asks about how we know things.

I didn't go so granular as to say, how do I know I exist? How do I know a thought or my thoughts? But more along the lines of, how will I know when I meet the person I am going to marry? How will or how do I know what career is right for me? How will I know?

Have you ever had a feeling (and as far as I can tell, I've only had a handful of these "feelings,") that you did know? I can think of two times in my life when I felt that I did "know" something about those two topics related to what was happening in my life, and I still remember these moments, because they were such strong feelings that I had.

One was about a boy. I had been dating someone very casually in New York, and we did the typical New York "thing." We saw each other once or twice a week and had a great time, and then didn't speak for the next few days, or didn't actually try to have a real relationship based on communication and caring. But yet, one day this boy sent me an e-mail, just any old 2-liner really, and I was just hit with this FEELING - and the feeling was "I am going to marry this guy.: Well - that has not turned out to be the case. In fact, our dating ended in disaster and I'm pretty certain that we aren't going to get married...and yet...that day...that feeling, was so strong, it was almost like a clear signal indicating to me something powerful and true.

The other feeling I had, and both of these were in the past 2 years, prior to that, of course I had had "feelings" about guys and jobs and "things happening for a reason" but these were just different somehow, was about a Philosophy class I ended up taking at UC Berkeley. I came across the class while searching for Sociology classes, and I just knew I had to take the class. There was no rhyme or reason to it, I had never scoured Philosophy classes in any course offering list prior to that day, but I read the 2 line description on learning about free will, and morality, and I was hooked. I quit my job, moved to California, and took the class, and it was truly, everything I had hoped it would be and more. And now, about a year later, I am enrolled in a Philosophy program, as opposed to Sociology, which was my original and much more practical, intention.

I still have yet to understand what these feelings were. Were they just feelings, though powerful, that were fleeting, and though meant much at the time, didn't mean much in the overall scheme of things? Did I interpret them too strongly, give them too much weight? On the one hand, I'm now studying Philosophy. But what about Sociology? And what about that guy? It ended in disaster, and yet, that day, wow, I will never forget that feeling.