A claim counts as knowledge only when it holds up under checks of evidence and reasoning, not because it feels obviously right or because a revered text says so. Gut intuition and appeals to scripture are not enough on their own; the means of knowing must themselves be shown to be valid.
Before saying what exists, first settle the means by which anything can be reliably known, then turn to the things known. Questions of method come first and are treated apart from questions about the objects of knowledge, so that claims about the world rest on an examined foundation.
A school built on testing claims by reason can, over time, take in the ideas of competing schools instead of simply fighting them. Its method stays the same while the body of ideas it holds grows by borrowing from its rivals.