Knowledge

For the study of London undertaken by prospective taxi drivers, see The Knowledge.

Personification of knowledge (Greek Επιστημη, Episteme) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey.

Knowledge is what is known. Like the related concepts truth, belief, and wisdom, there is no single definition of knowledge on which scholars agree, but rather numerous theories and continued debate about the nature of knowledge.

Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association, and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.

Defining knowledge

See also: epistemology

We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is. Now that scientific knowing is something of this sort is evident-witness both those who falsely claim it and those who actually possess it, since the former merely imagine themselves to be, while the latter are also actually, in the condition described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is.

— Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (Book 1 Part 2)

The definition of knowledge is a live debate for philosophers. The classical definition, found in (although not ultimately endorsed by) Plato, has it that in order for there to be knowledge at least three criteria must be fulfilled; that in order to count as knowledge, a statement must be justified, true, and believed. Some claim that these conditions are not sufficient, as Gettier case examples allegedly demonstrate. There are a number of alternatives proposed, including Robert Nozick's arguments for a requirement that knowledge 'tracks the truth' and Simon Blackburn's additional requirement that we do not want to say that those who meet any of these conditions 'through a defect, flaw, or failure' have knowledge. Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires that the believer's evidence is such that it logically necessitates the truth of the belief.

In contrast to this approach, Wittgenstein observed, following Moore's paradox, that one can say "He believes it, but it isn't so", but not "He knows it, but it isn't so". He goes on to argue that these do not correspond to distinct mental states, but rather to distinct ways of talking about conviction. What is different here is not the mental state of the speaker, but the activity in which they are engaged. For example, on this account, to know that the kettle is boiling is not to be in a particular state of mind, but to perform a particular task with the statement that the kettle is boiling. Wittgenstein sought to bypass the difficulty of definition by looking to the way "knowledge" is used in natural languages. He saw knowledge as a case of a family resemblance.

Because any knowledge incorporates concepts and will be expressed using terms, the interdependencies between knowledge and language are essential for the definition itself. This has been demonstrated by Hey recently.

Situated knowledge

Situated knowledge is knowledge specific to a particular situation. Imagine two very similar breeds of mushroom, which grow on either side of a mountain, one nutritious, one poisonous. Relying on knowledge from one side of an ecological boundary, after crossing to the other, may lead to starving rather than eating perfectly healthy food near at hand, or to poisoning oneself by mistake.

Some methods of generating knowledge, such as trial and error, or learning from experience, tend to create highly situational knowledge. One of the main benefits of the scientific method is that the theories it generates are much less situational than knowledge gained by other methods.

Situational knowledge is often embedded in language, culture, or traditions.

Partial knowledge

A discipline of epistemology is focused on partial knowledge. It states that in most of realistic cases, it is not possible to have an exhaustive understanding of an information domain, but that we have to live with the fact that our knowledge is always not complete, that is, partial. Most real problems have to be solved by taking advantage of a partial understanding of the problem context and problem data. That is very different from the typical simple math problems that we solve at school, where all data are given and we have a perfect understanding of formulas necessary to solve them.

Knowledge management

Main article: Knowledge management

Knowledge management is a management theory which emerged in the 1990s. It seeks to understand the way in which knowledge is used and traded within organisations and treats knowledge as self-referential and recursive. This recursion means that the definition of knowledge is in a state of flux. Knowledge management treats knowledge as information within some context. Knowledge in this context consists of information augmented by intentionality (or direction). This conception aligns with the DIKW model, which places data, information, knowledge and wisdom into an increasingly useful pyramid.

The main objective of knowledge management is to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person just in time, in order to take the most appropriate decision. In that sense, knowledge management is not interested to manage knowledge per se, but to relate knowledge and its usage. This leads to Organizational Memory Systems.

Rapid Knowledge capture tools are being combined with knowledge management to transfer knowledge easily and effectively from one person to another.

Scientific Knowledge

All scientific knowledge derives from (and also influences) scientific information, and all scientific information derives from scientific data.

• In scientific communities of practice (CoPs), scientific knowledge constitutes ‘the ability to predict a pattern of responses, based upon evidence collected by the scientific method’ and is derived from (and also influences) a specific cluster of scientific information.

• Scientific information functionally operates as ‘a new insight about relationships between data, that in turn places a demand on the attention of the scientific-observer’, and is derived from a specific grouping of scientific data.

• In turn, scientific data are simply the infinite facts of the universe itself, which serve as the basis for all scientific inquiry and discovery.

All scientific learning organizations depend upon scientific knowledge for their proper operation: After all, the Latin root word for ‘science’ means ‘having knowledge’. All scientific knowledge is further distinguished and characterized as having resulted from the proper application of the scientific method.

Taboo knowledge

Is knowledge a tool, like a hammer or a weapon, to do good or evil according to the will of those who wield it, or is there an inherent morality to it making some topics taboo? Many people feel that there are genres or fields of knowledge which should not be explored, or in other words that should be taboo. Oftentimes, knowledge appears to threaten religion, philosophies, and personal beliefs or values, and therefore is suppressed from investigation. Knowledges sometimes appears to offer more harm than value, and therefore is deemed to merit controls or restrictions, but sitting on the table of the mind like a book, it has no power of itself.

When knowledge (even here on Wikipedia through reversions) appears to challenge ideas or agendas, people will attempt to destroy (burn books) such as taboo knowledge in defense of their ideologies with whatever opportunities present themselves, even sometimes here on Wikipedia whether by vandalism or by wrongly citing NPOV or original research without justification. "...There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zan Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/ Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme...." - Ray Bradbury

See also

• Analytic proposition/Synthetic proposition
• A priori/A posteriori
• Belief
• DIKW
• Dark Knowledge
• Epistemic logic
• Epistemology
• Institutional knowledge
• Intelligence
• Intuition as an unconscious form of knowledge.
• Knowledge capture
• Knowledge creation
• Knowledge engineering
• Knowledge management
• Knowledge relativity
• Knowledge representation
• Learning
• Meta-knowledge
• Philosophical skepticism
• Procedural knowledge
• Propositional knowledge
• Tacit knowledge
• Theory of Knowledge
• Truth
• Knowledge is Power
• Objectivist epistemology

External links

• World Knowledge Dialogue Symposium - An initiative to bridge the gap between the natural and the human/social sciences.
• Theory of Knowledge: The Gettier problem
• Knowledge@Wharton - aimed to offer free access to course materials for students, teachers, and self-learners.
• The Duality of Knowledge
• Philosophy of Knowledge Glossary
• Communication technology and the evolution of knowledge: From pre-history to the information age
• Cybernetics & Human Knowing - A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics, Autopoiesis & Cyber-Semiotics
• The Incommensurability of Scientific and Poetic Knowledge
• Knowledge for Development Program - World Bank Institute
• A book on (relevant) Knowledge Authors: T. L. Kunii, C. V. Ramamoorthy, Hugh Ching & Ta-You Wu; Three Chapters: Money, Health, and Happiness; Published by Complete Automation Laboratory (2007)