Talk:Knowledge

Untitled

This article covers many aspects of knowledge. For the philosophical areas of knowledge please use epistemology.

Wrong knowledge is still knowledge

"Complementary to the sociology of knowledge is the sociology of ignorance including the study of nescience, ignorance, knowledge gaps or non-knowledge as inherent features of knowledge making."

References

Knowledge > Understanding

Wikipedia defines knowledge as a understanding, but it isn't the same thing. Knowledge needs to be revised to exclude understanding. Eliasladd (talk) 21:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I was going to mention this as well, as new to editing I am not sure what to do apart from talk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DannyHatcher (talk • contribs) 12:13, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

You could propose something else! :) Make a specific proposal of a sentence you want to change and your new formulation (with sources). Also be aware that the lead paragraphs (see WP:LEAD) are just a summary of the article. Best — Mvbaron (talk) 12:22, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. Makes my question seem silly know but will get to something :) User:DannyHatcher 6 November 2021

Don't worry DannyHatcher! feel free to either (i) work on the text in your sandbox, or (ii) propose something here, or (iii) be WP:BOLD and edit the article directly. -- Mvbaron (talk) 08:46, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Mandaeism

Aramaic manda means "knowledge," and is conceptually related to the Greek term gnosis. This means the Mandaeans or 'knowers' are the only surviving Gnostics from antiquity. Mandaeans also refer to themselves as Nasurai (Nasoraeans) meaning guardians or possessors of knowledge. This has a clear connection to the religious concept of knowledge. As a Gnostic religion, "Mandaeanism stresses salvation of the soul through esoteric knowledge of its divine origin." (Encyclopedia Britannica) Mcvti (talk) 17:31, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

SO we just had a section on Gnostics added and I left that; this is a summary level article after all. If anything the religions section is getting disproportionate anyway and we can't list every group and sect that uses the knowledge word or makes a knowledge claim. So while Gnosticism deserves a mention I can't see a case for Mandaeism being notable enough for inclusion -----Snowded ^TALK 17:48, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Mandaeism has a greater connection to the religious concept of knowledge than all the other religions that are already listed since it is literally their namesake. If the most important aspect of a religion is knowledge in order to achieve salvation, that is more than enough to be notable in order to be included in the list of religions. I was actually surprised it was not already listed Mcvti (talk) 18:00, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

OK that is your opinion, but you've already said it is a subset of Gnosticism, Have you got a third party source which establishes its importance in the context of an article on Knowledge? -----Snowded ^TALK 18:15, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People, New York: Oxford University Press 2002.

• Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Great Stem of Souls: Reconstruction Mandaean History, Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2005.
• Deutsch, Nathaniel (1999). Guardians of the Gate: Angelic Vice-regency in the Late Antiquity. BRILL. ISBN 9004109099.
• Ethel Stefana Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (1937), reprint: Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2002.
• Ethel Stefana Drower, The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis, Oxford: Clarendon, 1960.
• Edmondo Lupieri, The Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
• Rudolph, Kurt (1977). "Mandaeism". In Moore, Albert C. (ed.). Iconography of Religions: An Introduction. Vol. 21. Chris Robertson. ISBN 9780800604882.
• Rudolph, Kurt (2001-06-20). Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism. A&C Black. pp. 343–366. ISBN 9780567086402.
• Andrew Phillip Smith, John the Baptist and the Last Gnostics: The Secret History of the Mandaeans, London: Watkins Publishing 2016.
• Edwin M. Yamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts (1967), reprint Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2005.
• Edwin M. Yamauchi, Gnostic Ethics and Mandaean Origins (1970), reprint Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2004.

They are a type of Gnosticism, in fact the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity. They can be listed under Gnosticism section and described if that would help solve the issue. Mcvti (talk) 18:27, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

You're just listing sources that talk about Manadaens and we don't accept original research or interpretation or synthesis of primary sources. Request was for a third party source which says in some way, that their take on knowledge has high significance -----Snowded ^TALK 18:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

If you looked at the sources, they all discuss the importance of knowledge in Mandaeism as a key aspect of the religion. Please do not accuse me of providing original research which is false. I have provided enough references to show the significance of the religious concept of knowledge in Mandaeism. I have even offered to add them under Gnosticism which you did not acknowledge. I find you will continue to make excuses not to add them showing you do not have a neutral point of view on the topic. Mcvti (talk) 19:02, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not aware of disputing the importance of knowledge in Mandaeism. I am saying that you have not offered any source which establishes that Mandaeism's take on knowledge has any special notability. We have brief descriptions of major religions perspectives which can be justified and I'm OK with Gnosticism being added. If you think it should be a part of Gnosticism then again we need a source that shows it is notable. If you can't source it then it doesn't go in - and please don't speculate on my motivation that really doesn't help -----Snowded ^TALK 19:14, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Britanicca says it's a "Gnostic sect" and says its origins are disputed. Also it is very much a minor sect. Nothing to support your claims for notability. Either way its tagged - I'll give it a day or so and if there is no new evidence or work on gaining a consensus I'll restore the article to its previous consensus position -----Snowded ^TALK 19:47, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

This is not original research so the tag you applied does not belong there. Reliable sources have already been cited. Being the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity makes it very much notable. From Mandaeism, the religion is at least 2000 years old and scholars specializing in the religion believe it originated in the Palestine / Israel region. The renowned scholar of Mandaeism Jorunn J. Buckley believes Mandaeism is of Judean or Israelite origin. I don't understand the rationale behind refusing to mention the last surviving Gnostics with a few sentences under Gnosticism backed up by reliable sources and pertinent to the religious concepts of knowledge. Are you questioning the origins of the religion or whether you recognize them as a religion and worthy of being mentioned or the relevance of the religious concept of knowledge to the religion. In any case, you do not have consensus to remove the section and I advise you to look at some of the sources I listed to get a better understanding of how important the concept of knowledge or gnosis (manda) is to the religion. Mcvti (talk) 05:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I provided a third party source which said it is a minor sect and the origins are disputed. You are arguing a position from primary/secondary sources which is original research. You are also failing to follow normal practice you were bold, you were reverted, you now discuss you don't assert you are right without gaining consensus. You do not remove tags without agreement. Without a source establishing NOTABILITY the material will be deleted and if you restore it without consensus on the talk page you will be reported for edit warring. I will repeat that I am not disputing knowledge is relevant to an article on the religion but I don't think that the religion is notable enough for this article and it certainly fails any test of balance.-----Snowded ^TALK 07:16, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I've just gone through the discussion above. I've read through dozens of sources about Mandaeism and will be happy to share a few of my observations and thoughts.

• This is definitely not original research.
• The sentences are correct and do not reach original conclusions from WP:SYNTH.
• Manda does indeed mean 'knowledge' and/or 'gnosis'. I am familiar with Mandaic and can confirm this.
• Mandaeism is certainly not a non-notable minor sect. It is one of the major ancient religions of Mesopotamia and western Persia and is absolutely crucial to understanding the origins of Christianity, Islam, and Manichaeism. See for example Psalms of Thomas#Mandaean parallels. Mandaeans form one of the most notable Gnostic groups. If most scholars had to pick and choose a few notable notable Gnostic groups to analyze, they would be Mandaeism, Manichaeism, Nag Hammadi Gnosticism, and Catharism. The Gnostic Archive at gnosis.org also has dedicated collections for these groups, but not for the other truly minor sects. The less notable Gnostic sects are the Elkasites, Quqites, and dozens of other minor groups that were only given passing mentions in historical sources; and of course, certainly not neo-Gnostic New Age groups. If someone were to write a paragraph making spurious claims about the Quqites in this article, then I would keep the OR tag, but basic facts about Mandaeism are all right.
• There is wide consensus among historians of religion that Mandaeism is in fact the only surviving Gnostic religion, although Gnosticism itself is a fuzzy category. Its importance and comparative notability have been confirmed by nearly all scholars of Mandaeism, including Torgny Säve-Söderbergh and Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley. I would actually pick Manichaeism, Mandaeism, and Nag Hammadi Gnosticism to include if I were to choose just a few Gnostic religions to mention in this article.

Verdict: Mcvti's contributions look fine to me. These are basic facts mentioned in multiple existing articles and are not fringe theories, and they are also notable enough to mentioned. Nebulousquasar (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Well its hardly a 'verdict' when the pair of you are active on articles about this particular sect. The one third party source I have found says that it is a minor sect - third party sources are what we use here. In the context of this article, each major religion gets a couple of lines and that we have for the Gnostics. We are not mentioning any of the sects - look at the one of Christianity, it doesn't even distinguish between Catholic and Protestant. You have to establis weight through citations and nothing in what you say above does that. -----Snowded ^TALK 18:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Snowded for keeping a close eye on this article and closely analyzing everything though, or otherwise these kinds of articles would be bombarded with random spurious or non-notable claims by barely mentioned minor historical sects, or small New Age fringe groups. However, Mandaeism is certainly not one of them. We're not talking about Martinism or Knight Templars here. Mandaeism is in no way a minor fringe sect, as "third-party" Protestant Christian scholars such as Edwin Yamauchi and many others clearly state. Another "third party": Even Islamic scholars have clearly listed Mandaeans among the People of the Book, a category that does not include the many hundreds of minor religious sects out there. Nebulousquasar (talk) 18:48, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Well as I say the one third party (please note THIRD party) says it is a minor sect (not a fringe). Whatever it is a part of Gnosticism and doesn't deserve singling out. Each major religion gets a couple of lines. There is no reason to single out one Gnostic approach over the others. And by the way Mcvti has now broken the rule on canvassing by asking you to support him here -----Snowded ^TALK 18:52, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus.

An editor who may wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors to a discussion can place a message at any of the following:

The talk page or noticeboard of one or more WikiProjects or other Wikipedia collaborations which may have interest in the topic under discussion. A central location (such as the Village pump or other relevant noticeboards) for discussions that have a wider impact such as policy or guideline discussions. The talk page of one or more directly related articles.

• On the talk pages of a user mentioned in the discussion (particularly if the discussion concerns complaints about user behavior).
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• Editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article
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Copied from Wikipedia:Canvassing

WP:POVRAILROAD (Unsubstantiated accusations of canvassing) Mcvti (talk) 18:58, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I rest my case - this article is about Knowledge not a Gnostic sect but it won't be me that makes the call. Please focus on trying to find an argument on source that satisfies the requirements of WP:WEIGHT -----Snowded ^TALK 19:00, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I think a compromise will be good. I don't want to take sides or get into edit wars. Although it might be great to expand the paragraph about Mandaeism, I think we should keep it as and not continue expanding it in order to make sure that we meet WP:WEIGHT requirements. Maybe a few more sentences about Manichaeism and Nag Hammadi Gnosticism can balance things out, and we shouldn't include unnecessary details about Mandaeism. Thanks for everyone's comments. Nebulousquasar (talk) 19:07, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

An "additional citations" tag might be more relevant than the OR tag, but I'll leave that up to the other editors. Let's just leave it at here for now. Nebulousquasar (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

And I tagged rather than get into an edit war when Mcvti broke WP:BRD. I'm open to a descrition of Gnostic approaches to knowledge which is no longer than those for Islam and Christianity. -----Snowded ^TALK 19:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Reset

This is the position as I understand it

1. This article is about Knowledge and has a section showing how major religions have treated that subject. These are brief descriptions of a few sentences and none of the entries has included different sect positions - for example the differences between Aquinas and Agustine in Christianity are not mentioned event though they had major implications in the Western Intellectual Tradition. The Islam section does not talk about Sufi, Shi'a and Sunni perspectices.
2. All of the references and statements given above relate to the etymology of the name of the religion and discussions about the significance of Mandaeism in the history of Gnisticism. All of that may be right (or otherwise if you believe Britanicca) but none of it is relevant here. Just because something is referenced doesn't mean that it is included
3. The proposal is to expand the Gnositic section to include one sect, its not clear why and Manichæism is probably better known, but that is beside the poin: no other entry for any religion containts details about individual sects or perspectices
4. No sources or material or argument has been advanced as to why the Gnostic section should be larger than for other religions or why different sects should be explicitly mentioned when they are not in the other entries

So - I have not disputed the addition of a section on Gnosticism but I am disputing giving privilege to one sect in that entry, and I am very dubious as to if any sect should be mentioned.

Per standard practice I have restored to the previous stable text to allow discussion takes place; the onus is on those proposing an addition to justify the new material. If we can't reach agreement then we call an RfC although this really is a minor issue but that is proper process, not edit warring.

Those who want to insert this material need to make a case about why a Gnostic sect deserves unique treatment in this article. I repeat, no other entry for more significant religions is treated in that way -----Snowded ^TALK 07:54, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't have much time today for discussion, but I see a problem with the way the religions are listed. You have a Dharmic religion (Hinduisim), three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and Gnosticism which is not a religion by itself, but rather a type or category of religions, however no Gnostic religion(s) are listed. Mcvti (talk) 21:34, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

A good solution would be to either remove Gnosticism and add Mandaeism and perhaps Manichaeism instead as separate religions, or put Christianity, Islam and Judaism under Abrahamic religions and add Mandaeism and Manichaeism under Gnosticism. Hinduism would be under Indian (Dharmic) religions. Mcvti (talk) 00:32, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I think editors would be open to rethinking it, but we need to remember that its not an article about religion, its about knowledge. The vast majority of readers will not really be aware of the 'three religions of the book' and anyway views on knowledge are not defined by origin. They will understand the major world religions listed there. The issue and test is significance to this article, not significance in the study of religion. We also need third party sources to establish significance and there we have an problem with giving any prominence to Mandaeanism. To quote in full from the Enclyopedia Britannica "Mandaeanism, (from Mandaean mandayya, “having knowledge”), ancient Middle Eastern religion still surviving in Iraq and Khuzistan (southwest Iran). The religion is usually treated as a Gnostic sect; it resembles Manichaeism in some respects. Whereas most scholars date the beginnings of Mandaeanism somewhere in the first three centuries AD, the matter of its origin is highly conjectural" -----Snowded ^TALK 07:26, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Another idea could be to move the 'Religious concepts of knowledge' section into a separate article due its significance leaving this article to deal with the other aspects of knowledge. Mcvti (talk) 19:04, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Worth looking at as an option, it would need a few good third party sources to create a structure -----Snowded ^TALK 09:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Opening statement

I removed the second sentence in the opening statement because it was a VERY DEEP philosophical statement that may be appropriate later in the article but doesn't really help elucidate the basic concept. Happy to discuss or be corrected. The statement might be appropriate later in the page, IMO. Alex Jackl (talk) 15:28, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

The lead section of this article is currently in bad shape and needs a rewrite, in my view. @Phlsph7: You have done a lot of work on other epistemology articles, so would you be interested in taking a look at the lead section of this article and making revisions? @Snowded: You are the long-time top editor of this article and your input on revising the lead section would also be appreciated. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 16:10, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Without access beyond the abstract of the source, I am not sure what to do with the sentence fragment, "Facts ... , skills ... , or objects ... contributing to ones understanding."

It might be as simple as changing "contributing" to "contribute", but it could also be something a bit different. Just plain Bill (talk) 16:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I have access to the cited source (Stephen R. Grimm's chapter "Understanding as Knowledge of Causes"), and I don't see why is cited there; that source is about the more specific topic summarized in its title. So I removed it. But part of the bigger problem that needs to be fixed, much more than the grammar, is that the definition of knowledge in the first sentence makes a number of philosophical assumptions about which there is not universal agreement, so the current definition is not nearly broad enough to encompass what follows, even just within the current lead section. For example, contrast the current lead sentence of this article ("Knowledge is a type of belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification") with some of the following passages from Barry Allen's article "Knowledge" from the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas that is reproduced on Encyclopedia.com:

Between Gettier-inspired concerns about the analysis of knowledge and the project of refuting the skeptic, epistemologists fell into two broad camps, depending on whether they considered knowledge to require an element of justification or understanding, or whether, contrary to tradition, true belief might be enough. The idea that knowledge requires only true belief, provided the cause of the belief is appropriate or reliable, is known as externalism. Such theories reject the traditional assumption that knowledge requires the knower to understand the reason why a belief is true. [...] [Later the topic changes from Gettier to knowledge and truth more generally:] Certainly there is some difference between knowing that the earth rotates around the sun (a true proposition) and knowing how to play the flute (a skill or art). But is the difference one in kinds of knowledge? What is obviously different about them is how the knowledge is expressed. In one case by producing a proposition, in the other by a musical performance. But that is a difference in the artifacts that express knowledge, and does not prove a difference in what makes these examples of knowledge at all. In both cases the knowledge concerns artifacts, constructions of ours, whether propositions or musical performances. [...] Heliocentric astronomy and musical artistry are therefore not so different as knowledge. Whether we speak of knowing that (such and such is true) or knowing how, we are qualifying capacities for performance at a certain high level with artifacts of some kind.

— Allen, Barry (2005). "Knowledge". In Horowitz, Maryanne Cline (ed.). New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1199–1204. ISBN 0684313774. OCLC 55800981.

Whether one agrees with Allen or not, the relevant point for the issue at hand is that this article's definition of knowledge as "a type of belief" is just one view (akin to internalism) that could and should be subsumed under a broader and more inclusive definition of knowledge that more closely approximates to a neutral point of view, whatever that may be. (I'm not implying that Allen's view is broad enough for Wikipedia; it's not, but it's an example of one way that the current first sentence is inadequate.) Biogeographist (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I am on board with this. It really needs some work! Alex Jackl (talk) 17:02, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

In the meantime, I restored an earlier version of the first paragraph as a better basis for future development. Biogeographist (talk) 23:14, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi Biogeographist and thanks for the heads-up. I agree that it's difficult to give a general definition of knowledge since there are many types of knowledge (like know-how vs know-that) and many theories about the essential characteristics of the different types. One way to do it would be to start not with a general definition but with the most well-known one, i.e. as justified true belief. For example, from the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "According to the most widely accepted definition, knowledge is justified true belief". The definition can then be qualified in the next sentence by pointing out disagreements and alternatives. From what I can tell, there is very wide consensus that knowledge involves true belief. There is some disagreement about whether justification has to be involved instead of just reliability (reliabilism/externalism) and whether justified true belief is also a sufficient condition and not just a necessary one (Gettier). Phlsph7 (talk) 05:05, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

It's true that many philosophers consider the definition of knowledge as justified true belief to be the standard definition for their purposes. Philosopher Barry Allen, whose article on Encyclopedia.com I cited above, is one of the vehement dissenters: "contrary to what is often said, the definition of knowledge as justified true belief is not in any sense 'classical'. It has never been widely accepted and first entered philosophical discussion (in Plato's Theaetetus) as a refuted theory."

Nevertheless, even if JTB is the standard definition of knowledge in philosophy, I agree with Snowded's comment below that this article is not (just) about knowledge in philosophy: the Epistemology article serves that purpose, and there is also the JTB section of Belief. So I would prefer to start with something more general than JTB. Biogeographist (talk) 12:31, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

If we have sources for a widely accepted more general definition then I'm with you. But if we have to piece this definition together ourselves then it is original research. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:39, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Right. Probably the best source for a widely accepted general definition, before preceding to a summary of the article, is a dictionary like the OED. The first detailed definition in the OED that is not obsolete is: "II. The fact or condition of knowing something. 3. a. The fact of knowing or being acquainted with a thing, person, etc.; acquaintance; familiarity gained by experience." The usage examples for this definition in the OED are from a wide range of fields, so this seems to be the generalist definition. The current lead sentence of this article is pretty close to that, which is why I was comfortable restoring it from an earlier version. The next non-obsolete detailed definition in the OED is "4. b. The apprehension of fact or truth with the mind; clear and certain perception of fact or truth; the state or condition of knowing fact or truth." The usage examples in the OED for this definition are all or nearly all from philosophy, so this would be the standard philosophical definition.

Further definitions from the OED (omitting the obsolete ones): "4. c. With of. The fact or state of having a correct idea or understanding of something; the possession of information about something. Also with indefinite article; formerly also in plural. [...] e. Perception by means of the senses. [...] 5. a. The fact or state of knowing that something is the case; the condition of being aware or cognizant of a fact, state of affairs, etc. (expressed or implied); awareness, consciousness. [...] b. (A person's) range of mental perception; awareness; ken. [...] 6. a. Chiefly with of. The fact or condition of having acquired a practical understanding or command of, or competence or skill in, a particular subject, language, etc., esp. through instruction, study, or practice; skill or expertise acquired in a particular subject, etc., through learning. Frequently with indefinite article. Formerly also with †in or infinitive. [...] b. Without construction: the fact or condition of having become conversant with a body of facts, principles, methods, etc.; scholarship, learning, erudition. [...] III. The object of knowing; something known or made known. [...] 9. a. As a count noun. A thing which is or may be known; esp. a branch of learning; a science; an art. Usually in plural. [...] b. As a mass noun. That which is known; the sum of what is known. [...] d. Computing. Information in the form of facts, assumptions, and inference rules which can be accessed by a computer program (esp. an agent: see agent n. 5). Cf. knowledge base n." Biogeographist (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

One difficulty with using dictionary definitions is that they just list many different meanings without putting them into relation to each other or assessing their general importance. This is also apparent from the length of you last edit, which just lists all the version from one dictionary. The current 1st sentence would not be my first choice but I agree with that it is not too terrible either. The right way to go about this would be to first rework the relevant parts of the article, specifically the section "Theories of knowledge", and then summarize the results in the lead. But this would be a rather time-consuming project. Phlsph7 (talk) 04:31, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree that revising the body of the article first would be advisable. Barry Allen's article cited above (which is mostly a history) starts by discussing four Greek words that could be translated with the word "knowledge" (epistēmē, technē, mētis, and gnōsis), which shows, like the OED definitions above, that the word "knowledge" does a lot of work in English. The SEP article on epistemology, for example, also notes this: "the English word 'knowledge' lumps together various states that are distinguished in other languages". I think it may be possible to identify a core that all the meanings have in common; for example, I like how the SEP article on epistemology describes the common core as "cognitive success": "epistemology seeks to understand one or another kind of cognitive success (or, correspondingly, cognitive failure). This entry surveys the varieties of cognitive success, and some recent efforts to understand some of those varieties." Reviewing the OED definitions of knowledge above, I don't think any of them could not be characterized as a kind of cognitive success. (I bet even Barry Allen could get on board with the "cognitive success" view, as long as cognition were conceived broadly enough, as in 4E cognition.) Biogeographist (talk) 13:00, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

The idea of cognitive success as a common element could be included in the lead, for example, in the 2nd lead paragraph, which talks about the different forms of knowledge. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:00, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I concur: give JTB in lede sentence and qualify later or in the appropriate section on propositional knowledge. This discussion began with my WP:Bold rewrite of the lede to make it so, and I later added relational knowledge as the second sentence, since the previous lede sentence that I replaced had emphasized familiarity. Also could mention practical knowledge and productive knowledge; order is negotiable.

Here was my proposed lede, using the platonic and aristotelian method of definition by diaresis:

Knowledge is a type of belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. Knowledge is a type of relationship distinct from mere acquaintance by virtue of familiarity, intimacy, or friendship. Jaredscribe (talk) 04:25, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Support I think this is elegant and sounds great and is better than the lead we have currently. +1 Mvbaron (talk) 05:14, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

(Just to make this more clear: I support replacing the first sentence of the current lede with the proposed sentence. The rest would stay as is) Mvbaron (talk) 05:16, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I think the suggested first sentence is good, but I also agree with Biogeographist and Snowded that we have to take alternative definitions seriously. One way would be to qualify the first sentence, something like "According to the most widely accepted definition, knowledge is a type of belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification". An alternative would be to mention disagreements or alternative definitions in the next sentence. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:43, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Oppose: I was one of the editors who reverted the proposed change, and I find it far from "elegant" as Mvbaron called it. Restating the proposal without any engagement with the objections does not make the proposal more convincing! As I said above, the proposed first sentence is inadequate because it is not general enough; as philosopher Barry Allen said in the Encyclopedia.com article quoted above, JTB "has never been widely accepted" as a definition of knowledge. The proposed second sentence is inadequate because it's not true that knowledge is "distinct from mere acquaintance": the OED, one of the English language's best dictionaries, uses the terms familiarity and acquaintance in the same definition, and the OED also says that the use of knowledge to refer to sexual intercourse is rare, and its use to refer to friendship is obsolete. We can do better than this proposal, and I would hope much better. Biogeographist (talk) 02:17, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Oppose I suggested reverting the proposed change for the same reasons as Biogeographist. We need a more general opening . The current state of the opening is superior in my opinion than what we had (which is what the proposal is). Alex Jackl (talk) 15:39, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

It's always been a problematic article as its not a pure philosophy one, it has overlaps with both common use and managerial use and that's before we get to the frequent problems on religious knowledge and some of the 'get to philosophy' gamers. So while JTB will be known to all philosophy under graduates (largely to dismiss it and move on) we probably need a lede that reflects that ambiguity -----Snowded ^TALK 07:10, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

'thought experiments' by Edmund Gettier

In the following sentence in this article: "These controversies intensified due to a series of thought experiments by Edmund Gettier and have provoked various alternative definitions." The hyperlink given to 'thought experiments' which is this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment has nothing to do with Gettier or Edmund Gettier. It is a wrong linkage between these 2 topics or article. Mojtaba Mohammadi (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello Mojtaba Mohammadi and thanks for pointing this out. Strictly speaking, it is not an error since Gettier's thought experiments are one type of thought experiment among many others and the linked article is on thought experiments in general. However, there is a more relevant link target available: Gettier problem#Gettier's two original counterexamples. I'll go ahead and replace the link. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you. In my personal opinion, Gettier's 'thought experiments' is or let's say are relevant to 'thought experiments' but not to that page as that page was very niche and specialized to Gedankenexperiment, unless we have some reference to what Gettier is into in that page. I, personally went to that page hoping that I will gain some more knowledge about Gettier or related topic ... but unsuccessful. Thank you for your quick action and the new link is an excellent choice, as it keeps philosophical topics within the same domain or collection of articles. Thanks again a million for the change. Mojtaba Mohammadi (talk) 00:34, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Issues with the lead

I did not remove anything from the lead but the second paragraph needs a lot of citations. It looks a little like Original Work. I added a more general common language definition at the start of the article. Alex Jackl (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

(EC) :The lead should be a summary of the body of the article, and sources aren't required in the lead, provided the lead accurately summarizes content in the body, which is itself supported by adequate sources. Neither the original lead, nor the newly proposed lead provide any sources, nor is it clear to me whether either is an accurate summary of well sourced content in the body, so both might be objected to on OR grounds. Paul August ☎

Hello Alex Jackl and thanks for trying to improve the lead. I reverted your edit since it seems to mainly repeat information already present in the lead and has some linguistic issues. The lead section of this article only summarizes sourced information from the body of the article. In such cases, the sources do not need to be cited again in the lead, see WP:CITELEAD. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, it seems Paul August was faster than me on this one. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:27, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate what you said Paul August but I had indeed discussed it on the talk page. Indeed the last time it came up more people were opposed to the current opening. I am going to revert it back again and we should discuss here. If you look up at the prior conversation there was NOT a consensus. Also this is a fairly broad topic and the current content of the lead takes a particular cut on it that may not represent the generality well at all. All I am suggesting is opening with amore general layman's definition and then work to the deeper conversations. This also- as far as I can tell- represents the consensus we reached months ago about this. I think people should weigh in on this. Alex Jackl (talk) 18:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

The earlier discussion you mention was not about the lead as a whole but only the opening statement. The main question was whether the lead should start with a general characterization or with the justified-true-belief account. In its current version, it starts with the general characterization and gives the justified-true-belief characterization in the second sentence, which seems to be a good compromise. As I see it, the current first sentence is not perfect, but it has some good qualities: it is succinct and manages to introduce the topic by mentioning the three types of knowledge (propositional, practical, by acquaintance) mainly discussed in the academic literature. I think this approach is in principle a good idea but I'm open to reformulation suggestions. However, having both this characterization and yours is repetitive and therefore not a good idea. Another point is the linguistic issue already mentioned with your suggestion.

What do you think of the following as a replacement of the current first sentence? Knowledge can be defined as theoretical awareness of facts or as practical skills. It may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. It's based on your suggestion but makes a few adjustment. Besides some streamlining of expressions, it leaves the repeated reference to experience out, which seems to me not central to the definition of knowledge. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:14, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

As someone who was involved in the previous discussion above and who carefully inspected Phlsph7's edits to the lead section and article body after that discussion, I agree with Phlsph7's summary of the situation, and I think Phlsph7's edits respected the consensus in the previous discussion. The current first sentence is already the more general characterization; it seems to do an adequate job of summarizing the major OED definitions in the earlier discussion above, although any proposed improvements are welcome. I don't think Phlsph7's suggested replacement is an improvement, since it narrows the scope of the first sentence; any change should keep the scope of the first sentence at least as broad as it currently is. Biogeographist (talk) 15:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay- I will wait for any other opinions. I believe the opening statement to be FAR TOO ABSTRACT. Wikipedia is not an academic paper- it is too provide encyclopedic overviews of topics and then dive deeper in the body of the article, however, that being said I bow to the current consensus. Alex Jackl (talk) 14:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

My suggestion was intended as a compromise. But I'm also fine with keeping things as they are. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I prefer your suggestion to the current state - so if that is good let's go with that. Thanks Phlsph7! Alex Jackl (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

The stated objection to the current first sentence is that it is "FAR TOO ABSTRACT". I don't think the alternative proposed by Phlsph7 is any less abstract, but I could accept it if the word "theoretical" were removed (since one is left wondering what "theoretical awareness" is?) and the two sentences joined into one:

Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations.

That's essentially just a rewrite of the current first sentence to make it easier to parse. Biogeographist (talk) 17:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Isn't making something easier to parse part of what we should be going for? Alex Jackl (talk) 17:57, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

That was meant to be implied in what I said; I wasn't implying that we should be making it harder to parse. The sentence I proposed is easier to parse but not any more concrete. It's still just as abstract. Biogeographist (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Your reformulation works for me: it contains more or less the same information as the current first sentence and is easier to read. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:28, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

+1 Alex Jackl (talk) 16:43, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:ISAWORDFOR, I changed the lead sentence to: Knowledge is an awareness of facts, practical skills, or a familiarity with objects or situations. [1] Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Newimpartial, you pointed out this apparent outlier of a lead sentence at the Talk:Gender discussion, [2] so of course I carefully examined this lead sentence and the discussion leading up to it. I found the sentence to be problematic and changed it. If you do not have a policy objection, please restore my edit. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I reverted your change, as it appeared to me to be a WP:BATTLEFIELD/WP:POINT edit in response to the discussion here. As suggested by my comments in that other discussion, I did not find the sentence problematic. Chosing to edit the lead of Knowledge to make it less epistemologically modest seems ironic to me and an unfortunate outcome. Also note that I did not point out this lead as an outlier, but as an example of a type of lead that is permitted by policy but that you denied exists the existence of which you were questioning. Let's not cut down all the tall flowers by reflex. Newimpartial (talk) 04:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC) amended by Newimpartial (talk) 05:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes you made that clear in your edit summary. [3] As I explained above, I found the lead sentence to be problematic. If you do not have a content or MOS PAG reason for your revert, please restore my edit. "Not problematic" is not a policy. I have cited policy. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:19, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

You cited policy on the other Talk page, and other editors have cited other policies. "You found it problematic" does not give you a veto over article text. And changing an article because it was used as an example of something of which you denied questioned the existence on another Talk page is fairly disruptive, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 04:23, 6 January 2023 (UTC) modified by Newimpartial (talk) 05:18, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

[C]hanging an article because it was used as an example of something of which you denied the existence on another Talk page is fairly disruptive. As I stated above, the reason I changed the lead was per WP:ISAWORDFOR. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:38, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see an ISAWORDFOR vio in the text you replaced. Newimpartial (talk) 04:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

[A] type of lead that is permitted by policy but that you denied exists. That is a false statement. I did not deny it exists. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

At least to this naïve editor, Please start by providing a single example of an article on a definable topic which does not begin with a definition to show that this actually represents an existing practice [4] reads as a denial that a lead without a definitional statement of the kind you prefer is an existing practice - in other words, an initial presumption that such a practice does not exist. Pardon me if you meant something else by your request. Newimpartial (talk) 04:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I do see that my statement above - while I don't agree that it was false - was poorly formulated. I have now corrected it to read something the existence of which you were questioning, rather than the more terse but potentially misleading something that you denied exists. I didn't mean to get over my skis; you have my apologies. Newimpartial (talk) 05:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

You forgot one: [5] Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:13, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

That's fair. Fixed now. I am trying to set a good example, here. ;) Newimpartial (talk) 05:18, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

One of the difficulties when writing about knowledge is that many different definitions of it exist and they often are not compatible with each other. This is reflected in our definitions section and even more is found in the article Definitions of knowledge. The current phrase "can be defined as" is wordier than a simple "is". I would prefer the simple phrase if the above-mentioned problem did not exist. But as it stands, I think the longer expression is better in order to be on the safe side. It seems that the guideline WP:ISAWORDFOR does not directly apply here since the expression "can be defined as" has actual work to do here by making the reader aware of this problem and is not just a "cumbersome phrasing" without a proper function. Phlsph7 (talk) 06:14, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that. "Can be defined as" does the same work as "can refer to", but that's just not how articles should begin. Many subjects have contentious definitions, such as Art. And it's off to say it "can be" defined. It is sometimes defined certain ways. "Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something. It is also other things." That's a form that doesn't violate ISAWORDFOR. Kolya Butternut (talk) 07:27, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, we need an expression to signal that this is not the only way of defining. It seems that part of your objection is to the word "can". What about alternatives that use the word "is", like "is often defined as" or "is often understood as". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:40, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

"Defined as" definitely seems like ISAWORDFOR, not sure about "understood as". What about my rough example? And can you think of any Good level articles that have such difficult definitions? Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:33, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

"Can be defined as" is about as far as we can go given the subject matter and the sources -----Snowded ^TALK 09:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with both Kolya Butternut and Phlsph7 that "Can be defined as" is doing work in this context because of the multiple ways approaching this topic. Alex Jackl (talk) 21:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I didn't actually agree to "can be defined as". Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:27, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

My apologies Kolya Butternut - I meant to reference Snowded. I didn't mean to misrepresent you! Alex Jackl (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

The WP:ISAWORDFOR policy is concerned mostly with concision of style, to ensure that the article begins "with a relatively short but discrete explanation of the subject of the article" and not with a "poorly written dictionary-style" sentence. The examples of improper phrases are "Dog is a term for" and "Dog is a word that refers to". The most unnecessary words in such examples are the predicates "is a term" and "is a word", which apply to all terms/words. That's not a problem here: We don't say "Knowledge is a term for" or "Knowledge is a word that refers to". Saying "Knowledge is often defined as" is sufficiently concise while not being inappropriately incontrovertible. The fact is not only that there are alternative definitions of knowledge, but the definitions we give can be considered overlapping/nonindependent (e.g. there are philosophers who argue that knowing-that is knowing-how), and furthermore could be subsumed within a more general but not sufficiently informative/explanatory definition (as cognitive success).

Above, Phlsph7 provided a fair summary of the reasons for the current first sentence, which was discussed extensively last year before a dispute from another talk page spilled onto this page on January 6. The previous version of the first sentence (this is the version immediately prior to the change) said "Knowledge is". When the sentence was changed to its current form, I privately considered whether WP:ISAWORDFOR was a potential problem—since I corrected such a problem in other articles where it was obviously a result of poor writing. At the time, I decided that the question wasn't important enough to raise on the talk page. Now that Kolya Butternut has raised the question, I agree with them that it's off to say it "can be" defined. It is sometimes defined certain ways. For that reason, I propose that "can be defined as" be replaced with "is often defined as" as Phlsph7 suggested. Biogeographist (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

One feature that I liked about last year's version of the first sentence prior to the current one is that it started with a very general definition (the genus) of knowledge—"Knowledge is a familiarity or awareness"—and then specified several types of it (the species)—"such as facts (descriptive knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge)". That general-to-specific structure was lost in the current version, which I think is unfortunate. I guess that's part of the reason why we resorted to the "can be defined as" or "is often defined as" construction: because we lost a general subsuming definition. Biogeographist (talk) 17:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In this context, I don't see much difference between "can be defined as", "is often defined as", and "is often understood as". So I would be fine with either option. Kolya Butternut seemed to prefer "is often understood as". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The latter two are stronger claims; "can be defined as" just says that the definitions are possible, the latter says that the definitions are common. One might assume that prevalence is implicit in "can be defined as", but it's better to be explicit about it. But I agree that "is often defined as" and "is often understood as" seem interchangeable. Since "is often defined as" is used again in the next sentence, "is often understood as" may be preferable in the first sentence for variety. Biogeographist (talk) 18:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

That's a good point. I would say we go for "is often understood as" unless new objections are raised. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In which I correct my own edit summary

My edit summary for this edit was supposed to say "hyphen to en dash", not em dash. I do know the difference, but apparently this is the day of sloppy edit summaries for me. Biogeographist (talk) 00:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Paragraph on knowledge in the Qabalah

Hello Vontheri and thanks for looking up the page numbers. But the recently added paragraph on knowledge in the Qabalah However still has various problems. For example, I don't think that the claims that knowledge is a corruption of divine, whereas the sephira for wisdom (known by the Hebrew word "chokmah") and the sephira for understanding (known by the Hebrew word "binah"), are distinguished from knowledge and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth. Knowledge (Daath) is viewed as having no true qualities of its own are found in the sources. They seem to be even contradicted by the Regardie 2000: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge. Is it a sephira or not? Does it contrast with wisdom and understanding or not? Many of the characteristics ascribed to Daath in the article Da'at are again very different from the ones mentioned here. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, and for inviting discussion and clarification first instead of automatically reverting. It's always nice when an editor raises objections civilly, as sadly so many editors are not so civil. I apologize that I had mistakenly put the incorrect page number the first time; I had copy-pasted the reference from another article where the same book was also used as a reference so that I wouldn't have to type it all out again, and I didn't realize that I had forgotten to change the page number. First of all, note that the article Da'at seems to be primarily dealing with the concept in Kabbalah, which is similar to, but distinct, from Qabalah. (The word "Qabalah" does not appear even once in the Da'at article. Perhaps a new section should be added to that article to describe the differences in how Daath/Da'at is viewed in Qabalah as opposed to Kabbalah.) The section I added to the knowledge article is describing the concept in Qabalah, not Kabbalah. Although there are various ways of transliterating the word from Hebrew to Latin characters, "Daath" seems more common in Qabalah, whereas "Da'at" is perhaps more common in Kabbalah. It is important to understand that in Qabalah, it is not unusual for various seemingly-contradictory beliefs to be held simultaneously. It is a belief system that is very complex and often difficult to comprehend.

Daath being a "corruption of the divine" can be inferred from, "and remembering in what sense the Bible speaks of the verb 'to know,' we gather that the root of the trouble was an imperfect apprehension of creative power - towards the 'darkly splendid world wherein continually lieth a faithless depth,'" on page 33 of the Israel Regardie reference. An "imperfect apprehension of creative power" is essentially a "corruption of the divine", no? Also the fact that the reference speaks, on page 34, of Daath coming from "Lucifer", implies that it is a "corruption of the divine." But I acknowledge that perhaps a different wording, something that sticks more closely to the wording used in the reference, instead of "corruption of the divine" could be better.

As for the part saying "Knowledge (Daath) is viewed as having no true qualities of its own", this can be found in the Colin 1991 reference on page 252 in the quote, "Daath has no manifest qualities and cannot be invoked directly."

Daath is NOT a sephira. Note the quote from the Low, Colin (1991) reference which explicitly states, "Daath is *not* a sephira; it is a hole." Daath is viewed in Qabalah as being a "false sephira". Although interpretations of concepts in Qabalah can be radically different depending on the source/individual Qabalah practitioner, the view that Daath is a "false sephira" is, as far as I am aware, universally held. This could be different in Kabbalah; I don't know.

It can be inferred that knowledge is distinguished from understanding and wisdom by the fact that the are represented by different sephirot (or false sephira, in the case of knowledge.) Qabalah teaches that literally everything can be ascribed to one of the sephirot, or to one of the paths that connect the sephirot. If they were considered to be the same thing, then they wouldn't have separate locations on the tree of life. Given that it is not explicitly stated that knowledge is less related to "actual truth", I won't object if you want to remove specifically the part that says "and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth."

So, to conclude, I agree to changing the wording from "corruption of the divine" to something else, and I agree to removal of the part that says "and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth."

Please let me know if you still have any questions or if I have failed to adequately address your concerns.Vontheri (talk) 15:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, in regards to Daath being a false sephira, and not an actual sephira, the Regardie source states on page 71 "The horns spring from Daath (Knowledge) which is not, properly speaking, a Sephira" Vontheri (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. In relation to Kabbalah vs Qabalah, see [6]: qabalah: a variant spelling of kabbalah. It seems to me that various claims made in the paragraph are based on personal interpretations and fall under WP:OR or WP:SYN. Since Kabbalah belongs to Jewish mysticism, it should probably be discussed in the 3rd paragraph of the subsection "Religion", which deals with the Jewish tradition. I would make it a little shorter since it has not the same importance as other traditions. We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree. What do you think about adding the following sentences to that paragraph? I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence). The other details would probably fit better into the article Da'at.

The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah sees knowledge as an important element and refers to it as Daath. It seeks to decipher hidden knowledge found in the Hebrew Scriptures. To this hidden knowledge belongs the idea that the divine reveals itself through 10 emanations, known as sephirot, and that knowledge is the 11th sephira, sometimes also seen as a false sephira.

Phlsph7 (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Phlsph7 (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Despite what that dictionary says, "Kabbalah" and "Qabalah" are not typically used interchangeably. Kabbalah belongs to Jewish mysticism, but Qabalah does not. Note that Wikipedia has separate articles for Kabbalah and Qabalah, as they are different things. "Qabalah" refers to the western esoteric/occult tradition, whereas "Kabbalah" refers to the Jewish practice. The different spellings (along with the spelling "cabala", which is yet a third thing) are sometimes used interchangeably, but the different spellings are typically used to distinguish different belief systems, especially among those who actually practice one of the three different belief systems. It shouldn't take much time at all to search on Google to learn the different implications that the three different spellings (Qabalah, Kabbalah, and Cabala) have. This link may help as a start. (See quote on that link: "Because the teachings in these three different traditions diverged in some important places, people have come to adopt a unique spelling for each so it’s clear which tradition the writer is referring to. Generally speaking, the original Jewish tradition is Kabbalah with a “K”; Christian Cabala is spelled differently and starting with a “C,” while the Western Hermetic tradition spells Qabalah with a “Q.”) The dictionary you mentioned may describe the different spellings as synonyms, and they sometimes are used interchangeably, but they are usually only used interchangeably by those who are not especially well-versed in the topic.

The writing you suggest might be fine to add to the part of the article regarding knowledge in Judaism, but Kabbalah (the Jewish tradition) and Qabalah (the western esoteric/occult tradition) are definitely not the same thing. I would want to leave it to someone more versed in Kabbalah (as opposed to Qabalah) to say what would or would not be appropriate to say about the view of knowledge in Kabbalah for this article. I'm sorry, but I don't think what you wrote really describes knowledge as it is viewed in Qabalah -- It doesn't say anywhere in the references I gave that knowledge is "an important element", for example, or that it seeks to decipher "hidden knowledge." It seems that what you wrote is using the definition of "knowledge" as the word is commonly used, and not as the word is used within Qabalah -- and the whole point of explaining the concept of "knowledge" in Qabalah, or in any other belief system, is to distinguish it from the common usage of the word, no? It is used as a translation of the Hebrew word "Daath" in Qabalah, which is not necessarily identical to the common conceptualization of "knowledge" in English. Also it should be clarified that "sephirot" and "sephira" are singular and plural versions of the same word, as it is unlikely that someone unfamiliar with the concept would be able to immediately infer that.

(Note that, although the title of the book for the MacGregor Matthers reference is "The Kabbalah Unvieled," the book contains the quote "I have adopted the form Qabalah, as being more consonant with the Hebrew writing of the word." and uses the spelling "Qabalah" all through-out the book. My understanding is that at the time that book was written [1912], the different meanings of the two spellings were just beginning to be distinguished.)

As for the length of the paragraphs, they should be as long as is necessary to adequately describe the concept within the given belief systems, without giving undue weight. The views of knowledge within the major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) should certainly take precedence over things like Qabalah or Gnosticism, but unless there is an extreme difference in length (for example, if Qabalah had five paragraphs and Judaism had one paragraph), then whatever number of words/sentences is necessary to describe the concept within the given belief systems should be how long the paragraph should be. The paragraph I added for Qabalah may be longer than the paragraphs for many of the other belief systems/religions, but I don't believe it is substantially longer, and it was longer only because it required more words to succinctly describe the concept. I don't think that a paragraph being a sentence or so longer or shorter than another paragraph is important; that is not a *substantial* difference. The amount of information is what should matter, not a slight difference in word count. Sometimes a few more words are simply necessary to explain one concept as opposed to another concept; that doesn't mean that concept is more important. Note that the paragraph for "Gnosticism" is approximately the same length as the paragraph for Islam, and is longer than the paragraph for Christianity, but I think we could both agree that Christianity and Islam should deserve more weight than Gnosticism. However, the difference is not significant, and the paragraphs receive the length necessary to adequately explain the concept. So the same should be true for a paragraph to describe knowledge in Qabalah.

Within Qabalah, daath is always viewed as a "false sephira." This may not be the case in Kabbalah, I don't know, but I am not aware of any source that states that it is not a false sephira within Qabalah.

Also, may I ask which specific claims you are referring to with "We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree."?

Thanks.Vontheri (talk) 18:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, could you please clarify what you meant by "I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence)."? I have read over it several times, but I don't understand. What are "the claims"? And what is "it" in "the claims in it"? And what is "the first sentence"? The first sentence of what? Sorry, I was just confused. Vontheri (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, the paragraph is not intended about Kabbalah in general but about a more narrow strand (associated with the Hermetic tradition) that is to be clearly distinguished from the Jewish and the Christian forms of Kabbalah. I don't think that such a narrow subject merits inclusion in a broad-concept article on knowledge in general. And your comments imply that knowledge is not even an important element in this tradition. There may be better places to include your ideas in other Wikipedia articles that deal with topics more closely associated with this tradition. Likely candidates might be Da'at and Hermetic Qabalah. With some adjustments, the material could be added there. As a side note: many of your comments are very long. Being concise may be better for talk page exchanges, see WP:TEXTWALL and WP:TLDR.

Explanation of my earlier comments:

• "We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree" for example whether wisdom and understanding stand in contrast with knowledge or not.
• "I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence)." this refers to my earlier proposal of how the material on the Kabbalah could be included. The proposal starts with The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah.... The "claims" are statements made in the text of this proposal.

Phlsph7 (talk) 09:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Again, Kabbalah and Qabalah are not the same thing. Qabalah is not a type of Kabbalah; they are different, albeit related, things. This is why "Qabalah" is not a section within the article "Kabbalah", but is its own article. I'm confused as to how you think that it would be okay to include information about knowledge in Kabbalah, but not knowledge in Qabalah. I'm not aware of one being especially more mainstream or common than another, with the exception that Cabala is definitely more obscure in modern times. I included it in the article knowledge because there is a rather specific and unique view as to what "knowledge" is within Qabalah. Gnosticism is included in the knowledge article, and if anything, it seems Qabalah is more commonly practiced in today's world than is Gnosticism, although there is some overlap and cross-influence between Gnosticism and Qabalah. I started to also add information about knowledge in Kabbalah to the paragraph about Judaism, but decided against it, because I don't feel myself informed enough about Kabbalah, and I generally only write information on Wikipedia about topics of which I feel well-versed.

My comments are as long as necessary to describe what I am trying to describe, but I will attempt to be more concise.

I don't see that any of the sources disagree as to whether or not knowledge stands in contrast to understanding and wisdom. The sources all seem to agree, as far as I can tell, that daath (knowledge) is, at least in some way, a path that connects binah (wisdom) and chokmah (understanding), and that it is different from wisdom and understanding. Can you point out anywhere in those sources that says otherwise?

How would you feel if the part about knowledge in Qabalah is shortened to "In the western esoteric belief system of Qabalah (see also: Kabbalah), emanations of creation are symbolized in a diagram known as the "tree of life." Each emanation, or aspect of creation, is represented on the tree of life by a circle known as a sephira (plural: sephiroth). There are ten sephiroth. Knowledge, known by the Hebrew word "daath", is viewed as an eleventh "false sephira", and is considered to be a hole left by the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden.(the three references go here)" with any other information being added to other articles? Would that be an acceptable compromise? That would also exclude anything that you feel is not agreed upon between the different references. Although my preference would be to include something about how knowledge contrasts with wisdom and understanding, because Qabalah treats them as distinct, whereas in other contexts they are sometimes used as synonyms, especially "understanding" and "knowledge" are sometimes treated as synonyms outside of Qabalah. Vontheri (talk) 14:55, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The shortened version suggested in your last edit is an improvement over the current version. However, I'm still not convinced why a minor tradition in which knowledge plays no important role should be included. The comparison with gnosticism fails for two reasons: (1) knowledge plays a central role in gnosticism and (2) the fact that gnosticism actually is included does not entail that it should be included. This is a problem for many articles that contain a section called "Religion": everyone wants their favorite religion to be included. This can lead to the section growing and growing until editors decide that the section is too bloated and that only the principal religions should be mentioned while everything else is removed. Since it seems unlikely that I've convinced you I suggest that you make the change you suggested and we'll see sooner or later how other editors feel about it. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I will make the change right now.

I agree that it could potentially become a problem where many minor religious traditions are added, making the section too bloated. However, my Wikipedia philosophy (see my user page for a longer explanation) is that, the vast majority of the time, more information is better than less information, and page clutter and bloat can best be remedied by reorganizing things, instead of by deleting information that could be useful to someone. In order to avoid this problem, I am going to divide the "religion" section into two subsections, "Major World Religions" and "Minor Religions". I hope that will help to alleviate any concerns. If you prefer it as it was before, as only one undivided section, then please feel free to change it back. Hopefully other editors can give input as well. (Also, I notice that knowledge in Buddhism is conspicuously missing.) Vontheri (talk) 17:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I removed the "Major World Religions" and "Minor Religions" headings as a questionable division, since the so-called minor religions in question don't seem to me to be very separate from the so-called major ones. (Also, by the way, headings should be in sentence case per MOS:HEAD.) I agree with Phlsph7 that the Qabalah information is very esoteric (you can also read that as a pun if you wish) and is, as currently written, peripheral to the subject of this article. Regarding Vontheri's "more information is better than less information" philosophy, keep in mind that you can always create a subsection about knowledge in the Hermetic Qabalah article if you find this article's coverage insufficient—"all the info" doesn't have to be in this particular article. And if knowledge isn't important enough in Qabalah to be discussed in the Hermetic Qabalah article, then I wonder why it is important enough to be in this overview article! Biogeographist (talk) 19:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for joining the discussion. I'm fine with removing the headings that I added; they were just an attempt to avoid potential objections by organizing things further. I'll keep that in mind about sentence case; thanks for informing me.

As for your objection, the word "knowledge" doesn't appear in the article for Christianity (except for in a quote in a reference), either, but I doubt many would argue that Christianity doesn't have a place in this article. (Note that the Qabalah article does, however, contain the word "Daath", which is translated as "knowledge" in English.) The article for Hermetic Qabalah is quite short, and there are many rather elementary aspects of Qabalah that are not even mentioned in its article. When I mentioned that about the sentence "The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah sees knowledge as an important element and refers to it as Daath." in Phlsph7's proposal, I wasn't trying to imply that knowledge isn't an important concept in Qabalah, but I was just pointing out that that claim didn't appear in the citations as far as I can see. The word "important" implies a positive connotation, whereas Qabalah views knowledge in contrast (and, in some ways, comparison) to wisdom and understanding, and knowledge is not necessarily seen as a source of highest truth. "Notable" would be a more fitting word, in my opinion, instead of "important" for this context. Knowledge is notable within Qabalah for the unique perspective on exactly what "knowledge" is, and it is impossible to adequately explain "knowledge" within Qabalah without comparing and contrasting it with "understanding" and "wisdom".

I agree that most of the information should belong in other articles, such as Qabalah and Daath, but I think at least a sentence or two about knowledge in Qabalah has a place within the knowledge article, because of the specific and notable ways that knowledge is viewed within Qabalah, and because of how Qabalah has had a great deal of influence on many new religious movements, new age, occult, and many other philosophies/ideologies/religions that have influence in modern culture and society. Vontheri (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: the word "knowledge" doesn't appear in the article for Christianity (except for in a quote in a reference), either, but I doubt many would argue that Christianity doesn't have a place in this article. Frankly, I would be fine with removing all the paragraphs about each brand-name Abrahamic religion. What each of them says doesn't seem original to me. "It's good and it comes from God." Yeah, I get it, do we need three paragraphs to say that?

Re: it is impossible to adequately explain "knowledge" within Qabalah without comparing and contrasting it with "understanding" and "wisdom". I agree that seems to be important, so I added a clause about that based on what you've said about it. Please check it to make sure that what I wrote is accurate according to the sources. Biogeographist (talk) 22:06, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that. I don't think the sources exactly say that it is necessarily undesirable, just that understanding and wisdom are more related to higher/spiritual truth, and knowledge more "earthly" in nature. I made a slight change; let me know how it looks to you. Vontheri (talk) 22:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks better. Thanks! Biogeographist (talk) 23:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the recent changes re-import 2 problems already pointed out in earlier versions: (1) the claim that knowledge contrasts with understanding and wisdom seems to be refuted by one of the sources (Regardie 2000 pp. 33-4: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge) and (2) the claim about the relation to truth (or the lack thereof) is not supported by the sources.

As for some of the other side notes: it's true that not mentioning Buddhism is an important oversight and that the paragraphs on Abrahamic religions do not contain very "original" claims. I'll do some research to see if I can do something about these points. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I removed "which are, unlike knowledge, associated more closely with deeper, spiritual truth", which Phlsph7 said is not supported by the sources. (I haven't read the sources myself.) Phlsph7's complaint that knowledge doesn't contrast with understanding and wisdom doesn't seem especially relevant, since even in the cited passage the terms are differentiated for the purpose of discussion. If you think "contrasted with" is too strong, you could replace it with "differentiated from". Biogeographist (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

My main point was that the strong contrast between knowledge and wisdom/understanding in our previous version is not reflected in the cited source. But I agree that these terms are not identical either. In its current form, it does not matter much whether we use the term "contrasted" or "differentiated". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In "The Golden Dawn", speaking of Daath, it says, It acts as a self-evolved link between the higher Genius, on the one hand, at peace in its Supernal abode, and, on the other hand, the human soul bound by its Fall to the world of illusion and sense and matter. Not until that self-consciousness and acquired knowledge are turned to noble and altruistic ends, so long will sorrow and suffering be the inevitable result. (Note that "the Supernal Abode" or "the Supernal triad" refer to wisdom (Binah), understanding (Chokmah), as well as the highest Sephira (Kether), which is usually translated as "crown.")

As for an earlier claim that was objected to, that knowledge "has no true qualities of its own", that can be found in Little Essays Towards Truth by Aleister Crowley (which is not one of the original three references I used) DAATH —Knowledge— is not a Sephira. It is not on the Tree of Life; that is, there is in reality no such thing and And these five principles culminate in a sixth, Daath, Knowledge. But this is not really a principle; it contains in itself the germ of self-contradiction and so of self-destruction. It is a false principle: for, as soon as Knowledge is analysed, it breaks up into the irrational dust of the Abyss.[7]

That belief is held simultaneously as the belief, (quote from Little Essays Towards Truth) DAATH. Knowledge, child of Chokmah and Binah in one sense, in the other the empty and structureless condition of Choronzon. Thus, (Regardie 2000 pp. 33-4: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge) does not actually refute what it, at first glance, appears to refute. (Note that the author Israel Regardie was the personal secretary of the author Aleister Crowley, and the two even lived together for a length of time.)

Little Essays Towards Truth gives descriptions of Binah and Chokmah which clearly stand in contrast to its description of Daath. For the sake of brevity, I will only quote only one small section where they are both being described together, which is hopefully enough to show that they are contrasted with the way Daath is described. Referring to Binah and Chokmah: For She is omniform as Love and Death, the Great Sea whence all Life springs, and whose black womb re-absorbs all. She thus resumes in herself the duplex process of the Formula of Love under Will [...] Yet let it not be forgotten that though She be love, her function is but passive; she is the vehicle of the Word, of Chokmah, Wisdom, the All-Father, who is the Will of the All-One. And thus they err with grievous error and dire who prate of Love as the Formula of Magick; Love is unbalanced, void, vague, undirected, sterile nay, more, a very Shell, the prey of abject orts, demonic: Love must be "under will.

I would go on, but for the sake of brevity I will not. Hopefully those quotes help to elaborate and explain. As it is, I am content with the current version of the paragraph about Qabalah in the Knowledge article. I am fine with either "contrasted" or "differentiated." I will also add Little Essays Towards Truth as a reference to the paragraph now. Vontheri (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Knowledge/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 17:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I've been meaning to take on one of your GA nominations for a while. Given the nature of this article, I'm going to pay special attention to criteria 1a and 3, and I expect to work through the article and its sources over the next few days before posting the initial review. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello Thebiguglyalien and thanks for taking the time to review this article. I'll try to be responsive and reply to your comments in a timely manner. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Phlsph7: I've posted most of the initial review. I'm almost finished with criterion 2, but I want to go over the sourcing a little more and figured there was no need to keep you waiting in the meantime (the gist of criterion 2 will likely be the limited use of secondary sources and a few minor isolated issues). There are a lot of notes and suggestions here; consider that an effect of the article's scope rather than any failure to approach the GA criteria. Given said scope, I'm not going to expect everything to get addressed at once, so take your time. And disclaimer, I know you personally didn't write some of these things I'm critiquing, but I'm directing the comments at you for the sake of simplicity. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:06, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed and sensible comments. I'll work through them and post some replies as I go along. I'll ping you when I think that all the main issues have been solved. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: I think I've addressed all the main points by now. For most, I've implemented them directly in the article. For some, I've added comments here and you have already responded to them except for the ones I just added now. It might be good if you could take a look to see if these implementations were roughly what you had in mind and if I missed some important points. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:50, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

The main thing I'm looking at right now is the use of examples. Some of them are arguably original research, and there are places where the inline citations are set after them so that it looks like they come from a source when they don't. The other major issue is the religion section. It's still very long with a lot of very detailed information. Unless there's a good reason not to, I think it would be better to move the information about specific religions to an appropriate sub-article. This section is best left addressing the broader intersection of religion and knowledge rather than the intersection of specific religions with knowledge. It might also be worth looking through the article for a quick check on formatting: see if there are any long paragraphs that can be split, and see if there are any long sections that can be better organized with subheadings (though it may very well be the case that there's no efficient way to do this). In the meantime, I'll give the article one more read-over for clarity and flow. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:30, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Could you point out which examples you have in mind? I had a look at the first few concrete examples I could find. The bird-example is found in Klein 1998. The "2 + 2 = 4" example is found in Hetherington 2022. The Canberra example is not found in the sources but this seems to be rather trivial and uncontroversial. It could be replaced with things like "knowledge that kangaroos hop, knowledge that koalas sleep most of the time, knowledge that kookaburras cackle". Or for knowledge-who, the source doesn't mention John F. Kennedy but "knowing who is due to visit". Is that what you had in mind with original research? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I'm referring to. It seems to be a gray area in terms of original research. I think the ideal usage would be to have each example attributed to a source, but it's difficult to say how much that's required and how much it can be deviated from. The original research noticeboard might be helpful if we decide that we need more clarification in this area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:33, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

You are right that the policy is not explicit on how to understand such cases. I've followed your suggestions and asked the question at Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Modifying_and_making_up_examples. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I've adjusted various of the examples used. As for the placement of references: I don't think that a reference after a specific example or claim implies that this specific example or claim is found in the source. Instead, it only implies that the source supports this example or claim. For example, the adjusted knowledge-who example about the dinner is supported by Hetherington 2022 even though this source does not talk about a dinner. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

As for the religion section, I think it should mention the main religions but maybe the amount of detail could be further reduced. Especially Buddhism and Hinduism matter here since knowledge plays such a central role in them. I would remove the paragraph on the Qabalah since this is clearly a WP:MINORASPECT. But I'll ping Vontheri and Biogeographist before since they were involved in the recent discussion on it. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:16, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

It definitely needs some condensing. One option would be to talk more about how knowledge intersects with Abrahamic religion and Dharmic religion, and then any supporting details can be added as necessary. And as I said below, this information doesn't necessarily have to be deleted; this is the sort of thing that can be moved to a child article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:35, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I would remove the paragraph on Hermetic Qabalah as too esoteric. It cites primary sources that don't establish the importance of the paragraph to the topic of knowledge in general. Biogeographist (talk) 02:51, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It seems the three of us are in agreement so I removed that paragraph. I also removed various other details on the individual religions. I hope this works as a compromise. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I've tried to split some more paragraphs but, to my eyes, their length looks fine. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:22, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Phlsph7: I think that's everything! This is a hell of a first good article. In case you weren't aware (or just a reminder if you were), this GA is eligible for the award at Wikipedia:Reward board#Improve Level 2 Vital Articles to Good Article status. Given the hours you've put into this and the massive improvement in the article since you began nearly a year ago, you've definitely earned it. I'll go ahead and mark this review as passed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Well-written

General:

• Long paragraphs make complex articles like this more difficult to read. I broke up one of them myself, but it's worth keeping an eye out for.
• Another thing to keep an eye on is that the tone of the article seems a bit off. It's not a serious issue, but at a few points it kind of feels like I'm reading a scientific journal instead of a summary of scientific journals. Extra focus should be put on summarizing the information that exists and providing clear encyclopedia-style descriptions of each topic as soon as it's introduced or a new section starts. The number of original/arbitrary examples might also be playing into this.
• Avoid first-person pronouns: we and us should be edited out unless they're part of a direct quote.
• There are a few phrases to the effect of "some philosophers believe", which should probably be clarified or removed.

I've tried to solve this issue through reformulations or by giving examples but I'm not sure that it's sufficient. In many cases, the problem is that the academic discourse on the topic is huge and opinions are divided. The easiest way to express this without giving undue weight to a few specific philosophers is to say: some claim this, others claim that. This is also how many reliable sources handle the issue, like the following ones I came across while dealing with this issue: [8], [9], [10], and [11] Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I realize that especially with these general points, there's not always going to be a perfect way to do it. Consider these to be "try to move toward this" advice rather than a specific list of things that needs to be corrected. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:13, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

• I've highlighted the most important ones below, but as a rule try to only use jargon if it's directly relevant. And when it is used, define it immediately for the reader. We can assume that the reader has some basic philosophical training for articles like epistemic modal logic, but something as simple as "Knowledge" needs to be accessible to the layman as much as possible.

Lead:

• The opening sentence is less than ideal. I've read the relevant talk page discussion, and while "is often understood as" is a tolerable compromise, I think a better one can be found. If I were to rewrite it, I would make the first sentence very broad and then describe the caveats in the next sentences (summarizing the definitions section in the process). Maybe something as simple as "Knowledge is a state of awareness or familiarity." I admit that's also not perfect, but it's an approach worth considering.
• The first paragraph goes into a lot of detail. We don't need to describe the details of arguments as much as just state what the arguments are.
• Is there a reason why the second paragraph talks about foundationalists and coherentists but not infinitists?

Definitions:

• cognitive success or an epistemic contact could be clarified.
• the general characteristics of knowledge listed above – avoid self-referential phrases when possible. The sentence should still make sense if "listed above" is deleted.
• differences concerning the standards of knowledge that people intend to uphold – clarify
• Others seek a common core among diverse examples of knowledge, such as Paul Silva's "awareness first" epistemology or Barry Allen's definition of knowledge as "superlative artifactual performance". – This essentially name drops philosophers without context. Instead, consider a one or two sentence description of what "common core among diverse examples of knowledge" actually means.
• that the believed fact caused the belief – Explain. Maybe this should be its own sentence?
• Other approaches include defining it in regard to the cognitive role it plays in providing reasons for doing or thinking something or seeing it as the most general factive mental state operator. – This is a mouthful. Even with the footnote, it should probably be rewritten for clarity.
• the JTB definition is a step in the right direction – This feels idiomatic
• they often fall prey – Also idiomatic

Types

• The first paragraph of this section doesn't serve a clear purpose. It's valuable information, but it doesn't clearly establish how the types of knowledge are different. I don't speak French, so the difference between connaître and savoir is meaningless to me. This either needs to be reworked or moved to a more appropriate place (likely a bit of both).
• Each type should give a clear definition at the beginning of its section. It doesn't mean anything to readers that propositional knowledge "is the paradigmatic type of knowledge in analytic philosophy" if they don't even know what propositional knowledge is. This is especially the case for readers that jump straight to that section without reading the Definitions section first.
• The distinctions between the major types are usually drawn based on the linguistic formulations used to express them – This is the sort of thing that would be better fit to introduce the Types section. It's not specifically about propositional knowledge, it's about the nature of the different types.
• I have never seen John F. Kennedy referred to as "J. F. Kennedy".
• is either occurrent and dispositional – Is this "and" supposed to be an "or"?
• I had to read the occurrent/dispositional paragraph twice to understand it. It might need to be simplified a bit.
• It is usually agreed that mainly humans and maybe other higher animals possess propositional knowledge – This should be rewritten to be more precise. I would suggest treating humans and higher animals in two separate sentences. Also, it should be moved to the section on propositional knowledge.
• A priori and a posteriori should always be italicized.
• The prime example of the relevant experience – Saying that something is "the prime example" comes across as subjective.
• The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is closely related to two other distinctions – It goes on to name the distinctions without clearly defining them for the reader. But as I said below, this paragraph might be undue anyway.
• Situated knowledge seems to be talking about two things at once. It starts by talking about know-how knowledge before switching to relativism. Unless there's additional context to combine these under a single idea, this reads like a WP:FRANKENSTEIN concept of two types of knowledge with similar names.

Addressed below. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• Would the concept of "higher knowledge" be more appropriate for the religion section? Or does it also have applications in other branches of philosophy? I wonder if the theory of forms would also be applicable here (which I'm surprised isn't mentioned anywhere in the article).

The distinction between higher and lower knowledge matters mostly to religion so it could be moved there. But it also refers to different types of knowledge, so I think the section "Types" is also fine. It might be better to keep it here since, as you say, the section "Religion" already is too detailed as it is. I would be happy to include something about Plato's theory of forms on this if there are some good sources. On a quick search, I couldn't find anything substantial in relation to the terms "higher knowledge" and "lower knowledge". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

It could really go either way, which is why I presented it as a question rather than a recommendation. And yeah, theory of forms is more of a metaphysics thing. It does have implications for different levels of knowledge, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thebiguglyalien (talk • contribs) 18:13, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Sources of knowledge:

• This section is a bit long and might need some reorganizing. The first paragraph could probably be turned into two: one about perception and one about introspection.
• Sources of knowledge are "rational capacities for knowledge" – This definition doesn't add much. Without more context, it's practically just a synonym for "sources".
• This distinction is important – We shouldn't say in wikivoice what's important and what isn't. Instead, just describe what role it plays.

Structure of knowledge:

• The expression "structure of knowledge" refers to – The article should talk about the concepts, not the expressions. Instead of "refers to", describe what the structure of knowledge is.

Value of knowledge:

• The value of knowledge is an important topic in epistemology. – Begin by describing the basic premise without arguing that it's important.
• On this view, it seems difficult to explain – We shouldn't state that something "seems" to be the case. Maybe it "can be difficult" or "it becomes difficult", but it's not Wikipedia's place to say that something "seems" a certain way.

Philosophical skepticism:

• This position is quite radical – This is another example of "show, don't tell". Simply state that few philosophers defend it, and the reader will interpret that it is radical.
• The second paragraph uses "common sense" three times in two sentences. Try to avoid this repetition.

In various disciplines:

• The formal epistemology section could probably be rewritten to be more understandable.
• The science section has the opposite problem, where I can't really tell what the main point is because it doesn't provide any real insight beyond "the scientific method exists" and "Francis Bacon was involved in it".
• It is different from other forms of epistemology because of its unique subject matter. – This doesn't really say anything. "It's different because what it talks about is different." Either it should clarify how the subject matter is unique, or this sentence should be removed.
• As Pope Francis points out – Avoid "points out". It implies that we're agreeing with whoever we're quoting.
• The forms of communication listed are limited, and online communication especially suggests recentism.
• An important finding is that – Don't preview the statement by describing it as important, just present the statement factually.

Verifiable with no original research

• WP:EARWIG picks up no obvious plagiarism. Sources appear to be reliable. The one that might be an issue is "quotationspage.com".
• As a suggestion, try to avoid leaning to heavily on WP:TERTIARY sources like dictionaries and encyclopedias. They're generally reliable and they're much better than having no source at all, so they're likely going to be good enough for GA, but it might be worthwhile to find more secondary sources.

Generally speaking, I agree with you that secondary sources are preferable insofar as they usually provide a more detailed discussion. However, for articles on very general topics, like knowledge, it is often more important to provide a good overview rather than go a lot into detail. For this reason, I think the use of tertiary sources is not so much of a problem here. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:10, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree that tertiary sources have more value on an article like this relative to other articles, and there's no need to go through and start replacing all of them. Just be careful not to make it overly dependent on them. Literature reviews or similarly broad secondary sources can be especially valuable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• Same comment with WP:PRIMARY sources. If you're describing a philosopher's beliefs or arguments, it's better to find an article or a book that analyzes that philosopher rather than quoting that philosopher's work directly. But again, that doesn't mean these primary sources are unreliable, and these primary sources are much better than nothing.
• Check where the inline citations are placed. I noticed instances where the citation was placed after an example that was made up for this article, which makes it look like the example comes from the source.
• On a related note, it would actually be better if the examples did come from sources when possible. The Gettier case with the barn facades is a good one because that's a well-established example used in academic philosophy. The best examples are the ones that are attributed to specific philosophers, such as Linda Zagzebski's cup of coffee.
• It often, but not exclusively, concerns a relation to a person. – I think this still puts too much emphasis on being about a person. Most of the examples on the IEP section of knowledge by acquaintance are not about people. It would be more accurate to say something to explain that it can be about anything that's experienced, perceived, or interacted with directly.
• After reading the sources of "Situated knowledge" more closely, it seems they confirm what I said above about WP:FRANKENSTEIN issues. According to Hunter (2009): The term “situated knowledge” has two quite distinct disciplinary connections.

I've tried to solve this issue by leaving out the discussion of relativism. However, I don't think that these are two distinct concepts, like mouse as an animal vs mouse as an input device. Also from Hunter 2009 in the following paragraph: The two disciplinary fields have come together in studies of knowledge deriving from practice.... As I understand it, we have one general concept here that is applied in feminist literature in a specific way. This is also what [12] seems to state. Grossly oversimplified, the two parts of the section are "situated knowledge is defined as..." and "feminists claim that all knowledge is situated knowledge". Do you think the section works in its current, modified form? Phlsph7 (talk) 10:52, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It should work in this form. If I personally were writing it, I would use this space to describe the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge, and then I would cover epistemic relativism (including the idea that knowledge is inherently situated) lower in the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• Is there any reason why the inline citation for Wilson (2012) is in the middle of the sentence?

Spotchecks

Spotchecks: Klein (1998): Checked four of 24 uses. Where does Klein argue that knowledge by acquaintance is propositional? He does not argue that it's propositional, he just suggests that it can be understood this way: On the one hand, it could be held that knowing a person (place or thing) should be construed as nothing more (or less) than knowing certain facts about that someone...Nevertheless, it is knowledge of facts, so-called propositional knowledge... Phlsph7 (talk) 11:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Good. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) ...cannot possess an infinite number of reasons – Good. Where does it support the claim that foundationalists, coherentists and infinitists all face the Gettier problem? from section 5: A basic objection to the foundationalist’s and coherentist’s accounts of justification is that neither seems to be able to show that a true belief which satisfied their accounts would be non-accidentally true. I removed the claim about infinitism since it is not explicitly mentioned here. The relation to accidental truth is already discussed in the section "Definition". However, if it is not clear that this sentence describes the Gettier problem, we could add the following source to draw the connection to accidentally truth: Phlsph7 (talk) 10:54, 6 March 2023 (UTC) That source should work, especially since it adds a secondary source to support the claim. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Conjunction, closure, and evidence transfer principles – Good. Steup & Neta (2020): Checked six of 28 uses. ...to provide reasons for thinking something or for doing something. – Good. ...as in knowing how to prove a mathematical theorem... – Good. Direct and indirect realism – Good. Introspection – Good. Brain in a vat – Good. Where does it support the common sense objection to skepticism? G. E. Moore has pointed out that an argument succeeds only to the extent that its premises are more plausible than the conclusion. So if we encounter an argument whose conclusion we find much more implausible than the denial of the premises, then we can turn the argument on its head. If it's not obvious that this is about common sense then we could add the following additional source: Phlsph7 (talk) 11:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Agree that the source supports it but it's not obvious that it does. And as above, always lean toward adding the secondary source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Bolisani & Bratianu (2018): Good. Thesis of the article supports this claim, serves as a supplementary source. García-Arnaldos (2020): I see that this source mentions that Wittgenstein has a theory of family resemblance. Does it actually tell us what the theory is? You are right: some of the details of the description were not covered by that source. I've added another source to cover that. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:16, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Good. If García-Arnaldos (2020) doesn't fully support the claim, it might be better to delete it and just use the new O'Brien (2016) source. Normally, I would agree. However, García-Arnaldos 2020 is freely available while O'Brien 2016 isn't. By keeping it, users who don't have access can at least check the basic claim. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC) Klausen (2015) + Lackey (2021): Both sources support all parts of this sentence. American Heritage Dictionary + Magee & Popper (1971): Both sources support the claim. Article quotes the example sentence from the dictionary. Note that this is a pairing of a tertiary and a primary source. Replacing both of these with a single secondary source would be an improvement. Pritchard (2013): Checked all four uses. Two are good, two have issues: Not convinced that it supports they usually can be paraphrased using a that-clause This is supported by Hetherington 2022: The usual view among epistemologists is that these are specific sorts of knowledge-that. For example, knowing whether it is 2 p.m. is knowing that it is 2 p.m., if it is; and knowing that it is not 2 p.m., if it is not. Knowing who is due to visit is knowing, for some specified person, that it is he or she who is due to visit. There's also a Pritchard (2013) inline citation there. If it doesn't support the sentence, it should be removed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC) The sentences starting with It is usually held that only relatively sophisticated... read like WP:Close paraphrasing. I've reformulated it. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Good. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Thakchoe (2022): Checked all three uses. This source seems to be almost exclusively about Buddhist use. Does it support that Lower knowledge is based on the senses and the intellect? One of the relevant passages here is: Knowledge of the conventional truth informs us how things are conventional, from the ordinary commonsense perspective and thus grounds our epistemic practice in its proper linguistic and conceptual conventional framework. Knowledge of the ultimate truth informs us of how things really are ultimate, from the ultimate analytical perspective and so takes our minds beyond the bounds of conceptual and linguistic conventions. The section "Yogācāra" goes more into the details of how this relates to the senses. But you are right that this source is not perfect. I moved it one sentence to the right so that the claim is now also covered by [13]. This source is more explicit: The lower knowledge is of the intellect and the senses and comprises all empirical and objective knowledge. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Good... Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Could you point to where it supports lower knowledge as being used or mundane/conventional things or common sense? See the quote above. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC) ...and good. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC) Third use is good. Kern (2017): Good. Weisberg (2021): Probably fine, but keep an eye out for close paraphrasing. Stevenson (2003): Good. Pope Francis quote: Good. Allwood (2013): Checked two of eight uses. ...undergoes changes in relation to social and cultural circumstances. – Good ...like university departments or scientific journals in the academic context. – Good, though the examples in this source are limited in scope (I briefly mentioned this above).

Broad in its coverage

Broad coverage:

• The study of knowledge could be covered more directly. I realize the epistemology article treads a lot of the same ground as this article, so WP:SUMMARY isn't really a good option right now. But a brief section here summarizing the study of knowledge and the history of knowledge is probably due. Such a section could also serve as a template to help improve epistemology article in the future.

I've opted instead for including a short general characterization of epistemology. Many of the sources cited before do not include a lot of information on the intellectual history of the discipline and only discuss it insofar as it relates to other, more specific issues. Our article epistemology also does not contain much information on it but this topic is probably better discussed there. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:44, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, this is probably the best approach. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• This article doesn't distinguish between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. It gets into related concepts (like know-that vs know-how), but it might warrant a mention of its own, even if it's just one sentence.
• Sociology of knowledge appears to be a major field that isn't covered. Collective knowledge, such as general knowledge, common knowledge, traditional knowledge, and cultural knowledge could be expanded upon. Domain knowledge might also be relevant, even if it's just a sentence or two. How accessible knowledge is (and has been historically) should be covered as well. Education generally applies to all of this. Sources of knowledge, science, and/or anthropology might benefit from a few more sentences on these topics.

I've tried to include some of what you mentioned here, such as the section on sociology and some shorter mentions of others. The problem is that this field is just too big: there are countless other types of "X knowledge" and they can't all be included. If they don't belong to the main types discussed in detail by main sources, it's often difficult to find non-arbitrary criteria to decide what is required and what would be undue. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

If a point doesn't warrant its own section, it can always be folded into another section. In this case, science, anthropology, and sociology are all related and could be reorganized if it becomes necessary. With a broad topic article like this one, sometimes a sentence is really all that's needed to completely cover something at the correct scope. But so far it looks good, I think. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

• Value of knowledge doesn't really say much about the practical aspects of knowledge. It just leaves it at a couple of examples (the student and the doctor). More could be said about how knowledge is used by society and civilization.
• individuals who associate themselves with similar identities, like age-influenced, professional, religious, and ethnic identities, tend to embody similar forms of knowledge. – This feels like it would be way too important to just be one sentence.
• Should there be information on ignorance? I don't know.

Excessive detail:

• A priori and a posteriori goes into a lot of detail. It could probably be reduced to two paragraphs and/or used to expand the a priori and a posteriori article. The third paragraph as a whole might be a bit more detailed than the article needs.
• A lot of detail has been added on knowledge in religion, beyond the broad overview this article should provide. I would suggest reducing this section to a few paragraphs with the main ideas and then moving the details to a sub-article. (Religious epistemology might be appropriate, but I'm not sure.)

I've removed many of the less important details from the section "Religion". For now, I've left the paragraph on the Qabalah as it is. What are your thoughts? Phlsph7 (talk) 16:34, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• Some of the examples are given undue weight. I've mentioned above how it might be advisable to change how examples are used, but a few in particular go on for a while. The dream argument, while definitely important enough to be mentioned, probably shouldn't be given more than one sentence. The Ford/BMW example also goes on for a while.

Neutral

The only real concern here is the amount of weight given to different epistemological schools of thought. Empiricism and rationalism, arguably the two most important, are given adequate coverage in sources of knowledge, though they could be distinguished more clearly. Some major schools of thought, such as Pragmatism and Relativism, are overlooked. Skepticism, on the other hand, is given its own section. Similarly, decolonial scholarship has its own section on par with science, religion, and anthropology despite being a WP:MINORASPECT of knowledge that's not widely accepted.

To me, it seems justified to have more emphasis on skepticism than on the others because that's what reliable sources tend to do. For example, have a look at the tables of content of the following sources: [14], [15], [16], and [17]: they all have chapters on skepticism (some even several ones) but not on the others. I found a way to mention pragmatism. As for relativism, I don't think it is very important. The sources just mentioned do not contain a substantial discussion of it. The Stanford article doesn't even mention it. As for the section "decolonial scholarship": do you think it should be removed? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The most important thing is that the sources have been evaluated for these things. As far as decolonial scholarship, I wouldn't remove it entirely, but it should probably be reduced. Personally, I would summarize it in a sentence under anthropology or sociology (or wherever it might fit best). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Stable

There seem to have been some disputes about the religion section in mid-February. Has this been resolved?

The dispute was about the paragraph on the Qabalah. It has been solved, see the discussion at Talk:Knowledge#Paragraph_on_knowledge_in_the_Qabalah. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Noted. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Illustrated

All images are Creative Commons or public domain. I suspect that the diagrams are ineligible for copyright and automatically in the public domain. Some of the images feel vaguely decorative, but I think they have sufficient relevance, especially since this is a broad concept article. Captions sufficiently describe context and relevance.

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that it is controversial whether knowledge is the same as justified true belief? Source: Zagzebski, Linda (1999). "What Is Knowledge?". In Greco, John; Sosa, Ernest (eds.). The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 92–116. doi:10.1002/9781405164863.ch3. ISBN 9780631202905. OCLC 39269507. S2CID 158886670. Since believing is something a person does, beliefs have customarily been treated as analogous to acts, so beliefs are good in the sense in which acts are right. Right believing has traditionally been identified with justified believing. So knowledge is justified true belief (JTB ). Sometimes, but not always, this has been understood to mean true belief for the right reasons. For several decades the concept of justification has received an enormous amount of attention since it was assumed that the JTB definition of knowledge was more or less accurate and that the concept of justification was the weak link in the definition. For the most part these discussions proceeded under the assumption that the aim was to arrive at a necessary truth and that the method to be used in doing so was that of truth condition analysis. An important set of counterexamples to the JTB definition of knowledge were proposed by Edmund Gettier (1963) and led to many attempts at refining the definition without questioning either the purpose or the method of definition. ... Gettier's examples are cases in which a belief is true and justified, but it is not an instance of knowledge because it is only by chance that the belief is true.
  • ALT1: ... that philosophers distinguish knowledge of facts from knowledge-how and knowledge by acquaintance? Source: Lilley, Simon; Lightfoot, Geoffrey; Amaral, Paulo (2004). Representing Organization: Knowledge, Management, and the Information Age. Oxford University Press. pp. 162–3. ISBN 978-0-19-877541-6. In its more modern forms epistemology has taken the analysis of meaning and the status of claims to knowledge as its quarry. Consequently, writers such as Bertrand Arthur William Russell (also known as the third Earl Russell, 1872-1970), George Edward Moore (1873-1958), and Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951) have attempted to delineate three kinds of knowledge: 1. Knowledge that, or 'factual knowledge' ... 2. Knowledge how, or 'practical knowledge' ... 3. Knowledge of people, places, and things, or 'knowledge by acquaintance'
  • Reviewed: (first DYK submission)

Improved to Good Article status by Phlsph7 (talk). Self-nominated at 13:31, 10 March 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Knowledge; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Phlsph7: Good article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 20:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)