Knowledge

Information about Knowledge

This article is about possession of information. For the study of London undertaken by prospective taxi drivers, see The Knowledge.

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

Knowledge is defined (Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief". There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories.

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

Defining knowledge

See also: epistemology

	We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is. Now that scientific knowing is something of this sort is evident — witness both those who falsely claim it and those who actually possess it, since the former merely imagine themselves to be, while the latter are also actually, in the condition described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is.
	— Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (Book 1 Part 2)

The definition of knowledge is a matter of on-going debate among philosophers. The classical definition is found in, but not ultimately endorsed by, Plato.^[1], has it that in order for there to be knowledge at least three criteria must be fulfilled; that in order to count as knowledge, a statement must be justified, true, and believed. Some claim that these conditions are not sufficient, as Gettier case examples allegedly demonstrate. There are a number of alternatives proposed, including Robert Nozick's arguments for a requirement that knowledge 'tracks the truth' and Simon Blackburn's additional requirement that we do not want to say that those who meet any of these conditions 'through a defect, flaw, or failure' have knowledge. Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires that the believer's evidence is such that it logically necessitates the truth of the belief.

In contrast to this approach, Wittgenstein observed, following Moore's paradox, that one can say "He believes it, but it isn't so", but not "He knows it, but it isn't so". ^[2] He goes on to argue that these do not correspond to distinct mental states, but rather to distinct ways of talking about conviction. What is different here is not the mental state of the speaker, but the activity in which they are engaged. For example, on this account, to know that the kettle is boiling is not to be in a particular state of mind, but to perform a particular task with the statement that the kettle is boiling. Wittgenstein sought to bypass the difficulty of definition by looking to the way "knowledge" is used in natural languages. He saw knowledge as a case of a family resemblance.

Reliable Knowledge

In An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (1934), Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel reviewed the pursuit of truth as determined by logical considerations. They reviewed ways of eliminating doubt and arriving at stable beliefs or reliable knowledge, such as

The method of authority
The method of intuition
The methods of experimental inquiry:
Types of invariant relations
The experimental method in general
The method of agreement
The method of difference
The joint method of agreement and difference
The method of concomitant variation
The doctrine of the uniformity of nature
The plurality of causes

Their final conclusion was, "Scientific method we declare as the most assured technique man has yet devised for controlling the flux of things and establishing stable beliefs."

In an essay entitled "Inductive Method and Scientific Discovery," Marcello Pera said, "In the first place, the scientific method is a procedure, a general strategy that indicates an ordered sequence of moves (or steps) which the scientist has to make (or go through) in order to reach the goal of his research." (In On Scientific Discovery, edited by Grmek, Cohen, and Cimino [1977], published in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Series.) The scientific method is not a method directly applied, but rather a guide to the mental activity stages of originating, refining, extending, and applying knowledge. It is subject neutral and flexible in use; it is thus suitable for all domains.

Statements about truth must be viewed skeptically. Rather than state something as "true," the following phrase should be used: "On the evidence available today the balance of probability favors the view that..." (V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, 1936)

The literature contains hundreds of formulas for the scientific method. They are basically the same but differ in length and terminology. In an article "Suggestions for Teaching the Scientific Method" published in the March 1961 issue of American Biology Teacher, Dr. Kenneth B.M. Crooks suggested this one:

Curiosity
Is there a problem?
Get the evidence
Attributes needed
Weigh all evidence
Make the educated guess (hypothesis)
Challenge the hypothesis
Get a conclusion
Suspend judgment
Deductive reasoning

Communicating knowledge

Symbolic representations can be used to indicate meaning and can be thought of as a dynamic process. Hence the transfer of the symbolic representation can be viewed as one process whereby knowledge can be transferred. Other forms of communication include imitation, narrative exchange along with a range of other methods. There is no complete theory of knowledge transfer or communication.

Situated knowledge

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

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

Knowledge generated through experience is called knowledge "a posteriori", meaning afterwards. The pure existence of a term like "a posteriori" means this also has a counterpart. In this case that is knowledge "a priori", meaning before. The knowledge prior to any experience means that there are certain "assumptions" that one takes for granted. For example if one is being told about a chair it is clear to him that the chair is in space, that it is 3D. This knowledge is not knowledge that one can "forget", even someone suffering from amnesia experiences the world in 3D. See also: A priori and a posteriori.

Partial knowledge

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

Knowledge management

Main article: Knowledge management

Knowledge management is a management theory which emerged in the 1990s. It seeks to understand the way in which knowledge is created, used and shared within organizations. A significant part of Knowledge Management theory and practice aligns two models: (i) the DIKW model, which places data, information, knowledge and wisdom into an increasingly useful pyramid. (ii) Nonaka's reformulation of Polanyi's distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge. Both of these models are increasingly under challenge with different schools of thought emerging which are more fully described and referenced in the main article.

An objective of mainstream knowledge management is to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person just in time, in order to take the most appropriate decision. In that sense, knowledge management is not interested in managing knowledge per se, but to relate knowledge and its usage. This leads to Organizational Memory Systems. More recent developments have focused on managing networks (the flow of knowledge rather than knowledge itself) and narrative forms of knowledge exchange.

Religious meaning of knowledge

In Catholicism and Anglicanism, knowledge is one of the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit^[3].

Hindu Scriptures say two kinds of knowledge. Paroksha Gnyana and Aporoksha Gnyana. Paroksha Gnyana is knowledge that is second hand , the knowledge that is obtained from books , from heresay etc. Aporoksha Gnyana is the knowledge borne of direct experience, i.e. the knowledge that one discovers for himself.

In the Old Testament Knowledge is represented by the tree of knowledge. See: Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Notes

1. ^ In Plato's Theaetetus, Socrates and Theaetetus discuss three definitions of knowledge: knowledge as nothing but perception, knowledge as true judgment, and, finally, knowledge as a true judgment with an account. Each of these definitions are shown to be unsatisfactory.
2. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, remark 42
3. ^ Part Three, No. 1831. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Retrieved on 2007-04-20.

External links

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

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The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language.
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Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.
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Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed wisdom.
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Cognition is a diffuse term, used in different ways by different disciplines. In psychology, it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions.
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Reasoning is the mental (cognitive) process of looking for reasons for beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings.^[1] Humans have the ability to engage in reasoning about their own reasoning using introspection.
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Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as, person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object.

An understanding is the limit of a conceptualization.
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Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief.

The term "epistemology" is based on the Greek words "
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Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
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The Posterior Analytics is a text from Aristotle's Organon containing a classic treatment and discussion of demonstration, definition, and scientific knowledge. The demonstration is distinguished as a syllogism productive of scientific knowledge
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Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
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PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on.
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Criteria redirects here. For the indie band see Criteria (band).

A criterion is a condition/rule which enables a choice, therefore upon which a decision or judgment can be based (the plural is criteria).
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Statement can have several meanings:

Sentence (linguistics), a type of sentence
Statement (programming), an instruction to execute something that will not return a value
Financial statement, a record of financial flow

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Theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability.
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truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.^[1] The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.
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Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth or validity of a proposition or premise (argument). Belief does not necessarily confer the ability to adequately prove one's main contention to other people, who may disagree.
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The Gettier problem is considered a problem in modern epistemology or first-order logic, issuing from counter-examples to the definition of knowledge as justified true belief, and dealing extensively with the concept of justified true belief (JTB), and the scope of the concept of
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Libertarianism

Schools of thought
Agorism
Anarcho-capitalism
Geolibertarianism
Green libertarianism
Right-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism
Minarchism
Neolibertarianism
Paleolibertarianism
Progressive libertarianism

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Simon Blackburn (born 1944) is a British academic philosopher also known for his efforts to popularise philosophy. He attended Clifton College and went on to receive his bachelor's degree in Moral Sciences (i.e. philosophy) in 1965 from Trinity College, Cambridge.
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Richard Ladd Kirkham, American philosopher, was born 18 June 1955. Among his published works are Theories of Truth (MIT Press, 1992), "Does the Gettier Problem Rest on a Mistake?" Mind (1984. Vol.93, No.
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Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration.
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Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ['luːtvɪç 'joːzɛf 'joːhan 'vɪtgənʃtaɪn]
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Moore's paradox, might well have been forgotten if not for the fact that Ludwig Wittgenstein is reported to have considered it to be Moore's most important contribution to philosophy.
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Family resemblance is an influential idea in the philosophy of language, first proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his book Philosophical Investigations.

Wittgenstein discussed examples of terms which he argued would not admit of a full and complete definition.
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Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning,^[1]
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Symbolic representation may refer to:

Symbolism
Symbolic linguistic representation