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Knowledge is the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose. The ability to know something is a central (and controversial) part of philosophy and has its own branch, epistemology. On a more practical level, knowledge is commonly shared by groups of people and in this context it can be manipulated and managed in various ways.
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Defining knowledge
- Main article: epistemology
While knowledge is a central part of daily life, the actual definition of knowledge is of great interest to philosophers, social scientists, and historians. Knowledge, according to most thinkers, must be justified, true, and believed. Meeting these qualifications may be difficult or impossible.
It is also common to weigh knowledge in how it can be applied or used. In this sense, knowledge consists of information augmented by intentionality (or direction). This model aligns with the DIKW hierarchy which places data, information, knowledge and wisdom into an increasingly useful pyramid.
Knowledge management
- Main article: knowledge management
Knowledge management seeks to understand the way in which knowledge is used and traded within organisations and treats knowledge as self-referential and recursive. This recursion means that the definition of knowledge is in a state of flux. Knowledge management treats knowledge as a form of information which is impregnated with context based on experience. Information is data which causes a difference to an observer because of its observer-specific relevance. Data can be observed, but does not need to be.
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. Critics of cultural imperialism argue that the rise of a global monoculture causes a loss of local knowledge.
Sociology of knowledge
- Main articles: Sociology of knowledge, Sociology of scientific knowledge
Aspects of knowledge exhibit a social character. For instance, knowledge is a form of social capital. Sociology of knowledge examines the way in which Society and knowledge interact.
Through experience, observation, and inference, individuals and cultures gain knowledge. The spread of this knowledge is examined by diffusion. Diffusion of innovations theory explores the factors that lead people to become aware, try, and adopt new ideas and practices -- this can help to explain development of knowledge.
Other definitions
Knowledge is "information combined with experience, context, interpretation, and reflection. It is a high-valueform of information that is ready to apply to decisions and actions." T. Davenport et al., 1998
"Explicit or codified knowledge refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language. On the other hand, tacit knowledge has a personal quality, which makes it hard to formalize and communicate." I. Nonaka, 1994
See also
- Analytic proposition/Synthetic proposition
- A priori/A posteriori
- Belief
- DIKW
- Epistemology
- Institutional knowledge
- Knowledge creation
- Knowledge engineering
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge relativity
- Knowledge representation
- Procedural knowledge
- Philosophical skepticism
- Propositional knowledge
- Truth
External links
- The Gettier problem: Justified true belief?
- Theory of Knowledge: The Gettier problem
- The Duality of Knowledge
- Philosophy of Knowledge Glossary