Knowledge transfer is the sharing or disseminating of knowledge and the providing of inputs to problem solving. In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another. Like knowledge management,
knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute
knowledge and ensure its availability for future users. It is considered
to be more than just a communication problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum, an e-mail or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because:
knowledge resides in organizational members, tools, tasks, and their subnetworks and
much knowledge in organizations is tacit or hard to articulate.
The subject has been taken up under the title of knowledge management
since the 1990s. The term has also been applied to the transfer of
knowledge at the international level.
In business, knowledge transfer now has become a common topic in mergers and acquisitions.
It focuses on transferring technological platform, market experience,
managerial expertise, corporate culture, and other intellectual capital
that can improve the companies' competence. Since technical skills and knowledge are very important assets for firms' competence in the global competition,
unsuccessful knowledge transfer can have a negative impact on
corporations and lead to the expensive and time-consuming M&A not
creating values to the firms.
Background
Argote
& Ingram (2000) define knowledge transfer as "the process through
which one unit (e.g., group, department, or division) is affected by the
experience of another"
(p. 151). They further point out the transfer of organizational
knowledge (i.e., routine or best practices) can be observed through
changes in the knowledge or performance of recipient units. Even though
the benefits of knowledge transfer are well known, the effectiveness of
the process varies considerably. The transfer of organizational knowledge, such as best practices, can be quite difficult to achieve.
Szulanski's doctoral dissertation ("Exploring internal
stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the
firm") proposed that knowledge transfer within a firm is inhibited by
factors other than a lack of incentive. How well knowledge about best
practices remains broadly accessible within a firm depends upon the
nature of that knowledge, from where (or whom) it comes, who gets it,
and the organizational context within which any transfer occurs.
"Stickiness" is a metaphor that comes from the difficulty of circulating
fluid around an oil refinery (including effects of the fluid's native
viscosity). It is worth noting that his analysis does not apply to
scientific theories, where a different set of dynamics and rewards
apply.
Three related concepts are "knowledge utilization", "research
utilization" and "implementation", which are used in the health sciences
to describe the process of bringing a new idea, practice or technology
into consistent and appropriate use in a clinical setting. The study of knowledge utilization/implementation (KU/I) is a direct outgrowth of the movement toward evidence-based medicine and research concluding that health care practices with demonstrated efficacy are not consistently used in practice settings.
Knowledge transfer within organisations and between nations also
raises ethical considerations particularly where there is an imbalance
in power relationships (e.g. employer and employee) or in the levels of
relative need for knowledge resources (such as developed and developing
worlds).
Knowledge transfer includes, but encompasses more than, technology transfer.
Knowledge transfer mechanisms
Two kinds of knowledge transfer mechanisms have been noticed in practice: Personalization and Codification.
Personalization refers to the one-to-one transfer of [knowledge]
between two entities in person. A very good example of this is the act
of teaching a person how to ride a bicycle. On the other hand,
codification refers to the act of converting knowledge into knowledge
artifacts such as documents, images and videos that are consumed by the
knowledge recipients asynchronously. Codification can also be described
as a process of defining an idea into an object.
Personalized knowledge transfer results in better assimilation of
knowledge by the recipient when knowledge tacitness is higher and/or
when information content in a knowledge object is high.
On the other hand, codification is driven by the need to transfer
knowledge to large number of people and results in better knowledge
reuse. Entropy of the knowledge objects can provide a measure of their information content or tacitness.
Argote & Ingram (2000) argue, that embedding knowledge in
technology has been proved to be an effective way of transferring
knowledge.
Subtypes of knowledge transfer
Linear, divergent, and convergent knowledge transfer
Based on the number of sources and recipients, all types of knowledge
transfer can be reduced to 3 subtypes, namely: linear, divergent, and
convergent. Linear Knowledge Transfer occurs when there is one source
and one recipient ( e.g. when one person explains a specific topic to
someone else). Divergent Knowledge Transfer occurs when there is one
source and multiple recipients (e.g. when a team leader outlines
specific tasks for the team). Convergent Knowledge Transfer occurs when
one recipient acquires information from different sources. A typical
example of Convergent Knowledge Transfer is when a patient receives
information about a condition from several doctors. Convergent
Knowledge Transfer is especially efficient in producing in-depth
knowledge of a specific topic.
Between public and private domains
With the move of advanced economies from a resource-based to a knowledge-based production, many national governments have increasingly recognized "knowledge" and "innovation" as significant driving forces of economic growth, social development, and job creation. In this context the promotion of 'knowledge transfer' has increasingly become a subject of public and economic policy.
However, the long list of changing global, national and regional
government programmes indicates the tension between the need to conduct
'free' research – that is motivated by interest and by private sector
'short term' objectives - and research for public interests and general
common good.
The underlying assumption that there is a potential for increased
collaboration between industry and universities is also underlined in
much of the current innovation literature. In particular the Open
Innovation approach to developing business value is explicitly based on
an assumption that Universities are a "vital source for accessing
external ideas". Moreover, Universities have been deemed to be "the
great, largely unknown, and certainly underexploited, resource
contributing to the creation of wealth and economic competitiveness."
Universities and other public sector research organisations
(PSROs) have accumulated much practical experience over the years in the
transfer of knowledge across the divide between the domains of
publicly produced knowledge and the private exploitation of it. Many
colleges and PSROs have developed processes and policies to discover,
protect and exploit intellectual property (IP) rights, and to ensure
that IP is successfully transferred to private corporations, or vested
in new companies formed for the purposes of exploitation. Routes to
commercialization of IP produced by PSROs and colleges include
licensing, joint venture, new company formation and royalty-based
assignments.
With the production factors of the knowledge economy having broadly reshaped and supplanted those of prior economic models,
researchers have characterized the management and processing of
organizational knowledge as vital to organizational success, with
knowledge transfer in particular playing a key role in the practice of
technology sharing, personnel transfers, and strategic integration.
Knowledge transfer can also be achieved through investment programme, both intentionally and unintentionally in the form of skills, technology, and ‘tacit knowledge’ including management
and organisational practices. For example, foreign investment in
African countries have shown to provide some knowledge transfer.
In landscape ecology
By knowledge transfer in landscape ecology,
means a group of activities that increase the understanding of
landscape ecology with the goal of encouraging application of this
knowledge. Five factors will influence knowledge transfer from the view
of forest landscape ecology: the generation of research capacity, the
potential for application, the users of the knowledge, the
infrastructure capacity, and the process by which knowledge is
transferred (Turner, 2006).
Types of knowledge
Knowledge is a dominant feature in our post-industrial society, and knowledge workers are important in many enterprises. Blackler expands on a categorization of knowledge types that were suggested by Collins (1993):
Embrained knowledge is that which is dependent on
conceptual skills and cognitive abilities. We could consider this to be
practical, high-level knowledge, where objectives are met through
perpetual recognition and revamping. Tacit knowledge may also be
embrained, even though it is mainly subconscious.
Embodied knowledge
is action oriented and consists of contextual practices. It is more of a
social acquisition, as how individuals interact in and interpret their
environment creates this non-explicit type of knowledge.
Encultured knowledge is the process of achieving shared
understandings through socialization and acculturation. Language and
negotiation become the discourse of this type of knowledge in an
enterprise.
Embedded knowledge
is tacit and resides within systematic routines. It relates to the
relationships between roles, technologies, formal procedures and
emergent routines within a complex system. In order to initiate any
specific line of business knowledge transition helps a lot.
Encoded knowledge is information that is conveyed in signs
and symbols (books, manuals, data bases, etc.) and decontextualized into
codes of practice. Rather than being a specific type of knowledge, it
deals more with the transmission, storage and interrogation of
knowledge.
Knowledge transfer platforms
A recent trend is the development of online platforms aiming to optimize knowledge transfer and collaboration.
For instance, the implementation of discussion forums for enabling
meaningful conversation, knowledge acquisition and peer engagement could
pave the way for a knowledge‐sharing culture as opposed to a
knowledge‐hoarding culture.
Knowledge transfer unit
The
transfer of knowledge can be viewed as the transmission of a chain of
small, interchangeable, semantic units. A Knowledge Transfer Unit was
defined as the smallest amount of information that can be accurately
communicated.
Challenges
Factors that complicate knowledge transfer include:
The inability to recognize & articulate "compiled" or highly intuitive competencies - tacit knowledge idea
Different views on explicitness of knowledge
Geography or distance
Limitations of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
Lack of a shared/superordinate social identity
Language
Areas of expertise
Internal conflicts (for example, professional territoriality)
Generational differences
Union-management relations
Incentives
Problems with sharing beliefs, assumptions, heuristics and cultural norms.
Organizational culture non-conducive to knowledge sharing (the "Knowledge is power" culture)
Motivational issues, such as resistance to change and power struggles
Lack of trust
Capabilities of the receptor to interpret and absorb knowledge
Context of the knowledge (tacit, context-specific knowledge)
Inability to detect the opportunity of knowledge sharing
Everett Rogers pioneered diffusion of innovations
theory, presenting a research-based model for how and why individuals
and social networks adopt new ideas, practices and products. In
anthropology, the concept of diffusion also explores the spread of ideas among cultures.
Process
Identifying the knowledge holders within the organization
Motivating them to share
Designing a sharing mechanism to facilitate the transfer
Knowledge transfer is often used as a synonym for training. Furthermore, information should not be confused with knowledge, nor is it, strictly speaking, possible to "transfer" experiential knowledge to other people. Information might be thought of as facts or understood data; however, knowledge has to do with flexible and adaptable skills—a person's unique ability to wield and apply information. This fluency of application is in part what differentiates information from knowledge. Knowledge tends to be both tacit and personal; the knowledge one person has is difficult to quantify, store, and retrieve for someone else to use.
Knowledge transfer (KT) and knowledge sharing
(KS) are sometimes used interchangeably or are considered to share
common features. Since some knowledge management researchers assume that
these two concepts are rather similar and have overlapping content,
there is often confusion, especially among researchers and
practitioners, about what a certain concept means. For this reason,
terms such as KS and KT get used incorrectly without any respect to
their real meaning and these meanings can change from paper to paper.
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as truebelief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification.
While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional
knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies in philosophy
focus on justification: whether it is needed at all, how to understand
it, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies
intensified due to a series of thought experiments by Edmund Gettier
and have provoked various alternative definitions. Some of them deny
that justification is necessary and replace it, for example, with reliability or the manifestation of cognitive virtues. Others contend that justification is needed but formulate additional requirements, for example, that no defeaters of the belief are present or that the person would not have the belief if it was false.
Knowledge can be produced in many different ways. The most important source of empirical knowledge is perception, which refers to the usage of the senses. Many theorists also include introspection as a source of knowledge, not of external physical objects, but of one's own mental states. Other sources often discussed include memory, rational intuition, inference, and testimony. According to foundationalism,
some of these sources are basic in the sense that they can justify
beliefs without depending on other mental states. This claim is rejected
by coherentists, who contend that a sufficient degree of coherence among all the mental states of the believer is necessary for knowledge.
Many different aspects of knowledge are investigated and it plays
a role in various disciplines. It is the primary subject of the field
of epistemology, which studies what we know, how we come to know it, and what it means to know something. The problem of the value of knowledge concerns the question of why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Philosophical skepticism is the controversial thesis that we lack any form of knowledge or that knowledge is impossible. Formal epistemology
studies, among other things, the rules governing how knowledge and
related states behave and in what relations they stand to each other. Science tries to acquire knowledge using the scientific method, which is based on repeatable experimentation, observation, and measurement. Many religions hold that humans should seek knowledge and that God or the divine is the source of knowledge.
Numerous definitions of knowledge have been suggested.Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy
recognize three fundamental types. "Knowledge-that", also called
propositional knowledge, can be expressed using that-clauses as in "I
know that Dave is at home". "Knowledge-how" (know-how) expresses practical competence, as in "she knows how to swim". Finally, "knowledge by acquaintance" refers to a familiarity with the known object based on previous direct experience. Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy aim to identify the essential features of propositional knowledge. There is wide, though not universal, agreement among philosophers that knowledge involves a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality, and that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief.
Despite the agreement about the general characteristics of
knowledge listed above, many deep disagreements remain regarding its
exact definition. These disagreements relate to the goals and methods
within epistemology and other fields, or to differences concerning the
standards of knowledge that people intend to uphold. Some theorists
focus on knowledge's most salient features in their attempt to give a
practically useful definition. Others try to provide a theoretically precise definition by listing the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient.
The term "analysis of knowledge" (or equivalently, "conception of
knowledge" or "theory of knowledge") is often used for this approach. It can be understood in analogy to how chemists analyze a sample by seeking a list of all the chemical elements composing it. An example of this approach is characterizing knowledge as justified true belief (JTB), which is seen by many philosophers as the standard definition. 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".
Methodological differences
concern whether researchers base their inquiry on abstract and general
intuitions or on concrete and specific cases, referred to as methodism and particularism, respectively. Another source of disagreement is the role of ordinary language in one's inquiry: the weight given to how the term "knowledge" is used in everyday discourse. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, there is no clear-cut definition of knowledge since it is just a cluster of concepts related through family resemblance.
Different conceptions of the standards of knowledge are also
responsible for various disagreements. Some epistemologists hold that
knowledge demands very high requirements, like infallibility,
and is therefore quite rare. Others see knowledge as a rather common
phenomenon, prevalent in many everyday situations, without excessively
high standards.
In analytic philosophy, knowledge is usually understood as a
mental state possessed by an individual person, but the term is
sometimes used to refer to a characteristic of a group of people as
group knowledge, social knowledge, or collective knowledge. In a slightly different sense, it can also mean knowledge stored in documents, as in "knowledge housed in the library" or the knowledge base of an expert system.
Knowledge is often defined as justified true belief.
Many philosophers define knowledge as justified true belief (JTB). This definition characterizes knowledge through three essential features: as (1) a belief that is (2) true and (3) justified.In the dialogue Theaetetus by the ancient Greek philosopherPlato, Socrates pondered the distinction between knowledge and true belief but rejected the JTB definition of knowledge. The most widely accepted feature is truth: one can believe something false but one cannot know something false. A few ordinary language philosophers have raised doubts that knowledge is a form of belief based on everyday expressions like "I do not believe that; I know it". Most theorists reject this distinction and explain such expressions through ambiguities of natural language.
The main controversy surrounding the JTB definition concerns its third feature: justification. This component is often included because of the impression that some
true beliefs are not forms of knowledge. Specifically, this covers cases
of superstition, lucky guesses, or erroneous reasoning. The corresponding beliefs may even be true but it seems there is more to knowledge than just being right about something.
The JTB definition solves this problem by identifying proper
justification as the additional component needed, which is absent in the
above-mentioned cases. Many philosophers have understood justification
internalistically (internalism): a belief is justified if it is supported by another mental state of the person, such as a perceptual experience, a memory, or a second belief. This mental state has to constitute a sufficiently strong evidence or reason for the believed proposition. Some modern versions modify the JTB definition by using an externalist
conception of justification instead. This means that justification
depends not just on factors internal to the subject but also on external
factors. They can include, for example, that the belief was produced by
a reliable process or that the believed fact caused the belief.
The Gettier problem is motivated by the idea that some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge.
The JTB definition came under severe criticism in the 20th century, when Edmund Gettier gave a series of counterexamples.
They purport to present concrete cases of justified true beliefs that
fail to constitute knowledge. The reason for their failure is usually a
form of epistemic luck: the justification is not relevant to the truth. In a well-known example, there is a country road with many barn facades
and only one real barn. The person driving is not aware of this, stops
by a lucky coincidence in front of the real barn, and forms the belief
that he is in front of a barn. It has been argued that this justified
true belief does not constitute knowledge since the person wouldn't have
been able to tell the difference without the fortuitous accident.
So even though the belief is justified, it is a lucky coincidence that
it is also true. The responses to these counterexamples have been
diverse. According to some, they show that the JTB definition of
knowledge is deeply flawed and that a radical reconceptualization of
knowledge is necessary, often by denying justification a role.
This can happen, for example, by replacing justification with
reliability or by understanding knowledge as the manifestation of cognitive virtues.
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.
Various theorists are diametrically opposed to the radical
reconceptualization and either deny that Gettier cases pose problems or
they try to solve them by making smaller modifications to how
justification is defined. Such approaches result in a minimal
modification of the JTB definition.
Between these two extremes, some philosophers have suggested
various moderate departures. They agree that the JTB definition is a
step in the right direction: justified true belief is a necessary
condition of knowledge. However, they disagree that it is a sufficient
condition. They hold instead that an additional criterion, some feature X, is necessary for knowledge. For this reason, they are often referred to as JTB+X definitions of knowledge.
A closely related approach speaks not of justification but of warrant
and defines warrant as justification together with whatever else is
necessary to arrive at knowledge.
Many candidates for the fourth feature have been suggested. In this
regard, knowledge may be defined as justified true belief that does not
depend on any false beliefs, that there are no defeaters present, or that the person would not have the belief if it was false. Such and similar definitions are successful at avoiding many of the
original Gettier cases. However, they often fall prey to newly conceived
counterexamples.
To avoid all possible cases, it may be necessary to find a criterion
that excludes all forms of epistemic luck. It has been argued that such a
criterion would set the required standards of knowledge very high: the
belief has to be infallible to succeed in all cases. This would mean that very few of our beliefs amount to knowledge, if any. For example, Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires that the evidence for the belief necessitates its truth.
There is still very little consensus in the academic discourse as to
which of the proposed modifications or reconceptualizations is correct.
Types
The English word knowledge can translate a variety of words in other languages that refer to different states. The Latin words cognitio and scientia can both be translated as "knowledge". Romance languages have two major verbs that would both be translated as "to know": for example, connaître and savoir in French or conocer and saber in Spanish. In ancient Greek, there were four such important knowledge words: epistēmē (unchanging theoretical knowledge), technē (expert technical knowledge), mētis (strategic knowledge), and gnōsis (personal intellectual knowledge). All these different types of knowledge can be considered forms of cognitive success.
Propositional knowledge
Propositional knowledge, also referred to as descriptive knowledge,
is the paradigmatic type of knowledge in analytic philosophy, and
various classifications are used to distinguish between its different
subtypes. The distinctions between the major types are usually drawn based on the linguistic formulations used to express them. Propositional knowledge is propositional in the sense that it involves a relation to a proposition. Since propositions are often expressed through that-clauses, it is also referred to as knowledge-that, as in "Akari knows that Canberra is the capital of Australia". In this case, Akari stands in the relation of knowing to the proposition "Canberra is the capital of Australia". Closely related types of knowledge are know-wh, for example, knowing where the Taj Mahal is or knowing who killed J. F. Kennedy.
These expressions are normally understood as types of propositional
knowledge since they usually can be paraphrased using a that-clause.
Propositional knowledge is either occurrent and dispositional. This mirrors the distinction between occurrent and dispositional beliefs:
to know occurrently means to entertain the corresponding representation
currently, to be aware of it. "Dispositional knowledge" refers to the
mere ability to do so without its execution. In this regard, a person
fully immersed in a go-kart race has dispositional but not occurrent
knowledge of where their home is. The reason is that they are currently
occupied with something else but could easily provide this information
if they stopped and focused on it.
Non-propositional knowledge
Knowing how to ride a bicycle is one form of non-propositional knowledge.
For non-propositional knowledge, no essential relation to a
proposition is involved. The two most well-known forms are knowledge-how
(know-how or procedural knowledge) and knowledge by acquaintance. The term "know-how" refers to some form of practical ability or skill. It can be defined as having the corresponding competence. Examples include knowing how to ride a bicycle or knowing how to play
the guitar. Some of the abilities responsible for know-how may also
involve certain forms of knowledge-that, as in knowing how to prove a mathematical theorem. But this is not generally the case.
It is usually argued that mainly humans and maybe other higher animals
possess propositional knowledge since it requires an advanced form of
mind. Practical knowledge, on the other hand, is more common in the
animal kingdom. In this regard, an ant
knows how to walk even though it presumably lacks a mind sufficiently
developed enough to stand in a relation to the corresponding proposition
by representing it.
Knowledge by acquaintance refers to familiarity with an
individual that results from direct experiential contact with this
individual.
It often, but not exclusively, concerns a relation to a person. On the
linguistic level, it does not require a that-clause and can be expressed
using a direct object.
So when someone claims that they know Wladimir Klitschko personally,
they are expressing that they had a certain kind of contact with him and
not that they know a certain fact about him. This is usually understood
to mean that it constitutes a relation to a concrete individual and not
to a proposition. Knowledge by acquaintance plays a central role in Bertrand Russell's
epistemology. He contrasts it with knowledge by description, which is a
form of propositional knowledge not based on direct perceptual
experience. So by watching a documentary about Wladimir Klitschko,
the viewer may acquire various forms of knowledge by description about
him, for example, about his nationality or his career in boxing, without
acquiring knowledge by acquaintance of him. However, there is some
controversy about whether it is possible to acquire knowledge by
acquaintance in its pure non-propositional form. In this regard, some
theorists have suggested that it might be better to understand it as one
type of propositional knowledge that is only expressed in a
grammatically different way.
The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge came to prominence in Immanuel Kant's
philosophy and is often discussed in the academic literature. To which
category a knowledge attitude belongs depends on the role of experience in its formation and justification. To know something a posteriori means to know it on the basis of experience.
For example, to know that it is currently raining or that the baby is
crying belongs to a posteriori knowledge since it is based on some form
of experience, like visual or auditory experience. A priori knowledge, on the other hand, is possible without any experience to justify or support the known proposition.
Mathematical knowledge, for example, that 2 + 2 = 4, is a paradigmatic
case of a priori knowledge since no empirical investigation is necessary
to confirm this fact.
The distinction between a posteriori and a priori knowledge is usually
equated with the distinction between empirical and non-empirical
knowledge. This distinction pertains primarily to knowledge but it can also be applied to propositions or arguments. For example, an a priori proposition is a proposition that can be known independently of experience.
The prime example of the relevant experience in question is sensory experience.
However, some non-sensory experiences, like memory and introspection,
are often included as well. But certain conscious phenomena are excluded
in this context. For example, the conscious phenomenon of a rational
insight into the solution of a mathematical problem does not make the
resulting knowledge a posteriori.
It is sometimes pointed out that, in a trivial sense, some form of
experience is required even for a priori knowledge: the experience
needed to learn the language in which the claim is expressed. For a
priori knowledge, this is the only form of experience required. For this
reason, knowing that "all bachelors are unmarried" is considered a form
of a priori knowledge since, given an understanding of the terms
"bachelor" and "unmarried", no further experience is necessary to know
that it is true. One difficulty for a priori knowledge is to explain how it is possible.
It is usually seen as unproblematic that one can come to know things
through experience but it is not clear how knowledge is possible without
experience. One of the earliest solutions to this problem is due to Plato, who argues that, in the context of geometry, the soul already possesses the knowledge and just needs to recollect or remember it to access it again. A similar explanation is given by René Descartes, who holds that a priori knowledge exists as innate knowledge present in the mind of each human. A different approach is to posit a special mental faculty responsible for this type of knowledge, often referred to as rational insight or rational intuition.
The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is
closely related to two other distinctions: the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions and the distinction between necessary and contingent propositions.
Traditionally, it was often assumed that these distinctions coincide.
On this view, a priori knowledge concerns propositions that are analytic
and necessary while a posteriori knowledge is about propositions that
are synthetic and contingent. However, this position is rejected by many
contemporary philosophers. One reason is that these distinctions belong
to different fields. The a priori–a posteriori distinction belongs to epistemology and is about how one knows things. The analytic–synthetic distinction pertains to semantics and concerns how the meanings of terms make a proposition true. The necessary–contingent distinction is metaphysical and asks, for example, whether a proposition is true in all possible worlds or just in some of them.
Various discussions in the academic literature concern the question of
how these distinctions overlap or fail to overlap, for example, on cases
of synthetic a priori truths or of contingent a priori truths.
In philosophy, "self-knowledge" usually refers to a person's knowledge of their own sensations, thoughts,
beliefs, and other mental states. Many philosophers hold that it is a
special type of knowledge since it is more direct than knowledge of the
external world, which is mediated through the senses. Traditionally, it
was often claimed that self-knowledge is indubitable, for example, that
when someone is in pain, they cannot be wrong about this fact. However,
various contemporary theorists reject this position. A closely related
issue is to explain how self-knowledge works. Some understand it as a
form of knowledge by acquaintance while others claim that there is an
inner sense that works in analogy to how the external five senses
work. According to a different perspective, self-knowledge is indirect
in the sense that a person has to interpret their internal and external
behavior in order to learn about their mental states, similar to how one
can learn about the mental states of other people by interpreting their external behavior.
In a slightly different sense, the term self-knowledge can also refer to the knowledge of the self as a persisting entity that has certain personality traits, preferences, physical attributes, relationships, goals, and social identities. This meaning is of particular interest to psychology and refers to a person's awareness of their own characteristics. Self-knowledge is closely related to self-concept,
the difference being that the self-concept also includes unrealistic
aspects of how a person sees themselves. In this regard, self-knowledge
is often measured by comparing a person's self-assessment of their
character traits with how other people assess this person's traits.
Situated knowledge
"Situated knowledges" redirects here. For the Donna Haraway essay, see Situated Knowledges.
Situated knowledge is knowledge specific to a particular situation.
It is closely related to practical or tacit knowledge, which is learned
and applied in specific circumstances. This especially concerns certain
forms of acquiring knowledge, such as trial and error or learning from experience. In this regard, situated knowledge usually lacks a more explicit structure and is not articulated in terms of universal ideas. The term is often used in feminism and postmodernism
to point out that many forms of knowledge are not absolute but depend
on the concrete historical, cultural, and linguistic context.
Understood in this way, it is frequently used to argue against absolute
or universal knowledge claims stated in the scientific discourse. Donna Haraway is a prominent defender of this position. One of her arguments is based on the idea that perception is embodied and is not a universal "gaze from nowhere". Some interpreters associate with this position a form of epistemological relativism because of how knowledge depends on the local conditions of the culture in which it arises.
Higher and lower knowledge
Many forms of eastern spirituality and religion distinguish between higher and lower knowledge. They are also referred to as para vidya and apara vidya in Hinduism or the two truths doctrine in Buddhism. Lower knowledge is based on the senses and the intellect. In this regard, all forms of empirical and objective knowledge belong to this category.
Most of the knowledge needed in one's everyday functioning is lower
knowledge. It is about mundane or conventional things that are in tune
with common sense, like that mice are smaller than elephants. It is
relevant to many practical issues, like how to repair a car or how to
persuade a customer. Scientific knowledge, for example, that the chemical composition of water is H2O, is often seen as one of the most advanced forms of lower knowledge.
Higher knowledge, on the other hand, is understood as knowledge of God, the absolute, the true self, or the ultimate reality.
It belongs neither to the external world of physical objects nor to the
internal world of the experience of emotions and concepts. Many
spiritual teachings emphasize the increased importance, or sometimes
even exclusive importance, of higher knowledge in comparison to lower
knowledge. This is usually based on the idea that achieving higher
knowledge is one of the central steps on the spiritual path. In this
regard, higher knowledge is seen as what frees the individual from
ignorance, helps them realize God, or liberates them from the cycle of
rebirth.
This is often combined with the view that lower knowledge is in some
way based on a delusion: it belongs to the realm of mere appearances or Maya, while higher knowledge manages to view the reality underlying these appearances.
In the Buddhist tradition, the attainment of higher knowledge or
ultimate truth is often associated with seeing the world from the
perspective of sunyata, i.e. as a form of emptiness lacking inherent existence or intrinsic nature.
Sources of knowledge
Perception using one of the five senses is an important source of knowledge.
Sources of knowledge are "rational capacities for knowledge" or ways how people come to know things. Various sources of knowledge are discussed in the academic literature, often in terms of the mental faculties
responsible. They include perception, introspection, memory, inference,
and testimony. However, not everyone agrees that all of them actually
lead to knowledge. Usually, perception or observation, i.e. using one of the senses, is identified as the most important source of empirical knowledge. So knowing that the baby is sleeping constitutes observational
knowledge if it was caused by a perception of the snoring baby. But this
would not be the case if one learned about this fact through a
telephone conversation with one's spouse. Direct realists explain observational knowledge by holding that perception constitutes a direct contact with the perceived object. Indirect realists, on the other hand, contend that this contact happens indirectly: we can only directly perceive sense data,
which are then interpreted as representing external objects. This
distinction is important since it affects whether the knowledge of
external objects is direct or indirect and may thus have an impact on
how certain the knowledge is. Introspection is often seen in analogy to perception as a source of knowledge, not of external physical objects, but of internal mental states.
Traditionally, various theorists have ascribed a special epistemic
status to introspection by claiming that it is infallible or that there
is no introspective difference between appearance and reality. However,
this claim has been contested in the contemporary discourse. Critics
argue that it may be possible, for example, to mistake an unpleasant
itch for a pain or to confuse the experience of a slight ellipse for the
experience of a circle. Perceptual and introspective knowledge often act as a form of fundamental or basic knowledge. According to some empiricists, perceptual knowledge is the only source of basic knowledge and provides the foundation for all other knowledge.
Memory
is usually identified as another source of knowledge. It differs from
perception and introspection in that it is not as independent or
fundamental as they are since it depends on other previous experiences.
The faculty of memory retains knowledge acquired in the past and makes
it accessible in the present, as when remembering a past event or a
friend's phone number.
It is generally considered a reliable source of knowledge, but it may
deceive us at times nonetheless, either because the original experience
was unreliable or because the memory degraded and does not accurately
represent the original experience anymore.
Knowledge based on perception, introspection, or memory may also give rise to inferential knowledge, which comes about when reasoning is applied to draw inferences from another known fact. In this regard, the perceptual knowledge of a Czech stamp on a postcard
may give rise to the inferential knowledge that one's friend is
visiting the Czech Republic. According to rationalists,
some forms of knowledge are completely independent of observation and
introspection. They are needed to explain how certain a priori beliefs,
like the mathematical belief that 2 + 2 = 4, constitute knowledge. Some
theorists hold that the faculty of pure reason or rational intuition
is responsible in these cases since there seem to be no sensory
perceptions that could justify such general and abstract knowledge. However, difficulties in providing a clear account of pure reason or rational intuition have led various empirically minded epistemologists to doubt that they constitute independent sources of knowledge. A closely related approach is to hold that this type of knowledge is innate. According to Plato's theory of recollection, for example, it is accessed through a special form of remembering.
Testimony is an important source of knowledge for many everyday purposes. The testimony given at a trial is one special case.
Testimony
is often included as an additional source of knowledge. Unlike the
other sources, it is not tied to one specific cognitive faculty.
Instead, it is based on the idea that one person can come to know a fact
because another person talks about this fact. Testimony can happen in
numerous ways, like regular speech, a letter, the newspaper, or an
online blog. The problem of testimony consists in clarifying under what
circumstances and why it constitutes a source of knowledge. A popular
response is that it depends on the reliability of the person pronouncing
the testimony: only testimony from reliable sources can lead to
knowledge.
Structure of knowledge
The expression "structure of knowledge" refers to the way in which
the mental states of a person need to be related to each other for
knowledge to arise.
Most theorists hold that, among other things, an agent has to have good
reasons for holding a belief if this belief is to amount to knowledge.
So when challenged, the agent may justify their belief by referring to
their reason for holding it. In many cases, this reason is itself a
belief that may as well be challenged. So when the agent believes that
Ford cars are cheaper than BMWs because they believe to have heard this
from a reliable source, they may be challenged to justify why they
believe that their source is reliable. If it turns out that their
reasons are not well supported, this also affects the epistemic status
of the original belief. However, whatever support they present may also
be challenged. This threatens to lead to an infinite regress since the epistemic status at each step depends on the epistemic status of the previous step. Theories of the structure of knowledge offer responses for how to solve this problem.
Foundationalism,
coherentism, and infinitism are theories of the structure of knowledge.
The black arrows symbolize how one belief supports another belief.
The three most common theories are foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism. Foundationalists and coherentists deny the existence of this infinite regress, in contrast to infinitists. According to foundationalists, some basic reasons
have their epistemic status independent of other reasons and thereby
constitute the endpoint of the regress. Against this view, it has been
argued that the concept of "basic reason" is contradictory: there should
be a reason for why some reasons are basic and others are non-basic, in
which case the basic reasons would depend on another reason after all
and would therefore not be basic. An additional problem consists in
finding plausible candidates for basic reasons.
Coherentists and infinitists avoid these problems by denying the
distinction between basic and non-basic reasons. Coherentists argue that
there is only a finite number of reasons, which mutually support each
other and thereby ensure each other's epistemic status. Their critics contend that this constitutes the fallacy of circular reasoning. For example, if belief b1 supports belief b2 and belief b2 supports belief b1,
the agent has a reason for accepting one belief if they already have
the other. However, their mutual support alone is not a good reason for
newly accepting both beliefs at once. A closely related issue is that
there can be various distinct sets of coherent beliefs and coherentists
face the problem of explaining why we should accept one coherent set
rather than another.
For infinitists, in contrast to foundationalists and coherentists,
there is an infinite number of reasons. This position faces the problem
of explaining how human knowledge is possible at all since it seems that
the human mind is limited and cannot possess an infinite amount of
reasons. In their traditional forms, foundationalists, coherentists and infinitists all face the Gettier problem,
i.e. that having a reason or justification for a true belief is not
sufficient for knowledge in cases where cognitive luck is responsible
for the success.
The value of knowledge is an important topic in epistemology. Its
main question is whether or why knowledge is more valuable than mere
true belief.
There is wide agreement that knowledge is good in some sense. For
example, knowledge can help a student pass the exam or ensure that a
doctor prescribes the right medicine.
However, the thesis that knowledge is better than true belief is more
controversial. An early discussion of this problem is found in Plato's Meno in relation to the claim that both knowledge and true belief can successfully guide action
and, therefore, have apparently the same value. For example, it seems
that mere true belief is as effective as knowledge when trying to find
the way to Larissa. According to Plato, knowledge is better because it is more stable.
A different approach is to hold that knowledge gets its additional
value from justification. However, if the value in question is
understood primarily as an instrumental value, it is not clear in what sense knowledge is better than mere true belief since they are usually equally useful.
The problem of the value of knowledge is often discussed in relation to reliabilism and virtue epistemology.
Reliabilism can be defined as the thesis that knowledge is
reliably-formed true belief. On this view, it seems difficult to explain
how a reliable belief-forming process adds additional value. According to an analogy by Linda Zagzebski,
a cup of coffee made by a reliable coffee machine has the same value as
an equally good cup of coffee made by an unreliable coffee machine.
This difficulty in solving the value problem is sometimes used as an
argument against reliabilism. Virtue epistemologists have a different
approach to the value problem. They see knowledge as the manifestation
of cognitive virtues and can thus argue that knowledge has additional
value due to its association with virtue. However, not everyone agrees
that knowledge actually has additional value over true belief. A similar
view is defended by Jonathan Kvanvig, who argues that the main epistemic value resides not in knowledge but in understanding, which implies grasping how one's beliefs cohere with each other.
Philosophical skepticism
Pyrrho of Elis was one of the first philosophical skeptics.
Philosophical skepticism in its strongest form, also referred to as global skepticism,
is the thesis that we lack any form of knowledge or that knowledge is
impossible. This position is quite radical and very few philosophers
have explicitly defended it. However, it has been influential
nonetheless, usually in a negative sense: many researchers see it as a
serious challenge to any epistemological theory and often try to show
how their preferred theory overcomes it.For example, it is commonly accepted that perceptual experience constitutes a source of knowledge. However, according to the dream argument,
this is not the case since dreaming provides unreliable information and
since the agent could be dreaming in that moment. In this case, they
would be unable to distinguish actual perceptual experience from the
dreaming experience. Since they may be dreaming at any time without
being aware of this, it is then argued that there is no perceptual
knowledge. A similar often cited thought experiment assumes that the agent is actually a brain in a vat
that is just fed electrical stimuli. Such a brain would have the false
impression of having a body and interacting with the external world. The
basic thrust of the argument is the same: since the agent is unable to
tell the difference, they do not know that they have a body responsible
for reliable perceptions.
One issue revealed through these thought experiments is the problem of underdetermination:
that the evidence available is not sufficient to make a rational
decision between competing theories. And if two contrary hypotheses
explain the appearances equally well then the agent is not justified in
believing one of those hypotheses rather than the other. Based on this
premise, the general skeptic just has to argue that this is true for all
our knowledge, that there is always an alternative and very different
explanation.
Another skeptic argument is based on the idea that human cognition is
fallible and therefore lacks absolute certainty. More specific arguments
target particular theories of knowledge, such as foundationalism or
coherentism, and try to show that their concept of knowledge is deeply
flawed.
An important argument against global skepticism is that it seems to
contradict itself: the claim that there is no knowledge appears to
constitute a knowledge-claim itself.
Other responses come from common sense philosophy and reject global
skepticism based on the fact that it contradicts common sense. It is
then argued against skepticism by seeing common sense as more reliable
than the abstract reasoning cited in favor of skepticism.
Certain less radical forms of skepticism deny that knowledge
exists within a specific area or discipline, sometimes referred to as local or selective skepticism.
It is often motivated by the idea that certain phenomena do not
accurately represent their subject matter. They may thus lead to false
impressions concerning its nature. External world skeptics hold that we
can only know about our own sensory impressions and experiences but not
about the external world. This is based on the idea that beliefs about
the external world are mediated through the senses.
The senses are faulty at times and may thus show things that are not
really there. This problem is avoided on the level of sensory
impressions, which are given to the experiencer directly without an
intermediary. In this sense, the person may be wrong about seeing a red
Ferrari in the street (it might have been a Maserati or a mere light
reflection) but they cannot be wrong about having a sensory impression
of seeing a patch of red color.
The inverse path is taken by some materialists, who accept the
existence of the external physical world but deny the existence of the
internal realm of mind and consciousness based on the difficulty of
explaining how the two realms can exist together.
Other forms of local skepticism accept scientific knowledge but deny
the possibility of moral knowledge, for example, because there is no
reliable way to empirically measure whether a moral claim is true or
false.
The issue of the definition and standards of knowledge is central
to the question of whether skepticism in its different forms is true.
If very high standards are used, for example, that knowledge implies
infallibility, then skepticism becomes more plausible. In this case, the
skeptic only has to show that no belief is absolutely certain; that
while the actual belief is true, it could have been false. However, the
more these standards are weakened to how the term is used in everyday
language, the less plausible skepticism becomes.
In various disciplines
Formal epistemology
Formal epistemology studies knowledge using formal tools, such as mathematics and logic.
An important issue in this field concerns the epistemic principles of
knowledge. They are rules governing how knowledge and related states
behave and in what relations they stand to each other. The transparency
principle, also referred to as the luminosity of knowledge, is an
often discussed principle. It states that knowing something implies the
second-order knowledge that one knows it. So if Heike knows that today
is Monday, then she also knows that she knows that today is Monday.According to the conjunction principle,
having two justified beliefs in two separate propositions implies that
the agent is also justified in believing in the conjunction of these two
propositions. The closure principle states that if the agent has
a justified belief in one proposition and this proposition entails
another proposition, then the agent is also justified in believing this
other proposition. The evidence transfer principle applies this
idea to evidence: if, in the case above, a certain piece of evidence
justifies the first belief then it also justifies the second belief.
The development of the scientific method has made a significant contribution to how knowledge of the physical world and its phenomena is acquired. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable and measurableevidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and experimentation. The scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Science and the nature of scientific knowledge have also become the subject of philosophy. As science itself has developed, scientific knowledge now includes a broader usage in the soft sciences such as the social sciences. Sir Francis Bacon
was critical of the historical development of the scientific method;
his works established and popularized an inductive methodology for
scientific inquiry. His aphorism, "knowledge is power", is found in the Meditations Sacrae (1597).
Religion
Knowledge plays a central role in many religions. Knowledge claims about the existence of God or religious doctrines about how each one should live their lives are found in almost every culture.[100] However, such knowledge claims are often controversial and are commonly rejected by religious skeptics and atheists. The epistemology of religion is the field of inquiry that investigates whether belief in God and in other religious doctrines is rational and amounts to knowledge. It is different from other forms of epistemology because of its unique subject matter. One important view in this field is evidentialism. It states that belief in religious doctrines is justified if it is supported by sufficient evidence. Suggested examples of evidence for religious doctrines include religious experiences such as direct contact with the divine or inner testimony as when hearing God's voice.
However, evidentialists often reject that belief in religious doctrines
amount to knowledge based on the claim that we lack sufficient
evidence. A famous saying in this regard is due to Bertrand Russell.
When asked how he would justify his lack of belief in God when facing
His judgment after death, he replied "Not enough evidence, God! Not
enough evidence."
However, religious teachings about the existence and nature of
God are not always understood as knowledge claims by their defenders and
some explicitly state that the proper attitude towards such doctrines
is not knowledge but faith.
This is often combined with the assumption that these doctrines are
true but cannot be fully understood by reason or verified through
rational inquiry. For this reason, it is claimed that one should accept
them even though they do not amount to knowledge. Such a view is reflected in a famous saying by Immanuel Kant where he claims that he "had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."
Distinct religions often differ from each other concerning the
doctrines they proclaim as well as their understanding of the role of
knowledge in religious practice. Knowledge plays a central role in Abrahamic religions. In Jewish tradition, knowledge (Hebrew: דעת da'ath) is considered one of the most valuable traits a person can acquire. Observant Jews recite three times a day in the Amidah
"You favor people with knowledge and teach mortals understanding. Favor
us with your knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Blessed are you,
Adonai, who favors people with knowledge." The Tanakh states, "A wise man is strong; yes, a man of knowledge grows in strength." The Old Testament's tree of the knowledge of good and evil
contained the knowledge that separated Man from God: "And the LORD God
said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil..." (Genesis 3:22)
In many expressions of Christianity, such as Catholicism and Anglicanism, knowledge is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. As Pope Francis
points out, "the knowledge that comes from the Holy Spirit, however, is
not limited to human knowledge; it is a special gift, which leads us to
grasp, through creation, the greatness and love of God and his profound
relationship with every creature."
In Islam, knowledge (Arabic: علم, ʿilm) is given great significance. "The Knowing" (al-ʿAlīm) is one of the 99 names reflecting distinct attributes of God. The Qur'an asserts that knowledge comes from God (2:239) and various hadith encourage the acquisition of knowledge. Muhammad
is reported to have said "Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave"
and "Verily the men of knowledge are the inheritors of the prophets".
Islamic scholars, theologians and jurists are often given the title alim, meaning "knowledgeble".
In Gnostic beliefs, everyone is said to possess a piece of the highest good or Ultimate God deep within themselves that had fallen from the spiritual world into the bodies of humans, sometimes called a divine spark. It is trapped in their material bodies created by the inferior God or Demiurge unless secret knowledge from the outside universe called gnosis is achieved. The one who brings such knowledge is considered the savior or redeemer.
Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge and the arts in Hinduism.
Hindu Scriptures present two kinds of knowledge, Paroksh Gyan and Prataksh Gyan. Paroksh Gyan (also spelled Paroksha-Jnana) is secondhand knowledge: knowledge obtained from books, hearsay, etc. Pratyaksh Gyan (also spelled Pratyaksha-Jnana) is the knowledge borne of direct experience, i.e., knowledge that one discovers for oneself. Knowledge is of special importance in the classical path of Hinduism known as jnana yoga or path of knowledge. Its aim is to achieve oneness with the divine by fostering an understanding of the self and its relation to Brahman or ultimate reality.
According to the Jain texts like Tattvārthsūtra and Sarvārthasiddhi,
there are five kinds of knowledge: sensory knowledge, scriptural
knowledge, clairvoyance, telepathy, and omniscience (Mati Jñāna, Śruta
Jñāna, Avadhi Jñāna, Manah prayāya, and Kevala Jnana).
The first two kinds are regarded as indirect knowledge since the soul
depends on the sense and the mind to acquire them. This is not the case
for the remaining three kinds, which constitute direct knowledge.
Anthropology
The anthropology of knowledge is a multi-disciplinary field of inquiry.
It studies how knowledge is acquired, stored, retrieved, and communicated.
Special interest is given to how knowledge is reproduced and undergoes
changes in relation to social and cultural circumstances. In this context, the term knowledge is used in a very broad sense, roughly equivalent to terms like understanding and culture. This means that the forms and reproduction of understanding are studied irrespective of their truth value. In epistemology, on the other hand, knowledge is usually restricted to forms of true belief. The main focus in anthropology is on empirical observations of how people ascribe truth values to meaning contents, like when affirming an assertion, even if these contents are false.
But it also includes practical components: knowledge is what is
employed when interpreting and acting on the world and involves diverse
phenomena, such as feelings, embodied skills, information, and concepts.
It is used to understand and anticipate events in order to prepare and
react accordingly.
The reproduction of knowledge and its changes often happen through some form of communication. This includes face-to-face discussions and online communications as
well as seminars and rituals. An important role in this context falls to
institutions, like university departments or scientific journals in the academic context. A tradition may be defined as knowledge that has been reproduced within a society
or geographic region over several generations. However, societies also
respond to various external influences, such as other societies, whose
understanding is often interpreted and incorporated in a modified form.
An important finding is that individuals belonging to the same
social group usually understand things and organize knowledge in similar
ways to one another. In this regard, social identities
play a significant role: individuals who associate themselves with
similar identities, like age-influenced, professional, religious, and
ethnic identities, tend to embody similar forms of knowledge.
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