Theory of knowledge (original) (raw)

Defining Knowledge: an Epistemological Foundation for Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is a field of increasing popularity, within both the academic arena and the business community. However, although there is an abundance of advice on how to develop and manipulate knowledge-based systems (particularly through the medium of web sites), there is still confusion within the Knowledge Management community of what actually constitutes knowledge (this often manifests itself through poor university and business "home pages" on the Internet). This paper attempts to clarify the meaning of knowledge and thus provide strong conceptual foundations for the discipline of Knowledge Management. In doing so, criteria for knowledge will be established, together with an elicitation of different types of knowledge.

Epistemology as a Philosophical Basis for Knowledge Organization Conceptions

Knowledge Organization for a Sustainable World: Challenges and Perspectives for Cultural, Scientific, and Technological Sharing in a Connected Society, 2016

This paper presents an analysis of Popper's ideas on knowledge organization systems with an emphasis on the foundations of critical-rationalist epistemology, particularly objective knowledge. Knowledge Organization as a field of study is concerned with the processes and knowledge organization systems aimed to develop more qualitative proposals to other fields of knowledge. Knowledge organization systems are representations of structures whose contents, organized in controlled vocabularies of terms, represent concepts. The function of concept organization and representation is the most important characteristic of these systems that relates them to Popper's objective knowledge theory. The knowledge organization system and Popper's objective knowledge, shown in his Table of Ideas, and the relationship between concepts and theory formulation are analyzed. The results demonstrate that epistemological aspects can be applied to knowledge organization systems. It can be concluded that analyses of Popper's objective knowledge and Epistemology in general provide further development of theoretical issues in knowledge organization. Introduction: some concerns and epistemological research Knowledge Organization (KO) as a human activity is linked to cognition in social, professional, and intellectual actions and is part of the daily life of every person. In the same way, knowledge areas, such as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, etc., have a continuous development and, for this reason, they must be systematized and organized by creating specific terminologies and using taxonomies to meet their needs. These ideas encourage thinking about some theoretical approaches between KO and Epistemology. The first one comes from the Theory of Knowledge, the most remote origin of KO since the Ancient Times (Hjørland, 1994, Barité, 2001), although its institution as a field of knowledge only occurred when the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) was founded. Another epistemic approach is the conceptual one, pointed out by Dahlberg (2006), who considers KO as a new science formed by a huge set of concepts and that it complies with the anthropological and propositional concepts of Alwin Diemer's science (1970 and 1975). More than theoretical approximations, the question would be: how will Epistemology be capable of clarifying the foundations of the epistemic construction of KO and strengthen such theoretical studies? Epistemology was taken into consideration by Japiassu (1977, p. 9, 25) after analyzing studies by authors, such as Blanché, Carnap and Lecourt. According to him, Epistemology would be the "genesis, development, structuring and articulation processes of scientific knowledge" or the "critical study of the principles, hypotheses and results of several sciences". Japiassu views science discourse as a strategic theory and science historicity as essential to an epistemological critique. The key concept is knowledge derived from scientific knowledge, which was initially linked to knowledge-state and, afterwards, to knowledge-process, understood as becoming

Epistemology and knowledge management concepts and practices

Journal of knowledge management practice, 2003

Although the new discipline of knowledge management has knowledge itself as its focus of analysis and investigation, it nevertheless pays little attention to disciplines that most directly and searchingly examine and inform questions about knowledge, and its origins and nature. This methodological shortcoming is a curious anomaly that hinders the growth of knowledge about knowledge, and hampers potential conceptual developments, and innovations in knowledge management practices. By looking to the most recent developments in epistemology, the philosophy of science, and related disciplines on the rapidly moving edge of the cognitive sciences, a very much richer and more interesting picture of knowledge emerges than that which passes as currency in contemporary discussion and debate. The methodological resources made available by these branches of inquiry therefore have implications for the coherent development and extension of knowledge management as a significant field of intellectual and practical application.

Knowledge: Understanding, Structuring and Employing

BJSTR

Scientific Knowledge (and epistemology, which deals with the way of cooking it, in a sense, often almost literal, with a perspective of “recipes” of the “old” cook books, with x grams of this and y grams of that - what in epistemology is serious, both for the functions it must perform, or for the reasons we list below on “routines and innovation”) is like a... potato – we can fry it, bake it, grill it, ....Which does not mean, in any way, that we can use it in anyway. We have to consider the “dishes” in which it will be integrated, the taste of those who will eat it, the effects that result, the resulting cost / satisfaction ratio, the usefulness it will have, the risks it can bring, the benefits it offers, etc. This is either in the case of potatoes and in the case of scientific knowledge, of course. Today, both in science and in the kitchen, we must be able to distinguish between two completely different options, in their dynamics, in their consequences, in their causes, in the short, medium and long term.

The Concept of Knowledge: What is It For?

Disputatio

What is the concept of knowledge for? What does it do for us? This question cannot be severed from considerations about what we do by using it. In this paper, I propose to view the point of our concept of knowledge in terms of a device for acknowledging epistemic authority in a social and normative space in which we share valuable information. It is our way of collectively expressing the acknowledgment we owe to others because of their being creditable when engaged in the task of knowing. By using the concept of knowledge we are not just marking the epistemic positions we occupy, we are also acknowledging epistemic authority and indicating the advisability of taking oneself or others as “ready” for the transmission of authority.