Knowledge - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The knowledge is the state of that which knows or knows something. What is knowledge still made debate among philosophers: there is no single definition on which they agree.

One traditionally distinguishes three types of knowledge. The propositional knowledge is the fact of knowing that some Proposition are true, for example, knowledge which the Earth is round. The objectuelle knowledge , also called acquaintance , is the fact of knowing a thing, for example, of knowing Paris. The to know to make is the fact of being able to make a success of an action, for example, to know to make crepes.

The definition of propositional knowledge is that which drew the attention of the philosophers the most. They generally agree on the fact that a knowledge is a Croyance which is Vrai E, but also that it is not only one true belief. Another condition is necessary: it is necessary that it is justified, or not-accidental, or reliable, or some. It is on this additional condition that the philosophers are in disagreement.

Knowledge is acquired by a multitude of cognitive processes : Perception, Training, Reasoning, memory, Testimony. The Science is a whole of systematic methods to acquire knowledge.

The branch of the philosophy which studies knowledge is called epistemology or Théorie of knowledge. The branch of the philosophy which studies sciences more particularly is called epistemology or Philosophie of sciences.

By extension, the term of " connaissance" indicate also what is known, or even, more generally, which is held (wrongly or rightly) for known. One opposes the known one to the Inconnu.

Definition of knowledge

The definition of knowledge is still object of debate among philosophers. The traditional definition, like true and justified belief, is considered to be insufficient or inadequate since the counterexamples formulated by the American philosopher Edmund Gettier. Several complements with the traditional definition, or even of new definitions, were proposed since, but none succeeded in being essential. Certain philosophers support that the concept is not definable. However, a certain number of points of agreement exist: that propositional knowledge must be at least a true belief, that it cannot be simply a true belief, that it must moreover be not-accidental and/or justified.

Knowledge like true and justified belief

In the '' Théétète '' of Plato, knowledge is defined like " right opinion equipped with raison" (201d). The exégètes of Plato do not agree on the fact of knowing if Plato adopted itself or not this definition. At all events, it was retained by the later philosophical tradition. Today, the expression " is preferred; true belief justifiée".

Plato argues in favor of this definition by showing that a true belief (" opinion droite") is not inevitably a knowledge. He gives the example of the untrue pleading ( Théétète , 200a-201d). Let us suppose that a lawyer manages to persuade sworn that its customer is innocent by using very bad arguments and lies: it may be nevertheless that its customer is truly innocent. If it is the case, sworn an opinion or belief has (they believe that the defendant is innocent), and this belief is true. However, they do not know not that the defendant is innocent, because they could have been misled by lawyer. One can add another example: if you draw with pile or face to guess if it will rain tomorrow, then perhaps that you will fall right, but even when it is the case, you do not know not that it will rain tomorrow, because it is a simple stroke of luck that your belief is true.

Plato thus suggests that a knowledge is not a simple true belief, but a true belief " equipped with raison" ( Théétète 201d). What Plato understands by " raison" here is object of debate at the exégètes. But the tradition retained the following explanation of it. A belief is " equipped with raison" when it is based on a good reason to believe the thing in question. Thus, the lies of lawyer are not a good reason to believe that its customer is innocent; in the same way, the fact that the part fell on pile is not a good reason to believe that it will rain tomorrow. On the contrary, to believe that the customer is innocent because one saw it elsewhere than on the spot of the crime at the time of the crime, it is to have a good reason to believe that it is innocent.

The traditional definition thus suggests that when a belief is based on good reasons, and that it is true, then it is a knowledge.

Two remarks on this traditional definition. First of all, it applies only to propositional knowledge: the fact that somebody knows that such or such thing is true. Objectuelle knowledge is neither a belief, nor likely to be true: for example, if I know Pierre, that does not correspond to any belief in particular (to believe in a Pierre??), nor a fortiori with a true belief. In the same way, the traditional definition does not say anything on knowledge like knowing to make.

Then, the traditional definition supposes that knowledge is (at least) a true belief. (A) it is a belief: if Antoine does not believe that the Earth is round, then it cannot the knowledge. To know something, it is at least necessary to believe that it is the case, i.e. to hold it for truth. (b) it is a true belief: if Antoine believes that Paris is in Belgium, then it cannot know quite simply that Paris is in Belgium, because they are false. Conversely, if Antoine knows that the keys are in the drawer, then it is true that the keys are in the drawer. Of course, it can happen that Antoine wrongly thinks of knowing where are the keys; but in this case, it does not know in fact where they are. These two items ((A) and (b)) were called into question, but the majority of the philosophers continue to admit them today.

The problem of Gettier

The traditional definition is held today for insufficient because of the Problème of Gettier. The problem of Gettier is the fact that there are true and justified beliefs which are not knowledge. It draws its name from Edmund Gettier, which gave the first two examples of this kind in 1963 in a short article remained famous. Here one of its examples. I have two colleagues, Mr. Illa and Mr. Lapas. I have good reasons to believe that Lapas has a Ford: I saw it leading several times of them to go to the office. I deduce from it that there is somebody in my office which has a Ford. There too, I have good reasons to believe it, since it is the logical consequence of something which I have of good reasons to believe. Let us suppose that in fact, Lapas does not have Ford (it drives a rented car), but that without my Illa knowledge in one has (it never does not speak about it nor does not leave it its garage).

Multiple cases Gettier (examples of true beliefs justified which is not knowledge) were invented since. One, celebrates, due to Carl Ginet, is that of the false barns. Let us suppose that you traverse a campaign strewn with barns; you look at one of them in particular and one can say that you believe that it is a barn. Your belief is justified (it rests on what you see), and, let us suppose it, it acts indeed of a barn. But, without your knowledge, all the barns of the surroundings except this one are false papier-m4ach3e barns, installed there for the turning of a film. In this situation, you do not know that this building is a barn, when well even you have a justified and true belief that it is the case.

Several answers were considered. Certain philosophers as Keith Lehrer suggested adding a fourth condition: that the belief in question is not based on a false belief; that there is no " défaiseur" , of proposal such as if you learn it, you would give up your belief (for example, the proposal that there are false barns in approximately). Others as Alvin Goldman suggested revising the concept of justification, and to say that a belief is not justified if it is based on good reasons, but if it results from a reliable cognitive process, i.e. a process which tends to produce true beliefs, like the vision of a healthy man. Others, like Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick, defended of the entirely new definitions of the knowledge, according to which a knowledge is a true belief which could not have been false. On the other hand, Timothy Williamson recently supported the idea that knowledge was not definable.

Other definitions of knowledge

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Fondationnalist definition

Aristote ( Second Analytical ), Descartes ( Rules for the direction of the spirit), Locke ( Test on the human understanding ), Hume ( Treated human understanding ), Kant ( Critical of the pure reason ) and Russell ( Problems of philosophy , 1912, Theory of knowledge , 1913, Our knowledge of the outside world , 1914), have a theory of knowledge on two levels: a knowledge is or (A) a basic knowledge, or (b) a inférée knowledge of a basic knowledge. Knowledge of bases is the first principles, those which are not derived from another thing. For Aristote, in fact very general principles give the gasoline of a thing; for Descartes, a small number of seized truths in a clear, distinct and indubitable way; for Locke, feelings; for Hume, significant impressions; for Kant, the intuitions of the directions (or feelings) and the principles of the understanding which organize them; for Russell, data of the directions and principles of logic. Derived knowledge is ordinary sciences and our knowledge on the world. These theories are known as fondationnalists: a under-part of our knowledge is used as base with all our other knowledge.

These theories on two levels seem to suggest that there is no single definition of knowledge, since a knowledge is either a knowledge first or a derived knowledge. But makes some, these theories are compatible with the traditional definition. One can indeed reformulate them as follows: a knowledge is a true and justified belief, but there are two ways of being justified: (A) for the basic beliefs, they car-are justified, (b) for the derived beliefs, they are justified because they are inférées other beliefs which are, they, justified.

This reformulation makes it possible to see in what the definition presented like " traditionnelle" in the preceding sections is indeed that adopted, often implicitly, by the majority of the large philosophers of the knowledge of Plato with Russell.

Definition like adequacy with the object

Other definitions of knowledge (in the philosophy of ancient perception, at Hegel, in phenomenology) rests on the idea of adequacy of the subject knowing with the object.

Restrictive definitions

Several philosophers reserved the name of knowledge in exceptional epistemic states. For example, Plato calls " connaissance" (or " science" , epistèmè ) intuitive seizure of the Forms or Ideas of the things. In the same way, for Aristote, there is " connaissance" /" science" ( epistèmè ) that of the general. If these restrictive definitions can be used to characterize science or to indicate an exceptional cognitive state aimed by the philosopher, they return to strongly distinguishing the substantive " connaissance" current uses of the verbs " savoir" or " connaître" : for example, knowledge where and when one was born, knowledge which it rained three times last week, knowledge that there are a table and two chairs in front of oneself, to know my Robert neighbor, etc Notons finally that in French, the substantive who applies readily in an eminent epistemic state is perhaps " the savoir" rather than " the connaissance".

Philosophical DEBATEs around knowledge

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Realism and anti-realism

Internalism and externalism

Fondationnalism and coherentism

The debate between Fondationnalisme and Cohérentisme relates to the structure of the epistemic justification.

The starting point of the debate is the problem of Clutched : if somebody makes an assertion, then it must defend it by a justification or an argument. But this justification contains itself an assertion, which it is necessary to justify in its turn. And so on. In the long term, only three situations are possible: 1) the justification stops with certain assertions which themselves are not justified, 2) the justification continues ad infinitum, or 3) the justification is based circularly on assertions which it was to justify. This problem is often called trilemme of Clutched , because he was formulated by the philosopher skeptic Agrippa, and reached us via Sextus Empiricus. At Clutched, these three options belong to the five " modes" by which the skeptic can suspend any assertion. Clutched thus holds them all the three for bad, and names them respectively: the assumption (also called the dogmatic stop ), the regression ad infinitum , and the vicious circle . The trilemme of Clutched is also known under the name of trilemme of Fries (according to Jakob Friedrich Fries, the first to have formulated it like a trilemme), of trilemme of Münchhausen (according to the history of the Baron de being extirpated Münchhausen of a marsh by raising itself by the hair), or problem (or argument ) of the epistemic regression .

The Fondationnalisme consists in accepting the first branch of the trilemme. According to this position, certain beliefs (basic beliefs) justify our beliefs without being themselves justified by other beliefs. The fondationnalists must admit that the beliefs of bases not-are justified, or they must support that they are justified in another way that by an argument (for example, by a sensory experiment, an intuition, or obviousness). The fondationnalists also differ between them on the class from the beliefs which constitute the basic beliefs. For Descartes and the Cartesian ones, they are a small number of abstracted principles, the knowledge of our own existence, and veracity of God. For philosophers empirists like David Hume or Bertrand Russell, they are the beliefs resulting from the sensory experiment. Recently, the fondationnalism was in particular defended by Roderick Chisholm.

The Cohérentisme consists in accepting the third branch of the trilemme. According to this position, the beliefs can be justified the ones circularly the others. The idea of the coherentism, which one can make go back to Hegel, was defended by Otto Neurath, which at sea compared science with a boat, of which one can replace the parts with one, but without never rebuilding it entirely from nothing. The principal contemporary defender of the coherentism is Keith Lehrer.

The infinitism consists in accepting infinite chains of justifications. This position had few followers. It is defended today by Peter Klein.

The designs that the fondationnalism and the coherentism are made structure of the epistemic justification are illustrated by well-known images. In an important article, Ernest Sosa uses those of the raft and the pyramid . According to the coherentism, our beliefs are with the image of a raft of which the parts are maintained mutually, without none serf support without being itself constant. According to the fondationnalist, our beliefs are with the image of a pyramid, where a base supports all the remainder of the building. The image of the pyramid is particularly appropriate to the fondationnalism empirist, in which the beliefs of bases are the many particular beliefs that we acquire by the use of the directions. For a rationalist fondationnalism, where the basic beliefs are a small number of principles on which one tries to base all the others, the image of the tree , borrowed from Descartes, is more suitable.

Contextualism and invariantism

The Contextualisme in philosophy of knowledge is the thesis according to which attributions of knowledge can change value of truth of a context of conversation to the other.

The contextualism before was very defended as a solution with the problem of the skepticism. According to the contextualists, when we plan scenarios skeptics like that to be dreaming, to be victim of a Malignant Genius or to be a brain in a tank, the word " savoir" takes a very restrictive value, so that the assertion “Pierre knows that it has two hands” becomes false in this conversation. Conversely, in the informal talks, the word “knowledge” has a less restrictive value, so that the assertion “Pierre knows that it has two hands” could be true. But, according to contextualiste, even if these two assertions are made in connection with the same person who is in the same situation, it is possible that one either true and the other or distorts, because the word “knowledge” changed significance between the two conversations.

The contextualist compares the word “knowledge” with other words sensitive to the context , i.e. which change value of a context of conversation to the other: the indexicaux ones (“I”, “you”, “it”) or the adjectives known as “gradables”, which indicate a certain quantity on a scale, like “large” or “rich”.

The principal defenders of the epistemic contextualism are David Lewis, Stewart Cohen and Keith DeRose.

By opposition, one calls invariantists the positions which deny that the “to know” value can change from one context to another. According to the invariantists, if what says the skeptic is true then what we say in our current attributions of knowledge is false, and conversely.

One can also arrange in the contextualist a unit distinct from positions of inspiration wittgensteinienne, according to which attributions of knowledge are justified only relative with some practical of justification accepted by the speech community. One can arrange in this category the Of the certainty of Wittgenstein, John Austin, Michael Williams or Robert Fogelin.

Knowledge and company

Knowledge like economic entity

To know and capacity

Dissemination of the information

Tacit knowledge vs explicit knowledge

In cognitive Psychology, one distinguishes two great types of knowledge:

The tacit knowledge are knowledge which belongs to the world of the mental objects, of the mental representations. They gather innate or acquired competences, know-how and the Expérience. They are generally difficult “to formalize” in opposition to explicit knowledge.

The explicit knowledge , in opposition to tacit knowledge, are the knowledge clearly articulated on the level of a written document, or a system Informatique. This knowledge is transferable physically, because they appear in a tangible form (file paper or electronics).

In addition, in Knowledge management, one makes also the distinction between the Information, given rough, and the knowledge , which is the appropriation and the Interprétation of the Information S by the men (Jean-Yves Prax).

In the Undertaken S, knowledge corresponds to the capital of Expertise which the men in the various fields hold (marketing, R & D, purchases, commercial, legal…) who constitute the core activity of the company. This knowledge must be managed to improve the total effectiveness of the companies.

Quotations

" By knowledge, one does not understand here the control of a great number of information, but the comprehension of the nature of our spirit. This knowledge can impregnate each one of our thoughts and light each one of our perceptions." Matthieu Ricard, within the framework of a voyage in Tibet…

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