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Knowledge

Unlike wisdom the word knowledge is commonly used in universities, especially for PhD work.
However it is seldom defined clearly for the purposes of academic assessment.
Often it is unclear exactly where and when the new knowledge is expected to exist.
It is common at doctoral level for the evaluation criteria to refer to the need for new knowledge, even though it is unclear where, when and how this knowledge is expected to be evident.
If knowledge is deeper than we know, then it is useful to work with the notion of wisdom.
Some philosophers classify knowledge into three types:

This is sometimes identified as declarative or propositional knowledge.
It is convenient for traditional school systems, as it conforms to written genres that are evaluated
It is more likely to be associated with organisational or managerial purposes than knowing how.
The accessibility, familiarity and ubiquity of print has given it a universal aura.
Over the last few thousand years western epistemology has emphasised the importance of truth.
Some argue that western thought has sought to identify knowledge with a conscious rationality (McGilchrist, 2019).
The practices of evidence-based science have delivered many useful scientific and technological outcomes.
However, although aspects of knowing how are documentable, this overlooks the pragmatic nature of doing.
Indeed, human knowledge that is reducible to quantified data is incomplete (at the ecological level).

Arguably, all human knowledge is always situated within a specific and physically embodied context.
Our term hand learning includes procedural aspects of practical competence
- e.g. the unconscious nature of riding a bicycle
- e.g. the musicality of playing the piano

This includes implicit knowledge in which we make inferences from more explicit types of knowledge.
This type of knowledge leans on (know-how) familiarity deriving from previous direct experience.
include the procedural and other, more situated and tacit forms of knowledge.

The following outline definition is offered as part of our quest for a university framework whose primary purpose is to bring about a global paradigm change.
This means challenging many aspects of the existing university system.
We will need, for example, a new type of institution of learning and discovery that will facilitate a living diversity-of-diversities and the long-term survival of Homo sapiens.
(see auspicious reasoning).

Further reading