TOWARDS A COMPOSITE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

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.

Knowing always involves a knower knowing something. It involves a relationship between a knower and the known. It is an act which joins a mind with an object in a relationship which is unique and incomparable with any other. There is no such thing as knowledge without something known and a knowing subject knowing it. Each and every act of knowing is a synthesis of object and subject. Because of the relation between two beings, the knower and the known, man does not remain a closed being, like a block of granite or a piece of red brick. Rather, he is able to "open himself up" so to say to the world around him; he is able to transcend himself, to go "out of himself" and enter into communication with other beings. However, the act of knowing is something inverse; it is the extra-mental thing that, in a certain manner which we shall explain, is received into the human subject, as knowledge is a preeminently immanent action, taking place, not outside but within the knowing subject.

Handbook on the knowledge economy, 2005

Handbook on the knowledge economy, 2005

Reblooming the Knowledge Movement: The Democratization of Organizations, 2023

From the time they start rummaging through the secrets of life and up to the age of senescence, people ask themselves what it consists of, and where is the most valid value they need to fulfill their dreams and achieve the wisdom and peace that it confers. And the answer is so simple, but at the same time so complicated: knowledge. It is simple as contained in a single word, but not as simple in the penetration of its meaning, and the continuous march towards wisdom. In the present chapter, we learn that knowledge is actually a native attribute of life, in which we seek and find ourselves, a goal and at the same time a dream, an aspiration, an endless path building the pyramid to wisdom, a road in steps paved with promises and hesitations, but also with successes, and which makes us feel the pulse of life and trust in what it can offer us. It is up to each of us to recognize this enchanted key, and to use it with ingenuousness and cleverness to unlock the secrets of life and what it can offer us in abundance: wisdom and its achievements. And to use it with ingenuousness and cleverness, that means to choose – to choose right.

Metaphilosophy, vol. 46 (2015), pp. 213-234., 2015

The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this paper argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the paper outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge?

This chapter provides an overview of both traditional and more recent conceptualizations of knowledge. It also aims at identifying shortcomings of each of these conceptualizations in the context of mass collaboration. Philosophy has traditionally conceptualized knowledge as ‘justified true belief’, whereas psychology tends to consider it mainly in terms of semantic memory. What both traditions have in common, however, is an individualistic focus, which emphasizes that knowledge is located within people’s minds. But this individual perspective reaches its limits when considering transpersonal phenomena like collaborative knowledge construction and mass collaboration. More recent approaches have taken social aspects of knowledge-related processes into account. We present some of them briefly and discuss them with regard to mass collaboration settings. Finally, we present a systemic view of knowledge as an attempt toward a synthesis of individualistic and social perspectives, which mig...