The Art of Knowing An Essay on Epistemology in Practice

Handbook on the knowledge economy, 2005

Handbook on the knowledge economy, 2005

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?

Gilbert Ryle paid close attention to the difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how" in his book "The Concept of Mind." In this study, I focus primarily on the definition of “knowing that”, with the remark that the two concepts of knowledge, in my view, form a strongly dual epistemic relationship. The curiosity of the chosen philosophical problem is given by the talk of lively philosophical-logical debates that emerged after Edmund L. Gettier's short article published in 1963. . (Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?) The "information theory" foundations of knowledge in my view - which have significant ontological implications - are as follows: - Information is not just a socio-cultural phenomenon, but primarily a physical quantity. - The static part of information can be characterized as the Shannon information quantity. - The dynamic of information is generated by the stability and complexity of the space-time structures. - Information is therefore an ’emergent’ quantity. - Information-performance (strength) as a physical quantity can be represented by in the human-social region also as a ‘multivector’ that has components of ‘real-knowledge’ and ‘emotional-impact’. - The knowledge is the ’time-invariant part’ of information-strength. - The ‘separation criteria’ between the ‘real-knowledge’ and the ‘emotional-impact’ can be the stability/instability of the information source, and the evaporation time of the emotional content.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021

2015

Human Knowing: Our Hopes and Our Limits ©Harold I. Brown I have invoked, although not copied, Russell's (1948) title because I aim to pursue a traditional part of epistemology that has fallen into neglect in recent decades, but do so in a contemporary context. This is the project that Hume described, with his usual eloquence, in the Introduction to his Treatise of Human Nature: "'Tis evident, that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another.

In the context of most social theories, perhaps with the exemption of variants of Marxism, the matter of knowledge has not been treated as problematic. The central hypothesis of this paper, and thus of a theory of modern society as a knowledge society, however is that knowledge, and not nature, accidents, violence, catastrophes, power, etc., is more than ever the basis and guide of human action in all areas of contemporary society. The study of knowledge societies is a response to the fundamental observation that modern science is by no means, as is still often assumed, only the key and access to the mysteries of nature and human behavior, but above all the becoming of a world: Knowledge as a motor, not just a camera (cf. MacKenzie, 2006). The extraordinary importance of scientific knowledge in particular does not mean, however, that it will succeed in simply overrunning traditional ways of life and attitudes, as has been hoped or feared time and again.