What is Knowledge

[The Stranger]

This is what wikipedia (res. Oxford Universitiy) offers us: Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

Can anyone else offer another (maybe better, if one could say that) definition (if there is one) of knowledge? I'm quite interested.

Most of the time you hear: Knowledge is fact (are facts), knowledge is perception, knowledge is information, knowledge is wisdom, knowledge is power, etc.

[Vladimir]

I say knowledge is that which is known. Now we can debate what it is to truly "know" something. (Planescape: Torment )

[Fragony]

Understanding why you made the same mistake twice.

[The Stranger]

I say knowledge is that which is known. Now we can debate what it is to truly "know" something. (Planescape: Torment )

so we're still at the same question.

[The Stranger]

Understanding why you made the same mistake twice.

good one

[Aemilius Paulus]

I cannot help but side with Socrates on this issue...

[The Stranger]

which is?

[Aemilius Paulus]

which is?

...That there is no such thing as being informed, and that the only thing a truly knowledgeable person knows is that he knows nothing. Perhaps nihilism in a certain sense.

Just read Plato's writings about him. You have to read them to fully understand the validity of Socrates' claims.

Have you not studied Socrates yet in your school/Uni? I cannot think of a greater shame for educational institutions to not at least devote a sentence to the most pivotal philosopher in the Western History. How old are you, if that is not a secret?

[The Stranger]

...That there is no such thing as being informed, and that the only thing a truly knowledgeable person knows is that he knows nothing. Perhaps nihilism in a certain sense.

Just read Plato's writings about him. You have to read them to fully understand the validity of Socrates' claims.

Have you not studied Socrates yet in your school/Uni? I cannot think of a greater shame for educational institutions to not at least devote a sentence to the most pivotal philosopher in the Western History. How old are you, if that is not a secret?

im studying him now... im reading theataetus... ive also read republic... i know about this claim, but he has some more, so i didnt know which one you were talking about :)

in a certain way socrates is definitly right. we know nothing FOR CERTAIN, but wether something is true or false is not a neccesity for us to know the things we know. atleast thats what i think, but ill come back to that more elaborately later.

edit: im 18. but i dont see why my age would matter :P im now freshman philosphystudent ;) but ive had socrates already some years back on high school.

[pevergreen]

The real question is, what is wisdom?

Mine is about 14. The +2 mod really helps.

[Azathoth]

A better question would be: "What is love?"

[Hax]

True knowledge is accepting that all things come to an end, in my opinion. If you have realized this, you're free.

Just like Nikos Kazantzakis: "I fear nothing, I hope for nothing; I am free".

[pevergreen]

A better question would be: "What is love?"

I cannot believe I missed that. I saw the thread title for a second time, then rushed in, but beaten to it.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Knowledge is facts and things that can be taught to you. Wisdom is a different idea, and what the socrates quote is in reference too. Knowledge is knowing how to get somewhere, wisdom is knowing where to go. Ehhh, whatever, I just made that up.

[Sheogorath]

Knowledge is what you know. Wisdom is knowing how to apply it.

A bit of an oversimplification, but, to me, that's the basic idea.

[The Stranger]

The real question is, what is wisdom?

Mine is about 14. The +2 mod really helps.

wisdom and knowledge are 2 different things, im not asking the key to life, or the most important question, im just asking What is Knowledge, not love, not wisdom, not anything else.

but if asked i would say that wisdom is about the way you use your knowledge, in the moral sense of it.

edit: hadnt seen their posts before, but i agree with sasaki (did i say that?) and sheogorath


and hax, when you start talking about true knowledge, things get even more subjective than they already are :P no one can ever determine true knowledge for more persons than themself

[CountArach]

I took a philosophy course last year. Half of the Semester was spent on the discussion "What is Knowledge?" I'll see if I can dig some of the theories up. Oh and the summarising answer was - we don't, and indeed cannot, know anything.

[tibilicus]

I'm pretty certain I had to answer this very question for a Philosophy class..

To save you the boredom of you reading 2 pages heres what I pretty much concluded.

To describe knowledge then you have to consider all three factors. In a sense then knowledge can be defined as a statement, theory or any other written or verbal prerogative which states something to be both true and justifiable as well as that which is believed by the person stating it. Knowledge then is to know certain facts or events which can be proven true, justifiable and believable. Only by meeting the three criteria can statements or facts be proven and classified as knowledge. A knowledgeable person for example would also need to posses these three points in the actions they say or do to be a knowledgeable person.

EDIT: Actually I suppose in a way that was kind of pointless seeming very few people will know the 3 criteria I'm talking about. Oh well..

[CountArach]

I'm pretty certain I had to answer this very question for a Philosophy class..

To save you the boredom of you reading 2 pages heres what I pretty much concluded..

This is the True Justified Belief theory of knowledge, which has a severe fault in it and is discredited in the philosophical community. It is possible for someone to have something be true, believed and for that belief to be justified - yet the fact itself isn't known. Gettier showed this with the Gettier counterexamples.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Oh and the summarising answer was - we don't, and indeed cannot, know anything.

How do you know?

[Husar]

Knowledge is superfluous.

[CountArach]

How do you know?

Exactly what the lecturer said after making the point

[The Stranger]

I took a philosophy course last year. Half of the Semester was spent on the discussion "What is Knowledge?" I'll see if I can dig some of the theories up. Oh and the summarising answer was - we don't, and indeed cannot, know anything.

i dont agree, imho for us to know something, we dont dont have to know it beyond all doubt.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

we don't, and indeed cannot, know anything.

This kind of thing always struck me as the western equivalent of "what is the sound of one hand clapping".

[Beskar]

A wiseman knows he knows nothing.

[The Stranger]

let us first dertermine what is needed for knowledge to exist? i think most if not all of you agree when I say that the first and maybe most important neccesity is a conscious subject (be it animal or human, theyre the same in this respect). A subject that is capable to process, use and pass on this knowledge.

[Fragony]

Knowledge is collective conditioning if you put it like that

[Aemilius Paulus]

A wiseman knows he knows nothing.

Ah, another Socratic philosopher here .

[Sasaki Kojiro]

A wiseman knows he knows nothing.

A wise mine knows that he's human, and therefore believes he knows many things no matter how many times he quotes socrates.

-edit-

Which is what socrates was saying right? The oracle proclaimed him the wisest man in the world, and he disagreed saying that there were many men wiser, but then when he visited them he found that they were not wise at all, they only believed themselves to be, and that he was wiser then them only in that he did not believe himself to be wise. Or something like that, it's been a while since I read it.

here:

Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same.

[Vladimir]

A wiseman knows he knows nothing.

Is this the Socratic circle? How can he know he knows nothing if he can know nothing (or not know anything) or if nothing is knowable? It makes one dizzy, I know.