1.0 Introduction
The purpose of this journal is to explain the meaning of knowledge by discussing various definitions provided by different scholars and highlighting different types of knowledge. The discussion in this paper will also try to explain how knowledge is created and owned. Since knowledge is not static, then the paper will analyze on how it is disseminated and applied. Furthermore the paper will try to explain how knowledge is related to power and how it creates dependency.
Knowledge is important to mankind for understanding his environment and struggle for survival under different conditions. Without knowledge which was acquired over the years, the prevailing civilization could not be achieved. Therefore development is brought by application of knowledge. Researches are conducted in order to acquire knowledge of problems prevailing in the society and obtain solutions for future application in development processes. Therefore knowledge is the ability to understand the problem and find solution to create a general understanding or awareness creation.
Knowledge is responsible for scientific discoveries, technological advancement and industrial revolution. This is the ability to understand and finding solutions. In other words knowledge is breaking the barriers of development and come up with innovation or new products.
2.0 What is knowledge
Knowledge is defined by Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It means that a person may acquire knowledge through formal education or through experience by practical way of doing things. Further defined as what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation[1].
John Locke (1689) defined knowledge as perception of agreement or disagreement of two ideas in his book of knowledge and probability. Davenport and Prusak (1998 p.5) define knowledge as a fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, value, and expert insight that provides a frame work for evaluating and incorporating new experience and information.
Knowledge is also defined as information that changes something or somebody….either by becoming grounds for actions, or by, making an individual (or an institution) capable of undertaking different things[2]. Therefore knowledge is a catalyst for any course of action one would like to take. Also knowledge is responsible for behavior change as observed by Davenport and Prusak (1998). However this can only happen through absorption. It must be emphasized that availability of knowledge may not automatically lead to absorption and knowledge that is not absorbed is not fully transferred.
The attitudes of mind of the people in Antigua were completely changed by colonialist. Making them abandon their history, tradition, customs and even their language and instead adopted an utopian lifestyle as observed by Jamaica Kincaid (1988). The colonialist ensured that theirs subject’s background had lost meaning. This kind of situation provides us with the fact that, whoever controls the knowledge creation has the power of changing the mindset of others. Thus the controller of the knowledge becomes superior whereas, the recipient in that knowledge becomes inferior.
This is exactly the same approach applied by missionaries when preaching religion of civilization in Africa prior to colonization. They referred indigenous religion, customs, and tradition as unacceptable, uncivilized and against god (their god). Through this method they were able to change mindset of their subjects and therefore it was very easy to colonize them. Therefore the controller of the knowledge had power against the recipient of the knowledge.
Knowledge is an intangible product/asset stored in the brain of the person who acquired it. He/she is the owner of that knowledge which is valuable and he can obtain patent right. Therefore he can decide to sell it like any other commodity.
Knowledge can be transferred through various media, which may be formal or informal depending on various levels. In the upper level formal knowledge is transferred using applicable media like books, letters, journals, papers etc. At the lower level, informal knowledge is the kind of knowledge transferred through verbal communication. (Patric Reany 1988) added that when we talk about knowledge we mean knowledge about some object. Informally, knowledge is a description of the state of some object. The object may be either physical or abstract. Some examples of abstract objects include love, hate, memory, the future, and even knowledge itself. We naively believe that our knowledge of reality is direct, but this is a mistake. Our experience with physical objects is actually indirect. We do not directly mentally experience physical objects; we mentally experience only our concepts of them. He therefore defined knowledge as a relation between two or more concepts, where concepts are mental objects[3].
2.1 Types of knowledge
Knowledge can be divided into two main categories namely tacit knowledge and explicitly knowledge. Also it can be situated and partial.
a) Tacit knowledge
This is knowledge embedded in communities traditions and is defined as personal knowledge rooted in individual experience. This kind of knowledge is not written and is only transferable face to face (Polanyi 1966). We can equate this to traditional/indigenous knowledge in which indigenous people have discovered a lot of products which are not yet patented for example tradition medicines which are used for centuries to cure a lot of ailments. According to tradition norms the technology is not transferable freely and knowledge can only be useful to the society if it can be disseminated and applied.
Therefore tacit knowledge is difficult to convey in a formal way as it is not documented and it contains subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches. Before tacit knowledge can be communicated, it must be converted into words, models, or numbers that can be understood. Tacit knowledge has two dimensions namely:
Technical dimension:
These are the kind of informal skills captured in terms of knowledge, for example a craft person develops a wealth of expertise after several years of experience, but such craft person has difficulties in articulating the technical and scientific principles of his or her craft. In other words he doesn’t have a document or “blue print “of his works explaining procedures and
Cognitive dimension
This is a tacit knowledge consists of beliefs, values, perceptions, ideas, emotions and mental models, all these are ingrained in us. This dimension cannot be articulated easily but they shape the way we perceive the world around us.
b) Explicitly knowledge
This is the knowledge that can be articulated into formal language including grammatical statements (word in numbers, mathematical expressions, specifications, manuals etc.) Explicitly knowledge can be readily transmitted to others, also it can easily be processed in a computer transmitted electronically and stored in a data base.
c) Situated knowledge
Knowledge can be applicable in a particular situation only. For example people in a particular area may have developed methods of cultivation suitable to that particular climate. Those methods can not be applicable in other area due to different climate.
d) Partial knowledge
Whatever knowledge people have, is considered partial. Knowledge in a particular specialty is very wide and it is impossible to know every thing in that particular field. We have to live with fact that our knowledge is always not complete, that is partial.
2.2 Knowledge creation and conversion
Tacit knowledge can be created through socialization. When people meet they exchange ideas, share experience which also include imitation of what others are doing, through observation. In this way tacit knowledge is disseminated. Likewise explicit knowledge can be transferred to tacit knowledge though learning by doing. This process is known as internalization. On the other hand tacit knowledge can be formalized through documentation and become explicit through a process known as externalization.
Explicit knowledge creation, from explicit to explicit, is achieved through formal training, meetings, seminars, media, conversation etc. Knowledge is taped, sorted and rearranged to meet the objective of dissemination. This process is known as combination.
2.3 Characteristics of knowledge
Human ability is knowledge; therefore it is not a property tangible like a book which can be transferred physically. Transmission of knowledge is through intellectual processes of learning and teaching. Static knowledge has no value. Knowledge represents a real value only when it moves, through transmission or transformation. Through reasoning knowledge is developed and provide new knowledge.
2.3.1 Knowledge as a source of power and dependency
Whoever possesses knowledge which is not available to others develops power over those who do not possess the knowledge. This power created by knowledge also creates dependence relationship in which the knowledgeable person is depended by those without the knowledge. For example an employee who is considered to possess rare knowledge he will dictate terms with his employer who depends on him and not prepared to loose him/her. Likewise his colleges will depend on him for the knowledge he has. However this dependency will cease after others become knowledgeable. Therefore in order knowledge to create power and dependency it must be unknown to others.
2.4 Benefits of knowledge.
Knowledge has a lot of benefits to human being in different perspectives, including scientific discoveries on medicines which help to cure various diseases like malaria, small pox, pneumonia etc. Likewise economic development brought by industrial revolution in which poverty was reduced. Knowledge was also responsible for other scientific discoveries which enhanced efficiency in various areas of production including agriculture production.
2.5 Problems of Knowledge.
Knowledge is expensive and it takes time to generate. Knowledge can be destructive like atomic bomb technology and global warming due to industrialization which pollute the atmosphere. Pesticides and mining have created environment destruction.
.
3.0 Conclusion.
People live and survive because they have knowledge which they utilize for producing goods and services as employees or self employed. Without knowledge there is no development. Knowledge can be utilized to alleviate poverty when it is applicable for improvement of production of goods and services. Knowledge is power in life and whoever possesses it is capable of changing the mind set of others. Also knowledge created dependency relationship between the owner and those who doesn’t have.
Knowledge is transferable from individual to individual through leaning and through observation. Moreover knowledge is transferred through learning by doing. Technology has been transferred across nations and continents through this process. Globalization has speeded up this process and it is through this process that countries considered poor hundred years ago are now heavily industrialized with dramatic economic growth, for example China, India, Malaysia, Singapore etc.
Reference
Davenport and Prusak (1998), Knowledge and behavior change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/knowledge
http://www.ualberta.ca/dept/slis/cais/foskett.htm).
Jamaica Kincaid “a small place” from A small Place Virago, London, 1988
John Lockie (1689), knowledge and probability
Patrick Reany (1988) Arizona Journal of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 7-14.
Peter F. Drucker, in the New Realities
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/knowledge
[2] Peter F. Drucker, in the New Realities
[3] Patrick Reany (1988) Arizona Journal of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 7-14.
The purpose of this journal is to explain the meaning of knowledge by discussing various definitions provided by different scholars and highlighting different types of knowledge. The discussion in this paper will also try to explain how knowledge is created and owned. Since knowledge is not static, then the paper will analyze on how it is disseminated and applied. Furthermore the paper will try to explain how knowledge is related to power and how it creates dependency.
Knowledge is important to mankind for understanding his environment and struggle for survival under different conditions. Without knowledge which was acquired over the years, the prevailing civilization could not be achieved. Therefore development is brought by application of knowledge. Researches are conducted in order to acquire knowledge of problems prevailing in the society and obtain solutions for future application in development processes. Therefore knowledge is the ability to understand the problem and find solution to create a general understanding or awareness creation.
Knowledge is responsible for scientific discoveries, technological advancement and industrial revolution. This is the ability to understand and finding solutions. In other words knowledge is breaking the barriers of development and come up with innovation or new products.
2.0 What is knowledge
Knowledge is defined by Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It means that a person may acquire knowledge through formal education or through experience by practical way of doing things. Further defined as what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation[1].
John Locke (1689) defined knowledge as perception of agreement or disagreement of two ideas in his book of knowledge and probability. Davenport and Prusak (1998 p.5) define knowledge as a fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, value, and expert insight that provides a frame work for evaluating and incorporating new experience and information.
Knowledge is also defined as information that changes something or somebody….either by becoming grounds for actions, or by, making an individual (or an institution) capable of undertaking different things[2]. Therefore knowledge is a catalyst for any course of action one would like to take. Also knowledge is responsible for behavior change as observed by Davenport and Prusak (1998). However this can only happen through absorption. It must be emphasized that availability of knowledge may not automatically lead to absorption and knowledge that is not absorbed is not fully transferred.
The attitudes of mind of the people in Antigua were completely changed by colonialist. Making them abandon their history, tradition, customs and even their language and instead adopted an utopian lifestyle as observed by Jamaica Kincaid (1988). The colonialist ensured that theirs subject’s background had lost meaning. This kind of situation provides us with the fact that, whoever controls the knowledge creation has the power of changing the mindset of others. Thus the controller of the knowledge becomes superior whereas, the recipient in that knowledge becomes inferior.
This is exactly the same approach applied by missionaries when preaching religion of civilization in Africa prior to colonization. They referred indigenous religion, customs, and tradition as unacceptable, uncivilized and against god (their god). Through this method they were able to change mindset of their subjects and therefore it was very easy to colonize them. Therefore the controller of the knowledge had power against the recipient of the knowledge.
Knowledge is an intangible product/asset stored in the brain of the person who acquired it. He/she is the owner of that knowledge which is valuable and he can obtain patent right. Therefore he can decide to sell it like any other commodity.
Knowledge can be transferred through various media, which may be formal or informal depending on various levels. In the upper level formal knowledge is transferred using applicable media like books, letters, journals, papers etc. At the lower level, informal knowledge is the kind of knowledge transferred through verbal communication. (Patric Reany 1988) added that when we talk about knowledge we mean knowledge about some object. Informally, knowledge is a description of the state of some object. The object may be either physical or abstract. Some examples of abstract objects include love, hate, memory, the future, and even knowledge itself. We naively believe that our knowledge of reality is direct, but this is a mistake. Our experience with physical objects is actually indirect. We do not directly mentally experience physical objects; we mentally experience only our concepts of them. He therefore defined knowledge as a relation between two or more concepts, where concepts are mental objects[3].
2.1 Types of knowledge
Knowledge can be divided into two main categories namely tacit knowledge and explicitly knowledge. Also it can be situated and partial.
a) Tacit knowledge
This is knowledge embedded in communities traditions and is defined as personal knowledge rooted in individual experience. This kind of knowledge is not written and is only transferable face to face (Polanyi 1966). We can equate this to traditional/indigenous knowledge in which indigenous people have discovered a lot of products which are not yet patented for example tradition medicines which are used for centuries to cure a lot of ailments. According to tradition norms the technology is not transferable freely and knowledge can only be useful to the society if it can be disseminated and applied.
Therefore tacit knowledge is difficult to convey in a formal way as it is not documented and it contains subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches. Before tacit knowledge can be communicated, it must be converted into words, models, or numbers that can be understood. Tacit knowledge has two dimensions namely:
Technical dimension:
These are the kind of informal skills captured in terms of knowledge, for example a craft person develops a wealth of expertise after several years of experience, but such craft person has difficulties in articulating the technical and scientific principles of his or her craft. In other words he doesn’t have a document or “blue print “of his works explaining procedures and
Cognitive dimension
This is a tacit knowledge consists of beliefs, values, perceptions, ideas, emotions and mental models, all these are ingrained in us. This dimension cannot be articulated easily but they shape the way we perceive the world around us.
b) Explicitly knowledge
This is the knowledge that can be articulated into formal language including grammatical statements (word in numbers, mathematical expressions, specifications, manuals etc.) Explicitly knowledge can be readily transmitted to others, also it can easily be processed in a computer transmitted electronically and stored in a data base.
c) Situated knowledge
Knowledge can be applicable in a particular situation only. For example people in a particular area may have developed methods of cultivation suitable to that particular climate. Those methods can not be applicable in other area due to different climate.
d) Partial knowledge
Whatever knowledge people have, is considered partial. Knowledge in a particular specialty is very wide and it is impossible to know every thing in that particular field. We have to live with fact that our knowledge is always not complete, that is partial.
2.2 Knowledge creation and conversion
Tacit knowledge can be created through socialization. When people meet they exchange ideas, share experience which also include imitation of what others are doing, through observation. In this way tacit knowledge is disseminated. Likewise explicit knowledge can be transferred to tacit knowledge though learning by doing. This process is known as internalization. On the other hand tacit knowledge can be formalized through documentation and become explicit through a process known as externalization.
Explicit knowledge creation, from explicit to explicit, is achieved through formal training, meetings, seminars, media, conversation etc. Knowledge is taped, sorted and rearranged to meet the objective of dissemination. This process is known as combination.
2.3 Characteristics of knowledge
Human ability is knowledge; therefore it is not a property tangible like a book which can be transferred physically. Transmission of knowledge is through intellectual processes of learning and teaching. Static knowledge has no value. Knowledge represents a real value only when it moves, through transmission or transformation. Through reasoning knowledge is developed and provide new knowledge.
2.3.1 Knowledge as a source of power and dependency
Whoever possesses knowledge which is not available to others develops power over those who do not possess the knowledge. This power created by knowledge also creates dependence relationship in which the knowledgeable person is depended by those without the knowledge. For example an employee who is considered to possess rare knowledge he will dictate terms with his employer who depends on him and not prepared to loose him/her. Likewise his colleges will depend on him for the knowledge he has. However this dependency will cease after others become knowledgeable. Therefore in order knowledge to create power and dependency it must be unknown to others.
2.4 Benefits of knowledge.
Knowledge has a lot of benefits to human being in different perspectives, including scientific discoveries on medicines which help to cure various diseases like malaria, small pox, pneumonia etc. Likewise economic development brought by industrial revolution in which poverty was reduced. Knowledge was also responsible for other scientific discoveries which enhanced efficiency in various areas of production including agriculture production.
2.5 Problems of Knowledge.
Knowledge is expensive and it takes time to generate. Knowledge can be destructive like atomic bomb technology and global warming due to industrialization which pollute the atmosphere. Pesticides and mining have created environment destruction.
.
3.0 Conclusion.
People live and survive because they have knowledge which they utilize for producing goods and services as employees or self employed. Without knowledge there is no development. Knowledge can be utilized to alleviate poverty when it is applicable for improvement of production of goods and services. Knowledge is power in life and whoever possesses it is capable of changing the mind set of others. Also knowledge created dependency relationship between the owner and those who doesn’t have.
Knowledge is transferable from individual to individual through leaning and through observation. Moreover knowledge is transferred through learning by doing. Technology has been transferred across nations and continents through this process. Globalization has speeded up this process and it is through this process that countries considered poor hundred years ago are now heavily industrialized with dramatic economic growth, for example China, India, Malaysia, Singapore etc.
Reference
Davenport and Prusak (1998), Knowledge and behavior change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/knowledge
http://www.ualberta.ca/dept/slis/cais/foskett.htm).
Jamaica Kincaid “a small place” from A small Place Virago, London, 1988
John Lockie (1689), knowledge and probability
Patrick Reany (1988) Arizona Journal of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 7-14.
Peter F. Drucker, in the New Realities
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/knowledge
[2] Peter F. Drucker, in the New Realities
[3] Patrick Reany (1988) Arizona Journal of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 7-14.
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