A to Z of Success

Knowledge

Knowledge is a strange word as no one seems to actually be able to agree on what it actually means and it is defined in so many different ways.

It is generally understood to be defined as skills and expertise acquired through educational experiences and an understanding of a subject including the facts.

Knowledge comes about through lots of different processes of perception, watching, communicating, reasoning, mixing with other elements, learning and associations with others. Knowledge is generally understood as having a confident understanding of a particular topic or subject with the ability to use that knowledge for the advancement of man.

The great philosopher Plato stated that for the concept of knowledge to exist three criteria must exist. Any statement must be justified, must be true and must be believed for knowledge to be present.

There are different types of knowledge as follows:

Situated knowledge is the first knowledge we will discuss and this is based on knowledge known due to a specific situation. You may need to get more than one opinion to be able to make a full knowledgeable decision. Different people may have different information about the same item or subject.

Situational knowledge is often the result of trial-and-error experiences.

Scientific knowledge is generated using data rather than trial-and-error. Scientific knowledge is more accurate and is deep rooted in cultures, traditions and languages.

Experiential knowledge is a knowledge that is achieve after a personal experience. This is first hand experienced understanding.

Partial knowledge states that it is not possible to have a complete understanding of a subject and decisions are subject to error when based on partial knowledge.

Biological knowledge is the areas of knowledge that are rooted in our DNA. Babies have an immediate desire to drink milk. They have not experienced this before, yet they subconsciously know that they must. In fact they are not aware of the condition that they should do it – they just do it. This is a biological instinct.

Divine knowledge is what separates man from God. It is what man is aspiring to find. This knowledge is generally thought to bring us escape from our confusion here on earth.