Abstract
Despite their common core concept, philosophy and knowledge management (KM) have not yet found a mutually inspiring base. Theories of KM cite philosophical works, more or less adequately, while philosophy tends to ignore theories of KM. This article draws the sketch of a possible common basis for future developments in the direction of a philosophically inspired theory of knowledge management. Starting with the development of a concept of knowledge that is the base of the common understanding, the critical review of knowledge management theories reveals conceptual flaws and the need for useful criteria to support successful KM.
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References
E. Gettier ‘Is justified true belief knowledge?’, Analysis 23, 1963, pp 121–123. In two counterexamples, Gettier presents cases of persons having a justified true belief but lack the knowledge that p. His examples are based on intuitively correct assumptions: — a belief may be justified but false, — a conclusion from a justified belief is also justified, — a true belief that is essentially based on error is not knowledge.
This concept is central e.g. in the Meditationes de Prima Philosophia by Descartes. In it, Descartes sees the main task of a definition of knowledge as an answer to the question ‘How do we know that we know anything at all?’
This idea is to be found in Edward Craig Knowledge and the state of nature: an essay in conceptual synthesis Oxford, Clarendon Press 1990. He also mentions the global occurrence of the term ‘knowledge’.
See Karl Popper Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach Oxford, Clarendon Press 1972.
This line of thought is in accordance with Craig and to be found in Michael Hanik Erkenntnis und Management Hamburg 2004 (http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/opus/volltexte/2005/2428/).
Although I follow Craig in this respect, the term ‘pragmatic’ is merely referring to the ordinary sense of the word (‘solving problems in a practical and sensible way rather than by having fixed ideas or theories’ — Oxford Advanced Dictionary, in this case, the fixed ideas would include something like ‘giving an explanation of a term has to be done as a definition in the strictest sense of the word’) and only accidentally to any philosophical theory of pragmatism.
See eg Craig ibid.
See Karl Popper Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach Oxford, Clarendon Press 1972. This classification is not identical with locating the state in one of the three worlds Popper has introduced. Knowledge in the subjective sense may be in the mental realm (eg my belief that it is incredibly hot outside), i.e. World 2, or in the physical (eg Beckham’s knowledge on how to bend the ball, if it is sub-doxastic), i.e. World 1.
Knowledge in the objective sense is located in World 3, but since World 3 contains more than knowledge we are not permitted to identify the content of World 3 with all possible knowledge.
See for example Gottlob Frege Der Gedanke 1918.
An excellent review of nearly all conceptions of truth is to be found in Wolfgang Künne Conceptions of Truth Clarendon Press, Oxford 2003.
Even those who refrain from using ‘true’ and choose ‘warranted assertibility’ (e.g. Dewey or Putnam) instead do not necessarily deny that truth is linked to knowledge, rather they suggest we use this other criterion in order to be more successful in handling knowledge.
If this is not the case, ‘the definition may redefine the term beyond common usage in a manner that promotes confusion in communication’, see Joseph M. Firestone, Mark McElroy Key Issues in the New Knowledge Management Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, Paris, San Diego, p. 3.
Even the sceptic may assume that truth is a condition of knowledge; in fact, his argument that we cannot know anything may be based on this assumption.
The common understanding being the goal of explanation because a contradiction with it might result in confusion, see remark 13.
See e g Colin McGinn ‘The Concept of Knowledge’ in: Colin McGinn Knowledge and Reality. Selected Essays Oxford, Clarendon Press 1999, p. 9–32.
Alvin Goldman ‘Discrimination and perceptual knowledge’ in: Sven Bernecker, Fred Dretske (eds.) Knowledge. Readings in contemporary Epistemology Oxford, Clarendon Press 2000, pp. 86–102.
Colin McGinn ibid, Peter Bieri’s introduction to Analytische Philosophie der Erkenntnis Frankfurt/Main, Athenäum 1987.
The term ‘information’ is to be understood as the representation of states of affairs. In this sense physical information is rooted in Popper’s World 1, phenomenal information in his World 2 and semantic information in his World 3. And since information is a representation of states of affairs, World 3 contains also misinformation, i.e. semantic representations of states of affairs that do not exist or, in other words, wrong propositions. World 3 knowledge is a subclass of World 3 information, viz. information that is true.
See Peter Bieri ibid.
See McGinn ibid.
See Firestone, McElroy ibid.
Ikujiro Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation New York Oxford, Oxford University Press 1995
Michael Polanyi Personal Knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy Chicago, University of Chicago Press 1960; a shorter version is given in Michael Polanyi The Tacit Dimension Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday 1966.
Hanik ibid. Polanyi himself has recourse to Gestalt psychology in this respect.
Polanyi sees this atone point (in Polanvi I960, pp 286/287), but sadly he does not go into further details.
Nonaka, ibid. This process is repeated on more complex levels.
Georg Schreyogg, Manfred Geiger e.g. in ’It Knowledge is Everything, Maybe it is Nothing: Reconsidering Organizational Knowledge", paper presented at The Third Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learningand Capabilities, Athens 2002. The authors claim that a conversion is a logical-structural impossibility.
Nonaka/Takeuchi ibid.
See Meng Li and Fei Gao ‘Why Nonaka highlights tacit knowledge: a critical review’ Journal of Knowledge Management 7 no 4 (2003) pp 6–14. Although these authors make the threefold distinction there is still the question of the ontological placement of knowledge (subjective — objective, or W1, W2 — W3).
Nonaka, Takeuchi ibid.
Nonaka, Takeuchi ibid p. 58.
According to Otto Scharmer ‘Self-transcending Knowledge: Organizing Around Emerging Realities’ in: Ikujiro Nonaka, David Teece Managing Industrial Knowledge. Creation, Transfer, Utilization London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2001, pp 68–90, KM has to focus on the thought conditions that allow processes and tacit knowledge to evolve in the first place.
As Firestone and McElroy, ibid, p. 111 write: the understanding of knowledge as a dynamic process ‘is fuelled by a desire to focus on the dynamics of knowledge creation, rather than only on explicit codified outcomes or mental beliefs’. This distinction can be held upright by discriminating knowledge processes from knowledge outcomes, called knowledge claims. The former are not true or false, not embedded in cultural products nor are they beliefs or predispositions.
See David Teece ‘Strategies for Managing Knowledge Assets: the Role of the Firm Structure and Industrial Context’ in: Ikujiro Nonaka, David Teece (eds) Managing Industrial Knowledge. Creation, Transfer, Utilization London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2001, pp 125–144.
See Georg Schreyögg, Daniel Geiger ‘Kann die Wissensspirale Grundlage des Wissensmanagements sein?’ Diskussionsbeiträge des Instituts für Management, Folge 20, 2003.
Joseph M. Firestone, Mark McElroy Key Issues in the New Knowledge Management Butterworth- Heinemann, Oxford, Paris, San Diego 2003.
Nonaka, Takeuchi ibid pp 84–87.
See eg Ikujiro Nonaka, Ryoko Toyama, Noboru Konno ‘SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation in: Ikujiro Nonaka, David Teece (eds.) Managing Industrial Knowledge. Creation, Transfer, Utilization London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2001, pp 13–43.
I will ignore the problem of justifying concepts which is quite different from justifying knowledge claims.
Firestone and McElroy ibid, esp. pp. 249–258.
See Jean-François Lyotard The Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge; Manchester 1984 and the writings of Schreyögg/Geiger mentioned above.
Among the first to use this term were Brown and Duguid, see e.g. John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid ‘Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation’ in: Organization Science (2), No. 1, 1991, pp 40–57.
Brown and Duguid call them ‘knowledge brokers’. See eg John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid ‘Structure and Spontaneity: Knowledge and Organization’ in: Ikujiro Nonaka, David Teece (eds.) Managing Industrial Knowledge. Creation, Transfer, Utilization London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2001, pp 44–67.
See Firestone and McElroy ibid.
See Frege ibid. Frege distinguishes between the physical world, mental world (the realm of Vorstellungen) and the world of propositional content (the content is called Gedanke).
The terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective knowledge’, however, as used in this article are not identical with those introduced by Firestone and McElroy.
The authors refer here, again, to Popper’s suggested cycle of problem solving by error elimination.
On page 9 they state: ‘Truth as a coherent philosophical construct is a relationship between linguistic entities and facts’. This may suggest a kind of correspondence theory.
See eg Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico Philosophicus 1922.
See Firestone and McElroy ibid.
See William James The Will to Believe and other Essays New York 1956.
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Hanik, M. Bridging the Gap: Towards a Philosophically Inspired Theory of Knowledge Management. Philos. of Manag. 6, 115–131 (2008). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20086325
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20086325