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Introduction to social science

SOSC 1000

Lecture 1

May 11, 2021

Jan Krouzil PhD

Agenda

Announcements

PART I Course outline - overview

PART II ‘What counts as knowledge’?

PART III From knowledge to wisdom

Keywords

Supplementary sources

Part II ‘What counts as knowledge’? (1)

Aporia (n.)*

Definition of aporia

an expression of real or pretended doubt or uncertainty especially for rhetorical effect

a logical impasse or contradiction especially: a radical contradiction in the import of a text or theory that is seen in ‘deconstruction’ as inevitable

First known use of aporia

circa 1550

History and etymology for aporia

French aporie, ultimately from Greek aporia difficulty, perplexity, from aporos impassable, from a- + poros passage

*https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aporia

‘What counts as knowledge’? (2)

Etymology* of the word ‘knowledge’

know common Indo-European word for ‘to know’

found in all IE branches (know, ken in Germanic, cognizant in Latin, etc.)

most common IE root for to know is ‘to wit’

Germanic, videre (to see) in Latin hence visible, video, etc., whose ultimate meaning was ‘to see therefore to know’

as well as the Vedas in Sanskrit, etc

-ledge is a rare Germanic suffix

also found in the Swedish noun kärlek meaning love, with the first element kär akin to our ‘care’ and -lek this same element -ledge

‘What counts as knowledge’? (3)

stems from an Old English ending -laec which denoted realisation, ‘making real’

from an old Saxon verb lacan, meaning to move about, bring into the world, make happen, and hence (from its meaning of ‘move about’) to play - akin to the English dialect to lake meaning to play, which in turn yielded our more common word lark = a practical joke (‘for a lark’)

as well as the Danish lege = to play games (the Danish toy brand name Lego comes from that word)

Working definition of knowledge

“Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms” (Davenport and Prusak 2000)

*etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what words meant and

how they sounded, say, 600 or 2,000 years ago https://www.etymonline.com/

‘What counts as knowledge’? (4)

How to define ‘knowledge’?

knowledge

an abstract concept without any reference to the tangible world

powerful concept, yet it has no clear definition so far

from the Greek philosophers up to present experts in knowledge management, people tried to define knowledge but the results are still very fuzzy

Key aspects of the dispute

the knowledge nature and the attempts made in epistemology to define knowledge

definition that knowledge is ‘justified true belief’ is shown as having the limitations given by the justification condition and the truth nature

‘What counts as knowledge’? (5)

the metaphorical approach to knowledge explanation

main metaphors used for knowledge - knowledge as objects, knowledge nuggets, knowledge as

an iceberg, and knowledge as stocks and flows

a new paradigm of metaphorical thinking based on the knowledge

energy

understanding knowledge as a multi-field paradigm composed of the rational, emotional, and spiritual knowledge fields

Knowledge nature

‘knowing’ and ‘knowledge’ subjects of human inquiry from

the ancient times

ever since Plato and Aristotle developed epistemology as a theory of knowledge trying to answer the question: ‘What is knowledge?’

none of the theories and arguments so far accepted as being fully satisfactory

‘What counts as knowledge’? (6)

Knowledge nature - major perspectives

rationalism

Plato (428-348 BC) made a distinction between

rational reasoning grounded in axioms

opinion a product of our senses

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

makes rationalism the basis of modern philosophy

‘Cogito ergo sum!’

dualism of mind and body

impact on science, philosophy and education in Europe and late on in America

‘What counts as knowledge’? (7)

empiricism

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

opposable perspective to rationalism

ideas and forms cannot be separated from physical objects and sensory data

knowledge not created a priori and not innate in a deterministic form

created through our sensory interface with the real world and processed by our mind

John Locke (1632-1704)

objects do exist in the outer world

our sensory perception is the most important source of our knowledge

attempts to bridge the gap between rationalism and empiricism

conceptual frameworks based on different syntheses between them

‘What counts as knowledge’? (8)

Japanese intellectual tradition

Buddhism and Confucianism

integrated perspective of mind and body

three overarching premises

oneness of humanity and nature

oneness of body and mind

oneness of self and other

foundation of the Japanese view toward knowledge

approach to management practices

martial arts – learning with the whole body (Miyamoto Takeuchi 1995)

Part III From knowledge to wisdom (1)

Definition of knowledge as ‘justified true belief’ (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995)

conditions for knowing - tripartite account

truth condition

belief condition

justification condition

one may conclude that ‘the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowing that something is the case’ are

what one is said to know be true

one be sure of it

one should have the right to be sure (culturally and contextual dependent)

From knowledge to wisdom (2)

Kinds of knowledge

experiential knowledge

from the direct connection with the environment gained through our sensory system and processed by the brain

can be seen as created by an interaction between emotional, rational and spiritual knowledge

skills

knowledge about how to do something (‘know-how’)

based on experiential knowledge but a well-structured and action oriented knowledge we get by performing repeatedly a certain task and learning by doing it

thinking skills for knowledge workers and decision makers

intuitive skills

From knowledge to wisdom (3)

knowledge claims

what we know, or we think we know

we don’t know how much we know since knowledge means both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (experience existing in our unconscious zone and manifesting itself as ‘intuition’)

explicit knowledge is something we learn in schools and reading books (or listening to professors)

knowledge claim is what we frame in an explicit way by using a natural or symbolic language

with explicit knowledge we enter the zone of exchange between personal and shared knowledge (Dombrowski et al 2013)

From knowledge to wisdom (4)

Metaphorical thinking

thinking as a conceptual process which is primarily metaphoric (Pinker 2008)

metaphors represent much more than just linguistic expressions

involved in our thinking process, helping us to understand new concepts and ideas

metaphors are embodied in our experience and through a progressive abstraction process they lead to new meanings for less known objects or concepts (Lakoff and Johnson 1999)

From knowledge to wisdom (5)

Conceptual metaphors - composed of two different semantic

domains

a source domain where we describe the known object or concept with its structural and functional attributes

a target domain where we place the less known object or concept

Metaphorical thinking

involves a structural mapping of the known attributes and relationships from the source domain onto the target domain

(see Fig. 1.1 in Bolisani and Bratianu 2018)

for ex. ‘time is money’

From knowledge to wisdom (6)

all of the above metaphors induce a series of limitations in understanding and using the full potential of knowledge

limitations derive from the Newtonian logic, the linearity property and the illusion of measuring knowledge by using the methods developed for tangible objects and their attributes

Metaphor based on energy

knowledge is conceived like a field without any tangible attributes (Bratianu and Andriessen 2008)

fields of knowledge: rational, emotional, and spiritual

From knowledge to wisdom (7)

Rational knowledge

explicit knowledge framed by our reasoning mind and natural language

a construct following the Cartesian spirit (‘Cogito ergo sum’)

Emotional knowledge

a wordless expression of our body response to the external environment and is a direct result of emotions and feelings

subjective and context dependent

Spiritual knowledge

contains values and ethical principles and is essential in decision making

both emotional and spiritual knowledge are embedded in tacit knowledge and mixed up in the fuzzy description of experience

From knowledge to wisdom (8)

knowledge as a universal concept attracted the attention of countless efforts to define it following the rules of scientific inquiry

searching for an objective perspective and a rational eliminated all subjective aspects related to perception and bodily involvement claiming that knowledge is ‘a justified true belief’

truth and its justification cannot have the same degree of objectivity anymore

think of the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle applicable to quantum mechanics that states in the case of nuclear particles position and velocity cannot be measured exactly at the same time

objective attributes can be conceived as being independent of the social context, but the subjective attributes are context dependent and cannot be transferred easily to some other similar contexts

the energy metaphor constructs a new paradigm that allows for a better understanding of knowledge and offers social science researchers, managers and leaders new opportunities to influence people in times of change and uncertainty

From knowledge to wisdom (9)

Academic inquiry

‘At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry is needed so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom, conceived of as the capacity to realize what is of value, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This urgently needed revolution would affect every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise.’

(Maxwell 2007)

Keywords

aporia

etymology

‘true justified belief’

rationalism and empiricism

knowledge nature

kinds of knowledge

tacit and explicit knowledge

metaphorical thinking

knowledge energy

academic inquiry