INTRODUCTION
"I
contest that we
know whether
we know something or not; we do not even know whether we know this or
not;
and we do not know whether something is or is not." (Diels/Kranz 1956,
B 1) This is the skeptical view of Democrit's disciple Metrodore of
Chios,
in some way superseding Socratic skepticism. We can only manage what is
and what we know about. "I contest that we know..." Therefore knowledge
cannot be managed. Skeptical knowledge management – an oxymoron?
In
contrast we
face today
a mighty knowledge and information industry, and a third industrial
revolution
based on them to a large extent. Industrial society has become a
knowledge
industry society. It is therefore clear not only that we know but also
that we can know a lot. It is just a question of how we use knowledge
and
the possibility of having it.
A
skeptic has
no criteria
in order to distinguish true and wrong opinions. This is why he just
abstains
from judgement and gets inner peace (ataraxia). He knows the
technique
of opposing phenomena (phainomena) and thoughts (noumena).
He is always able to find a perception that is not compatible with a
given
one. We could paradoxically say that a skeptic is a manager of
non-knowledge.
His goal is a therapeutic one, as Socrates showed. He wants to heal
from
quick judgement as well as from arrogance (oiesis). But his
method
is different from the Socratic one as far as he wants to liberate the
patient
from the search for truth (Ricken 1994).
It is
paradoxical that
although
he contradicts the dogmatic search for knowledge (episteme) he
strives
for a fixed goal, namely inner peace. In order to achieve this goal he
must renounce to the search for truth as well as for value judgements.
Nevertheless, skeptics and dogmatists have something in common: they
both
criticise simple opinion (doxa). Skeptical thinking appears at
the
moment in which the difference between divine and human reason is
stressed
(Long 1995, 940). Skeptics take a more radical view than just with
regard
the trust on divine knowledge by expanding their attitude also to
everyday
knowledge (doxa) as well as to scientific knowledge (episteme).
From a skeptical viewpoint, knowledge management is a technology that
pretends
something that it cannot achieve.
Peirce,
Wittgenstein, and
Heidegger belong, according to Ricken, to the skeptical tradition as
far
as they question modern fundamentalistic claims going back to
Descartes.
Skeptic forms of argumentation like the tropes of Agrippa (ca. 1st
century
BC) – namely: dissent (diaphonia), infinite regress, the
relativity
of the person who pronounces a judgement, and the circular argument –
are
rediscovered today, for instance, in some of the criticisms to naive
realism
such as Hans Albert's "Münchhausen's trilemma" (Ricken 1994, 161).
Antiquity reacted to skepticism with different strategies such as
Plato's
criticism of the sensualistic concept of being or Aristotle's
distinction
between different kinds of knowledge.
The
present
discussion on
knowledge management in business shows that some old questions and
arguments
from the skeptic and critical traditions particularly from hermeneutics
and theory of science are rediscovered, including the Aristotelian
knowledge
typology.
I. TACIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OR HERMENEUTICS REVISITED
In
his book "The
Tacit Dimension"
Michael Polanyi (1966) mentioned the importance of "tacit knowledge" in
biology. According to Polanyi human thinking is grounded in our body in
such a way that this tacit bodily dimension is the basis of the
so-called
objective or explicit knowledge. In their classic work "The
Knowledge-Creating
Company" Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (1995) place the concept
of "tacit knowledge" at the core of their theory on how knowledge is
created
within companies in comparison to the traditional view that takes into
account only the processing of explicit (digital) information.
Information
as "a difference that makes a difference" (Bateson 1985, 582) has to be
integrated within a dynamic mostly implicit context of thought and
action.
The transformation of implicit into explicit knowledge or, in other
words,
making explicit an implicit context is an essential condition for the
creation
of new knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi this process
includes
four types of knowledge transformations:
- from
implicit to
implicit
knowledge: socialisation
- from
implicit to
explicit
knowledge: externalisation
- from
explicit to
explicit
knowledge: combination
- from
explicit to
implicit
knowledge: internalisation
Most
organisation theories
consider three of these transformations, namely socialisation,
combination
and internalisation. Combination belongs to the expertise of
traditional
documentation and library scientists. Nonaka and Takeuchi reflect on
all
these processes from the point of view of the business company. They do
not only rediscover the key role of implicit knowledge within the
knowledge
creation process but they also analyse the dynamic spiral-like
interrelation
between these forms of knowledge transformation in the business field.
Knowledge creation is based on context-dependent subjective relevance
that
remains mostly tacit. Their aim is to understand how firms
mobilise
this basic creative resource, beyond the traditional view of knowledge
management (Takeuchi 1998). Following this line of thought, Von Krogh,
Ichijo and Nonaka (2000) put it like this: "This book is about
knowledge
enabling. It is our strong conviction that knowledge cannot be managed,
only enabled". (Krogh/Ichijo/Nonaka 2000, vii) In other words, what can
be managed is information or explicit knowledge which is only one part
of the process of knowledge creation. In fact, we can only manage the
creation
of conditions of possibility for knowledge creation, which they call
"knowledge
enablers", such as:
- instill a
knowledge vision
- manage
conversations
- mobilise
knowledge activists
- create the
right
context
- globalise
local
knowledge
This
approach
entails some
arguments and thoughts related to the skeptic tradition as developed
for
instance by hermeneutics as well as by Popper's critical rationalism
that
in fact prima facie reduces all knowledge to "objective
knowledge"
but at the same time stresses that knowledge is basically "conjectural"
i.e. based on beliefs, dispositions and "horizons of expectations"
"whether
these are subconscious or conscious". (Popper 1973, 345). Behind
some superficial polemics against hermeneutics (Albert 1994) the main
common
idea concerns the perception of the interpretative nature of knowledge
as stated in hermeneutics with the concept of pre-understanding
(Capurro
1986, 17).
In a
letter to Paul
Feyerabend about Hans-Georg Gadamer's
famous
book "Wahrheit und Methode" ("Truth and Method") (Gadamer 1975, first
ed.
1960) Hans Albert writes: "Some parts of the book are very interesting,
for instance regarding biased knowledge ("Vorurteile"), in which he
seems
to support a similar viewpoint as Popper in his Conjectures! I
was
surprised. Popper is ahead in about 16 years! Has the poor guy ("der
Gute")
(i.e. Gadamer) used him (Karl Popper) a little bit whenever he needed
it?"
(Quote from Grondin 1999, 336, my translation). Something similar could
be said with regard to the relation between Popper and Heidegger who in
"Being and Time", published in 1927, i.e. some twenty years before
Popper's
book, analyses the structure of pre-understanding (Heidegger 1976
§
31-34). Should "the poor guy" (i.e. Popper) have used him (Heidegger) a
little bit whenever he needed it?
Beyond
this
polemic we can
state that the idea of empirical knowledge as "theory-impregnated"
(Popper)
is an example of what hermeneutics calls the "circle of understanding"
or the "hermeneutic circle" (Capurro 2001). Modern theories of
knowledge
management such as the one by Nonaka rediscover at a new place an old
truth.
Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka even reaffirm the importance of dialogue
as
a necessary condition for adapting global accessible knowledge to a
concrete
situation. Electronic networks are just but one instrument to achieve
this
goal and they are not necessarily always at the focal point.
Nevertheless
today's rediscovery of the topic of knowledge and information
management
within the business field allows also, vice versa, to criticise a
technological
hostility within the hermeneutic tradition. I call the conjunction
between
hermeneutics and information technology artificial hermeneutics
(Capurro 2000a) which is concerned not with the face-to-face but with
the
interface situation. This means that, as with any other media change,
electronic
networks create new possibilities for knowledge creation, helping us,
for
instance, to overcome in a different way time and space constraints as
in the case of bodily encounter or of printing technology. Classic
hermeneutics
has largely discussed the differences between the transmission and
interpretation
of written (and printed) texts as different from face-to-face dialogue.
This was already a main point in Plato's criticism of writing.
According
to
Essers and Schreinemakers
from the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University) Corporate
Knowledge Management (CKM) cannot be reduced to Popper's paradigm of
"objective
knowledge" at least as far as such a paradigm implies an encyclopaedic
view of knowledge within a firm (Essers/Schreinemakers 1997). This
makes
a difference with regard to Nonaka's "dynamic theory of organizational
knowledge creation" which implies that knowledge is shared by a
community
of practitioners or experts. The idea that knowledge cannot be
separated
from specific practices, institutions, instruments etc. is not far away
from what Thomas S. Kuhn called "paradigms" (Kuhn 1962). But Essers and
Schreinemakers point to the following differences between knowledge
within
both contexts:
- Theory of
science is interested
in the analysis of science from a theoretical perspective while
knowledge
management is concerned with questions of application and use
- A company
is not
just
concerned with scientific knowledge but also with other types of
knowledge.
Knowledge
management is interested
in the subjective side of knowledge or, in the language of the theory
of
science, it is less concerned with the context of justification than
with
the context of discovery and application. Nevertheless "objective
knowledge"
understood as Popper's "World 3" plays a major role also in Nonaka's
conception
of knowledge creation. The relation of explicit knowledge to implicit
values
and interests rises the question concerning different types of
conflicts
for instance with regard to the difficulty of getting consensus between
employer and employee concerning, say, a new product.
Another
critical question
raised by Essers and Schreinemakers has to do with the context of
justification.
They refer to a 1994 paper by Nonaka in which he does not discuss the
role
of classic scientific criteria in opposition to economic ones (return
on
investment). This relative view of scientific knowledge from a
pragmatic
point of view can be seen as a skeptic form of knowledge management.
This
is also the case with regard to the largely discussed question about
the
incommensurability of paradigms. Nonaka seems paradoxically not to
consider
this practical situation which plays a role in everyday conflicts and
breakdowns.
Even more, he seems to conceal these kind of conflicts on the basis of
a harmony oriented viewpoint. Essers and Schreinemakers make clear the
importance of the situation of "interparadigmatic disagreement" within
a company, i.e. of what we can call skeptical knowledge management,
as the "crucial Aufgabe for the ever globalizing civilization of our
time".
(Essers/Schreinemakers 1997, 31). They make thus an important
correction
with regard to the widespread idea this kind of problems can be
dogmatically
solved on the basis of a company's vision.
This
criticism does not
make
justice, I believe, to the dialogical process of knowledge creation as
described by Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka. At the same time Essers and
Schreinemakers point to the risk arising from a relativism in the
scientific
field. They seem to favour a dogmatic position in this regard, but a
skeptic
one concerning a company's goals and strategies. This reversal of
Nonaka's
apparent position is itself one-sided. A company can and must work
under
normal conditions – Kuhn's "normal science" as business as usual –,
while
at the same time it allows a paradigm shift with regard to theoretical
questions. It seems as if these kinds of questions presupposes an
analysis
of different knowledge types and their role in a company's life, at
least
as far as not all criteria that can be applied to scientific
knowledge
prove to be adaptable to corporate knowledge. Nevertheless,
knowledge
based on good reasons or know-why plays an important role that
is
not of the same kind than the difference between implicit and explicit
knowledge. This rises the question of knowledge typology.
II. ZAHN AND ARISTOTLE ON KNOWLEDGE TYPOLOGY
In
their
contribution concerning
the question about "competitive advantages through knowledge
management"
Zahn et al. (2000), following a distinction by R. Sanchez, distinguish
between:
- know-how or
the
knowledge about how different parts of a system (a product or a
production
system) belong together and how this system functions. Know-how is a
practical
knowledge used within a specific situation for efficient fulfilment of
a given task.
- know-why
or the
knowledge that provides a causal explanation of a given state of
affairs.
- know-what
or "Gestaltungswissen"
is the knowledge about how know-how and know-why should be used. This
kind
of knowledge is basic for the ability of companies to efficiently
respond
to changing markets (Zahn et al. 2000, 246-248).
Zahn
et al.
point also to
the difference between implicit and explicit knowledge and describe
what
we could call the knowledge management dilemma: if knowledge becomes
explicit
it is more perennial but more difficult to protect, if it remains
implicit,
it is easier to protect, but it is difficult to transmit. This explains
the two different strategies of knowledge management as described by
Hansen,
Nohria and Tierney (1999). The first one is called the codification
strategy
is oriented towards explicit knowledge which is stored and accessible
via
data banks. Examples of this strategy are Andersen Consulting and Ernst
& Young. The second strategy is the personalisation strategy. In
this
case knowledge remains bound to the person who acquired it. The
computer
is just a medium for knowledge exchange. Examples of this strategy are
Bain, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey.
We
can compare
this typology
with the classical Aristotelian one. At the beginning of his
"Metaphysics"
he writes: "All human beings strive naturally towards knowledge ("eidenai");
a proof of this is the feeling of happiness they have with regard to
sense
perceptions ("aistheseis")". (Met. 980 a). Aristotle and the
skeptics
agree on this proposition but for Aristotle there is not only this kind
of perceptual or aesthetic knowledge. He also points to knowledge
we acquire through remembrance ("mneme") which is characteristic
of animal life and he calls this knowledge also empirical ("empeiria").
Human beings owe also a knowledge about how to artificially produce
things,
which is called technical knowledge ("techne"). Knowledge which
is the effect of logical reasoning is called science ("episteme").
Scientific and technical knowledge have an empirical basis. From a
practical
perspective, empiricists mostly make the right choice in contrast to
the
ones who know things only theoretically. Why? Because they have a
knowledge
of the individual case. According to Aristotle a good doctor must have
both kinds of knowledge, the scientific and the empirical one (Met. 981
a 15-23), although we usually say that scientists and technicians are
"wiser"
("sophoterous"). "Sophia" is a knowledge about the first
principles.
This
typology
is prima facie
only slightly different to the one in the "Nichomachean Ethics" where
Aristotle
points to: technical knowledge ("techne"), scientific knowledge
("episteme"), practical knowledge ("phronesis"),
knowledge
of the first principles ("sophia"), and intellectual reasoning ("nous"),
on the one hand, as well as to conjectural knowledge ("hypolepsei")
and opinion ("doxa") on the other hand (EN VI, 1139 b 15-18).
Practical
knowledge has to do with reasoning about the best means to achieve good
goals. It is not just cleverness but concerns the moulding of the
character
through ethical virtues as well as of the intellect through
dianoethical
ones. In other words "phronesis" has to do with what could be
the
best means in order to achieve a good life in a concrete situation
(Rowe
1989). Aristotle keeps his distance from Plato's superhuman ethical
goals.
There
is a
difference between
these two typologies concerning the relation between knowledge and
truth.
In the "Metaphysics" Aristotle points to knowledge acquired through
sense
perception ("aisthesis"). Such aesthetic knowledge is
'a-logical'
and therefore not related to truth. Truth namely is an affirmative or
negative
way of 'discovering' phenomena on the basis of "logos". The
typology
in the "Nichomachean Ethics" does not include this kind of 'a-logical'
knowledge. Within this last typology Aristotle makes a difference
between
the first five forms of knowledge that he considers to deal always with
truth ("aletheia"), i.e. to always 'dis-cover' ("a-letheia")
the phenomena, while the last two forms of knowledge, namely
conjectural
knowledge and opinion, may also conceal the phenomena and therefore be
"wrong".
This
is the reason why
they do not belong to the dianoethical
virtues. These knowledge forms can be distinguished with regard to the
kind of phenomena they affect as, for instance, perennial phenomena ("episteme",
"sophia", "nous"), or changing phenomena ("techne",
"phronesis"). "Techne" is concerned with the production
of
material things ("poiesis"), while "phronesis" has to do
with human actions ("praxis"). These different kinds of
knowledge
refer to different kinds of truth, namely 'theoretical', 'practical'
and 'poietical'.
With
regard to
the difference
between implicit and explicit knowledge, empirical knowledge lets
causality
implicit while technical and scientific knowledge make explicit the
particular
and the general. Aesthetic knowledge remains implicit. Practical
knowledge ("phronesis") becomes explicit through the weighting
process
of ethical counsel but the changing "rules" that govern individual and
social life ("ethos" written with Etha) may become only explicit
in education ("didaskalia") while remaining implicit in their
becoming
"customary" ("ethos" written with Epsilon) (EN II, 1103 a
17-18).
We
can prima
facie correlate
Zahn's and Aristotle's knowledge typologies in this way:
- know-how: "empeiria"/"techne"
- know-why: "episteme"
- know-what: "phronesis"
and,
following a
suggestion
by Manfred Rohr (Stuttgart Academy for Technology Assessment), we may
add:
- know-where
- know-when
- know-who
The
correlation
between Zahn's
"know-what" and Aristotle's "phronesis" should not be misunderstood as
an equation of a company's goals with ethical ones. Economic goals are
not absolute and should be permanently re-considered within the broader
question of what is good for an individual, a group, a society... in a
concrete situation and in view of what Aristotle calls "good life" ("eu
zen"). Otherwise it could happen that we forget the connections
between
wisdom, knowledge and information, or, to put it in T. S. Eliot's
famous
words:
"Where
is the
wisdom we have
lost in knowledge?
Where is the
knowledge we
have lost in information?"
(Eliot 1986,
Choruses from
'The Rock', 1934, I)
An
echo of
these differences
is found in Dr. Johnson's famous dictum as he was in Mr. Cambridge's
library
looking at the backs of the books: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know
a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to
know
what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and
at the backs of books in libraries." (Boswell 1986, 186) Since
modernity
we have been concerned with the question of locating explicit printed
knowledge
within the space-time coordinates of a library or of an encyclopaedia.
With electronic networks we got (in principle) a global availability of
knowledge for everybody, at any time and everywhere. At the same time
we
are aware that we must develop some kind of mistrust with regard to the
Internet in order to cope with its chaotic structure (Kuhlen 1999).
Moreover,
we should cultivate a critical attitude about what is often proclaimed
to be knowledge within an organization considering its implicit and
explicit
presuppositions, impact and goals. I call this attitude skeptical
knowledge
management. Within a larger view this attitude should lead to societal
"knowledge discourses" (Nennen 2000). To clarify these issues is a
matter
of what is being called information ethics (ICIE;
Capurro 2000b, 2002).
PROSPECTS
If
we take a look
at the question
of knowledge representation within today's context of digital networks
we become aware of basic metaphoric change with regard to the concept
of
'circle of knowledge' or 'encyclopaedia' that was predominant in theory
and practice, particularly in the library world, since Enlightenment.
This
metaphor used by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond D'Alembert is indeed
older
– the term "enkyklos paideia" goes back to Greek sophistic (Schalk
1972)
– but French encyclopaedists did a kind of paradigm shift as they
changed,
following Ephraim Chamber, from a systematic to an alphabetic order. In
fact, this order is not any more encyclopaedic but, as we could call
it,
'endictyopaedic' ("diktyon" is the Greek word for net). Ephraim
Chamber's
"Cyclopaedia or an universal dictionary of arts and sciences" (1728)
was
a success, particularly because it was, as we say today, user oriented.
Chamber presupposes that, as D'Alembert remarks, "the greater part of
the
readers" are educated in such a way that they search for the meaning of
words with relation to the contexts in which they are embedded.
Consequently
the French encyclopaedia should have included different thesauri which
was not the case. According to D'Alembert this would have created more
disorientation with regard to searching procedures, making the product
even more voluminous, and the economic success would have been in
danger
(D'Alembert 1997, 96-97).
The
following
development
brought not just a fragmentation of scientific disciplines and their
vocabularies
but, as we see it today, a knowledge network that goes beyond the
printing
encyclopaedic and 'endictyopaedic' forms of knowledge representation.
Not
only documents but also human beings are linked within a digital and
global
endictyopaedia that is a the same time an information as well as a
communication
medium. Is this development an opportunity or a threat for skeptical
i.e.
critical thinking? Following Plato's famous criticism of writing
(Phaidr.
275), every knowledge fixation means a de-contextualisation that has to
be turned back or re-contextualised. In other words, the art of memory
as cultivated by traditional libraries as well as by digital networks
needs
the complement of the art of remembering.
But
in the same way as
traditional
libraries are not just book stores but also places where people meet
each
other, the interface has oral capabilities that cannot replace the
face-to-face
but that can displace and enlarge it in different ways. Given the
danger
of social, technical, economic, and cultural exclusion at a local as
well
as at a global scale ("digital divide"), skeptical knowledge management
is a key ethical element of an information and knowledge society that
may
avoid becoming inflated and arrogant. Such a society is not part of the
solution, it is part of the problem.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks
to Thomas
J. Froehlich
(Kent State University, USA) for critical remarks and corrections.