Tim Smithers kirjoitti 16.11.2012 kello 2.00:
I would put the Blackler paper, and all other knowledge
management authors he cites, in the classical concept of
knowledge camp. This we have from Plato (one of his Early
Dialogues featuring Socrates): knowledge is justified true
belief.
As old and as well worked over (in Epistemology and
Philosophy) as this notion is, it remains problematic because
it's three component concepts--justification, truth, and
belief--are themselves problematic and unresolved.
Tim, in my eyes Blackler leans more towards Aristotle than Plato. He writes about Activity Theory concept of knowledge:
"Rather than studying knowledge as something individuals and organizations supposedly have, activity theory studies knowing as something they do and analyzes the dynamics of the systems through which knowing in accomplished. Recaste in this way, knowing in all forms is analyzed as a phenomenon which is: (a) manifest in systems of language, technology, collaboration, and control (i.e. it is mediated); (b) located in time and space and specific to particular contexts (i.e. it is situated); (c) constructed and constantly developing (i.e. it is provisional); and (d) purposive and object-oriented (i.e.it<http://i.e.it> is pragmatic)." (Blackler 1995, p. 1039) To this Blackler adds that because knowing is taking place in activities that are also fields for tension and power struggles, knowing is also always "contested".
Besides Plato's "episteme" (justified true belief, as you say) Aristotle introduces also another virtue of thought, "phronesis" (there are also techne, sophia and nous, but let's be brief...). Phronesis is the virtue of practical thought, capability to select the right course of action in a situation, to act reasonably. The AT concept of knowledge/knowing sketched above embraces whatever resources humans have and use in the courses of their actions, both "episteme" and "phronesis" in the sense of Aristotle. And that is not how the mainstream of knowledge management research looks at it, they are hanging only on the episteme, as you suggest.
Thus I can accept a formulation (nodding towards Newell) that "having knowledge" or "knowing" is about the same than "being capable of informed action in a situation"; and many of those actions are surely rational, but rational calculations must in real life always be balanced against reasonable judgements, where situation, culture(s), history, customs, values and norms of life are brought to bear, in the spirit of Stephen Toulmin.
Bringing phronesis in makes situations analysiswise really muddy, but such is life.
Stephen Toulmin (2001) Return to Reason. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass.
best regards,
--Kari Kuutti
Univ. Oulu, Finland
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