23 July 2021

Out of Context: Knowledge is ... (Definitions)

"Knowledge is made by oblivion, and to purchase a clear and warrantable body of truth, we must forget and part with much we know." (Sir Thomas Browne, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica", 1646)

"Those who have not imbibed the prejudices of philosophers, are easily convinced that natural knowledge is to be founded on experiment and observation." (Colin Maclaurin, "An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries", 1748)

"Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from concepts; mathematical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from the construction of concepts." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Knowledge is only real and can only be set forth fully in the form of science, in the form of system." (G W Friedrich Hegel, "The Phenomenology of Mind", 1807)

"One may even say, strictly speaking, that almost all our knowledge is only probable [...]" (Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Philosophical Essay on Probabilities", 1814)

"All knowledge is profitable; profitable in its ennobling effect on the character, in the pleasure it imparts in its acquisition, as well as in the power it gives over the operations of mind and of matter. All knowledge is useful; every part of this complex system of nature is connected with every other. Nothing is isolated." (Joseph Henry, "Report of the Secretary" [Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1851], 1852)

"The easiest and surest way of acquiring facts is to learn them in groups, in systems, and systematized knowledge is science." (Oliver W Holmes, "Medical Essays", 1883)

"Knowledge is the distilled essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience." (Elbert Hubbard, "A Thousand & One Epigrams, 1911)

"Observed facts must be built up, woven together, ordered, arranged, systematized into conclusions and theories by reflection and reason, if they are to have full bearing on life and the universe. Knowledge is the accumulation of facts. Wisdom is the establishment of relations. And just because the latter process is delicate and perilous, it is all the more delightful." (Gamaliel Bradford, "Darwin", 1926)

"Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels." (Kenneth E. Boulding, "General Systems Theory: The Skeleton of Science", 1956)

"Scientific knowledge is not created solely by the piecemeal mining of discrete facts by uniformly accurate and reliable individual scientific investigations." (John M Ziman, "Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social Dimension of Science", 1968)

"Knowledge is encoded in models." (Didier Sornette, "Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Systems", 2003)

"Knowledge is acquired by the network from its environment through a learning process, and interneuron connection strengths (synaptic weighs) are used to store the acquired knowledge." (Larbi Esmahi et al, "Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Systems", 2009)

"[...] the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility." (Yuval N Harari, "Sapiens: A brief history of humankind", 2017)

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