Knowledge (ความรู้)

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An Essay on “Knowledge”
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Compiled and Written by
Phramaha Surasak Suramedhi (Chamaram)

4th Year Student of Humanities’ Faculty, Majoring in English
Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University Nakhonratchasima campus
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The questions like “Why we think? Why we know? What we understand? and so on occur in our daily life. Have we ever thought that why we have to be like that? If we do not think, know, understand, etc…, then what will happen? These questions are thinkable for us to take our interests in that way. We think, we know, we understand things because of knowledge. So, what is knowledge? How many kinds of knowledge? In this case, I would like to present about knowledge as questions mentioned above.
…What is Knowledge?

In general, knowledge seems to mean three things. First, we use refer to a state of knowing, by which we also mean to be familiar with, to be of, to recognize or apprehend facts, methods, principles, techniques and so on. This common age corresponds to what is often referred to as "know about." Second, we use the word "knowledge" to refer to what Peter Senge calls "the capacity for action," an understanding or grasp facts, methods, principles and techniques sufficient to apply them in the course of making happen. This corresponds to "know how." Third, we use the term "knowledge" to refer to captured and accumulated facts, methods, principles, techniques and so on. When we use term this way, we are referring to a body of knowledge that has been articulated and captured the form of books, papers, formulas, procedure manuals, computer code and so on.
So, to talk about knowledge is sometimes difficult as mentioned above because of many reasons. However, I would like you to take a look at its meaning first that is given in various sources, namely;
Knowledge is “information of which a person, organization or other entity is aware. Knowledge is gained either by experience, learning and perception or through association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.” www.wikipedia.org
Knowledge is "information combined with experience, context, interpretation, and reflection. It is a high-value form of information that is ready to apply to decisions and actions." T. Davenport et al., 1998
"Explicit or codified knowledge refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language. On the other hand, tacit knowledge has a personal quality, which makes it hard to formalize and communicate." I. Nonaka, 1994.
"knowledge as the human expertise stored in a person’s mind, gained through experience, and interaction with the person’s environment." Sunasee and Sewery, 2002.
"Knowledge is a physical, mental or electronic record of relationships believed to exist between real or imaginary entities, forces and phenomena." Worthington, 2005.
"The insights, understandings, and practical know-how that we all possess – is a fundamental resource that allows us to function intelligently." Wiig, 1996.
"knowledge is information evaluated and organized by the human mind so that it can be used purposefully, e.g., conclusions or explanations." Rousa, 2002.
When considering these given meanings above, knowledge can be concluded that “Knowledge is an information that is evaluated and organized by human through experience, understanding, learning, perception, association, and reasoning. It is the 'tracks the truth”
…Kinds of Knowledge
There are two main kinds of knowledge, namely;
1. Physical knowledge means knowledge that comes from reading, listening, doing, working, learning, and so on everything outside our body. For example, we read a book and then we understand it. That means knowledge about and outside our body, consisting of knowledge in sciences, knowledge in Philosophy, knowledge in Mathematics, Knowledge in Technology, and so on.

2. Mental knowledge or insight knowledge means knowledge that comes from practicing meditation. That means as we practice meditation, we focus on our mind. We try to make them calm and peaceful. When it gets calm and peaceful and we know that. That is called inner knowledge or mental knowledge, or knowledge that comes from insight.

There are basically three ways of approaching knowledge;

1. Belief

A belief type knowledge is an attempt to describe why people think that some of their judgments are knowledge. The traditional definition of knowledge (true, justified, belief) could be seen as part of this type of investigation, i.e. it isn’t a description of what knowledge is, but what makes people think that they have it.

2. Truth

A truth type knowledge is an attempt to describe which procedures or methods of thinking can best discover truths about the world, or at least identify which statements are more likely to be true. For example a philosopher conducting this type of investigation might endorse Bayes’ theorem, because it seems to accurately reflect how evidence affects the probability that a statement is true, and not because people actually use that theorem (unconsciously), which is what a belief type epistemology would require.

3. Practical

A practical knowledge is an attempt to reveal which truth-finding procedures or methods will be reasonable to use in everyday life. A philosopher conducting this type of investigation would probably reject Bayes’ theorem as a good method, because it is too “costly” to use in some cases (or at least more than the answer is worth). However neither is the philosopher looking for methods that support our intuitions, simply methods that don’t require more calculation and investigation than we value having the answer. What is being sought is a method that is usually right and relatively simple.
…Knowledge in Buddhism
According to Buddhism we use the word “wisdom” instead of Knowledge. Because wisdom is not knowledge. We gain knowledge after listening, reading, and observing many things in this world but it is not wisdom in the real sense. Wisdom only appears in the mind when mental hindrances, obstructions and other impurities are not active in the mind. There are many learned people all over the world who no doubt have wonderful knowledge but unfortunately some of them lack proper wisdom.
Many people are intelligent but their behavior however is not reasonable, as some are hot tempered, egoistic, emotional, jealous, greedy and temperamental. On the other hand, there are others who are very kind and although they have patience tolerance and many other good qualities, their wisdom is very poor as they can be easily misled by others. If we develop our generosity without proper understanding, we could get into trouble as certain people can take undue advantage of us. Understanding and good qualities must therefore go together.
Wisdom (Panna) is the third and last stage of the path after undertaking the observance of morality, the aspirant practice meditation. When the mind is well-concentrated, he is able to understand the true nature of things. Wisdom is the right understanding of the world in the light of its transience, unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality. Knowledge is of three kinds:
1) that acquired by learning (Sutamayapanna),
2) that acquired by thinking (Cittamayapanna), and
3) that acquired by meditation (Bhavanamayapanna).
This wisdom is the apex of the threefold training which leads to nibbana. When illusion, ignorance and evil thoughts disappear from the mind, brightness appears in their place. That brightness is enlightenment. The more we learn worldly things with a deluded mind, the more we increase our ignorance. We have to learn how to open the mind. When the mind is fully opened, then development takes place; only then can wisdom, understanding and purity appear in the mind. That is inner development.
Wisdom comes from understanding the three characteristics of existence
All conditioned phenomena are impermanent
All conditioned phenomena are not personal, not self
Attachment to desire for impermanent phenomena leads to suffering
"Right Understanding" of the impermanent, non-self nature of phenonmena and that attachment to them leads to suffering brings about "Right Thought", i.e. the aspiration or intention to be liberated from suffering and to understand the truth.
We cannot bring this brightness, purity and realisation from the outside. They have to emanate from within. Sila, Samadhi, Panna - mental training, and calmness of the mind and higher wisdom, are the three main religious principles in Buddhism for the development of human life. Further development of sila or precepts for the attainment of sainthood is called Adhi Sila. Calmness or tranquillity of the consciousness is called Adhi Citta (Samadhi). Gaining higher wisdom through the development of insight - Vipassana is called Adhi Panna. These therefore are the three Buddhist principles for training the human mind.

…In Conclusion

Knowledge means an information that is evaluated and organized by human through experience, understanding, learning, perception, association, and reasoning. It is the 'tracks the truth. It is very important object that we face it in our daily life. Knowledge can be divided into many kinds, but I divided it into two kinds in this place, namely;
1. Physical knowledge means knowledge that comes from reading, listening, doing, working, learning, and so on everything outside our body. For example, we read a book and then we understand it. That means knowledge outside our body.
2. Mental knowledge means knowledge that comes from practicing meditation. That means as we practice meditation, we focus on our mind. We try to make them calm. When it gets calm and we know. That is called inner knowledge or mental knowledge.
According to Buddhism, We gain knowledge after listening, reading, and observing many things in this world but it is not wisdom in the real sense. Wisdom only appears in the mind when mental hindrances, obstructions and other impurities are not active in the mind. There are three kinds of wisdom in Buddhism
1) Wisdom that acquired by learning,
2) Wisdom that acquired by thinking, and
3) Wisdom that acquired by meditation.
Wisdom (Panna) is the third and last stage of the path after undertaking the observance of morality, the aspirant practice meditation that leads us to Nibbana (Supreme goal in Buddhism).
Thus we should use our knowledge in developing our physical and mental matters. If we can develop these, we will understand everything as it really is. When understand that, we will live in the world happily.

References
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge
www.PhilosophyArchive.com/
www.okfn.org/okd/
www.dobney.com/Knowledge/ck_definition.htm
www.publicknowledge.org/ - 59k –
http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/courses/epist/notes/gettier.html
www.groovyweb.uklinux.net/?page_name=philosophy%20of%20knowledge&categorzz=philosophy
www.avatarmeherbaba.org/erics/kindknow.html+The+kinds+of+Knowledge&hl=th&gl=th&ct=clnk&cd=19
www.trumpuniversity.com/connect/newsletters/itt/issue04.cfm
www.oikos.org/vGknowl.htm

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