Knowledge

There are many different ways of acquiring knowledge, be it through experience, learning through books and teachers, and by practice. How can we differ what we have learnt from practice and experience from what we have been taught or "learnt"? This leads to thinking there are different types of knowledge like how to drive once we know how to, or to ride a bicycle once we've learnt to, or to apply a certain theory once we've been taught it. Upon which I ask, what is knowledge, and are there really different types of it?

Comments

Different ways of acquiring knowledge doesn't mean that the knowledge acquired is necessarily different. Thus I may know that it is snowing because I see the snow, or because someone tells me, but the knowledge that it is snowing is the same in both cses, even if in one case I have an experience that I don't have in the other.

But there may also be different types of knowledge. One apparent difference that philosophers have discussed is between knowing a fact, such as knowing that it is snowing, and having an ability, such as knowing how to ski. These seem like different types of knowledge, though the relationship between them is a subject of some philosophical discussion. (As they say, those that can, do; those that can't, teach.)

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