

Is knowledge the process?

Dave Chu lobs another definition / description of knowledge into the mix with Knowledge: Not "What It Is" but "How to think":

Most people think of knowledge as "what", e.g., pieces of information. Polanyi may have helped to confuse the matter further by creating the term "tacit knowledge" instead of simply clarifying knowledge as the process of how to think. By "think" I do not mean simply logical reasoning but the process a sentient being determines or distinguishes patterns from all sensory and stored information. [emphasis mine]

Dave continues with a metaphor of a manufacturing plant to explain his thoughts on this one.

I have come across this kind of definition before, but it's never felt right.  Charles Savage suggested the term "knowledging" in his AOK Star Series discussion a few years ago, but that felt awkward as well. 

There are two main senses of the term knowledge.  One is the idea of a collection of what is known in a subject area: a body of knowledge.  The subject area could be small or as large as the sum of all knowledge.  This type of knowledge is "owned" and communicated by the collective, rather than the individual.  I suspect this is the type of knowledge that has been tested and verified and validated. 

The other sense of knowledge is a more individual state of comprehension or understating of something due to experience or familiarity.  I suspect this gets closer to Dave's idea that knowledge is the process itself.  But having the experience or being taught (and learning) is different than "having the knowledge."

[I checked the Webster definition of knowledge to back up my intuition, which might explain some of the phrasing above.]

Update: I don't know how to spell. (Or my spell checker doesn't see the title.)

Reality discovering in projects

James Spillane on Distributed Leadership