All Life Is Problem Solving

Joe Firestone’s Blog on Knowledge and Knowledge Management

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Entries from July 2008

Interpreting Popper’s Three Worlds Ontology for Knowledge Management: Part Two

July 29th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Comparative Evaluation of the Two Theories Let’s compare the two theories of the three worlds, world-by-world, as it were. First, Popper’s W1 has the disadvantage that it blurs the distinction between the living and the non-living, since both are included in W1. This also has the effect of including knowledge in W1 without specifying a […]

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Tags: Complexity · Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

Interpreting Popper’s Three Worlds Ontology for Knowledge Management: Part One

July 28th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Popper’s Three Worlds Ontology In his Objective Knowledge (1972), Karl Popper introduced the idea of three ontological worlds or domains. The first world is the world of material objects, events, and processes, including the domain of biology. The second world is the world of mental events, processes, and predispositions– the world of beliefs and other […]

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Tags: Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

National Governmental Knowledge Management: A Guest Reply By Richard Vines

July 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

I think your twin posts on knowledge management and its possible relevance to national governments raise some very interesting and creative ideas that warrant a serious pause for thought. I have just been in the United States and revisited the Washington Mall, and the axes of the Mall including the White House, the Congress and […]

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Tags: Complexity · Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · KM Techniques · Knowledge Integration · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

National Governmental Knowledge Management: KM, Adaptation, and Complexity: Part Two

July 24th, 2008 · 8 Comments

The Organization of Knowledge Management in National Governments (continued) A second possible answer to the question of how to organize KM in National Governments is to organize it in a decentralized way across national governmental agencies and inter-agency teams. Each Governmental unit, or inter-agency group, would have some KM personnel and would be responsible for […]

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Tags: Complexity · Knowledge Integration · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

National Governmental Knowledge Management: KM, Adaptation, and Complexity: Part One

July 23rd, 2008 · 6 Comments

National Governmental Knowledge Management The primary focus of Knowledge Management, thus far, has been on organizations, communities, and teams, with some emphasis on Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), and “Knowledge Cities.” Knowledge Management in Government has primarily continued the organizational focus of most work in the field. It is agency-based and project-focused, and has had little […]

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Tags: Complexity · KM Techniques · Knowledge Integration · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

A Correct Interpretation of a Musical Composition?

July 22nd, 2008 · Comments Off on A Correct Interpretation of a Musical Composition?

I think that a musical composition is different from a text asserting logical and semantic content. There still might be a “correct interpretation” of musical compositions, but I don’t think the issue here is one of a true theory about the semantic and logical content of a text, but of the aesthetic value of different […]

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Tags: Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory

Remarks on Truth and Theories of Evaluation

July 21st, 2008 · Comments Off on Remarks on Truth and Theories of Evaluation

First, I think that true and false are terms we should apply to linguistic networks rather than single statements. Networks are necessary, because single statements generally assume a good deal of background knowledge illuminating the meaning of those statements. If the background knowledge is expressed in language also, we have a network of statements, and […]

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Tags: Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

Does Partial Constructivism Make Sense?

July 18th, 2008 · Comments Off on Does Partial Constructivism Make Sense?

I don’t think there are empirical truths. The idea that there are such truths is a hangover from positivism and empiricism, now discredited epistemologies, even though many social scientists seem unaware of this. Also, from my viewpoint one really needs to distinguish between three kinds of knowledge: biological knowledge, mental knowledge, and cultural knowledge. Biological […]

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Tags: Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management

Untrue Knowledge

July 17th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Historically, since Plato, the most frequent definition of knowledge has been Justified True Belief (JTB). Until recently (the 20th century), philosophers believed in a foundation for JTB. The Cartesian Rationalists believed that some beliefs were certain because they were self-evident truths that survived Descartes method of doubt. The empiricists believed that some beliefs were self-evident […]

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Tags: Epistemology/Ontology/Value Theory · Knowledge Making

Problems of Shifting from KM to “Knowledge Sharing”

July 16th, 2008 · 4 Comments

The over-riding problem with shifting from a “KM” orientation to a “knowledge sharing” one, is that the words don’t mean the same thing, and focusing on one or the other may well lead to different policies, programs, and interventions. Put another way, since “Knowledge Sharing” and Knowledge Management are not the same thing, it’s possible […]

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Tags: Knowledge Integration · Knowledge Making · Knowledge Management