what are types of knowledge?
traditionally, there are three different types of knowledge:
- practical knowledge
- knowledge by acquaintance
- factual knowledge (most common in philosophy)
practical knowledge
practical knowledge is knowledge of how to do something - speaking a language, making a dessert, fixing a bicycle. this knowledge involves knowing how to perform some task but may not involve detailed understanding of the actions involved in the task.
for example, you may know how to ride a bike but giving detailed instructions to someone on how to do this might prove challenging. You know how to speak English, but if you learnt it at a very young age you may struggle to explain its intricacies to a non-native speaker.
this suggests that practical knowledge may be independent of our ability to explain it or an awareness of exactly what it is we know.
knowledge by acquaintance
knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge of something - knowing a person, place or thing
this knowledge involves the awareness of something because we have encountered them or it via our own experience or having been told by another or some form of resource (book, media etc).
for example, we may know the taste of garlic because we’ve tasted it often enough to be familiar with its qualities.
factual knowledge
factual Knowledge is knowing ‘that’ something is the case – awareness of information accurate to the world around us – this knowledge involves terms, facts, and detailed information that must be learned to understand a subject, solve a problem or be said to know it.
for example, we know that Hume was a philosopher, that monotremes lay eggs and that boron is a chemical element, fifth on the Periodic Table.
unlike the other two categories of knowledge, we can express this factual knowledge as a statement in language. A statement that asserts something, which may be true or false, about the world.