Philosophy of knowledge and the Internet

AKA something Tom Hickey might be interested in :)

In all seriousness, I found this article to be interesting and useful to thinking about the ways in which the internet has revolutionized society's "knowledge" and access to it. Pretty long read but here's a taste:

Rethinking Knowledge in the Internet Age By David Weinberger

"The Medium is the Knowledge

Perhaps our chief epistemic avoidance mechanism was turning knowing into the production of a type of content — knowledge — that we convinced ourselves had to be independent of the knower in two senses.

First, we devised methodologies that try to keep the vagaries of the individual out of the process of creating knowledge. The scientific method works. Journalistic objectivity continues to be reevaluated. (I should note that on the question of objectivity Professor Lynch contrasts his views explicitly with mine, as he does when he considers networked knowledge. He does so without animus, and I certainly respect and appreciate his criticism.)

Second, we physically separated knowledge from individuals by externalizing it (e.g., books). What started in Greece as a particular class of belief became a body of printed statements that could be called knowledge even if there was no one left to believe them. Obviously, this has been wildly successful for our species, but it also meant that the medium of externalization — paper — has shaped knowledge to fit its peculiarities. Knowledge is settled belief because ink settles into paper. Knowledge divides into topics because books can only be so big. Our most revered form of knowledge consists of long chains of reasoning because books are sequential and not suitable for optional digressions. Knowledge is something most of us read passively because books are inert — just as Socrates had opined in the Phaedrus. Knowledge is a type of content independent of believers because books are physical objects that outlast their authors and readers.

There is nothing natural about knowledge, so it is not surprising that it shaped itself to its medium of storage and communication. But now we have a new medium, and knowledge is taking on its properties. That is why looking for traditional knowledge on the net leads us to miss the phenomenon of knowledge there. It’s also why the idea of knowledge is not much discussed on the net. It’s possible that, in the next generation, the noun “knowledge” will become old-fashioned and, in the generation after that, archaic.

That wouldn’t mean that we have given up on the project of knowing our world. Instead, it would mean that that project has changed shape — from content to networks that mix ideas and sociality. That’s already happening. Knowledge is becoming what happens when links connect differences and people.

This is new but it should also sound quite familiar, for it is very close to how scholarship works in the traditional world: people who care about a topic argue about it among themselves. Networked knowledge opens up the discussion and the participants remain linked and engaged, not always expecting final resolution. Knowledge exists in the linkages of difference and disagreement.

The net is demonstrating the weakness of knowledge as finished, settled, and static content. It’s doing so by plunging us deeper into knowing."