Types Of Knowing

That knowing has kinds, and the propositional kind — what can be stated in sentences — is one of them.

The whole load of this concept is carried by its plural. A civilization that recognizes only one kind of knowing will build every institution around that kind, measure only it, teach only toward it, and quietly discard everyone whose gift lies elsewhere. This is not a hypothesis; it is a description of what happened. Testing replaced understanding, creativity was stifled, and what could not be written on a paper stopped counting as knowledge.

The kinds the corpus works with, without claiming the list is finished: propositional — knowing that, statable, checkable, transmissible in writing; procedural — knowing how, which lives in the hands and shows only in doing; perspectival — knowing what a situation is like from inside it, which is what makes someone able to read a room; and participatory — the knowing that comes from being in relationship with a thing over time, which cannot be had at a distance from it. Beside these the canon sets Gnosis, direct apprehension, and names it non-propositional explicitly.

Two consequences follow for any learning system. Assessment must match the kind. A written test can check propositional knowledge and nothing else — which is why Mastery is recognized by witness rather than by requirement met, and why a record shows what you can do while only a witness shows that you did it when it counted. Transmission must match the kind. Propositional knowledge travels in books; procedural and participatory knowledge travel by Apprenticeship and Learning By Doing, beside someone, over time. A body that tries to transmit a craft in writing loses most of it and does not notice, because what is lost is exactly the part that could not be written.

This is also why the Pattern is a language rather than a manual. A pattern points at knowing that is held in practice; the card is the pointer, never the thing.

Also called: the kinds of knowing · non-propositional knowing Stands on: Epistemology · Learning · Gnosis Opens onto: Learning By Doing · Apprenticeship · Mastery · Praxis · Discernment · Belt Progression · Mystery In play: table · Gate Sources: The LIØNSBERG Pattern Language — Synthesized, The Sovereign's Mind — Types Of Knowing, Non-Propositional Knowing (canon-grade list) · All Patterns — Master Consolidated Inventory §1 (a drafted Card) · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon, Pillar IV — Gnosis, Mystery (canon-grade) · The LIØNSBERG Belt System (wiki root — recognition by witness) · lionsberg.wiki: Types Of Knowing Open: The canon names the concept and lists two or three kinds; the four-way distinction above is cohered from the drafted Card and the wider literature on knowing, not stated anywhere in the corpus as a list.