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In Chapter 4, you have learnt about the nature of knowledge.

Now the question arises is that how do people come to know the various things happening around them. What is the mechanism or process of knowing? You should understand that ‘knowing’ is not a one-time affair; rather, people learn things daily and it is a life-long process. Life experiences are great sources of knowledge. We keep on learning from childhood to adulthood till old age, and gather knowledge through various sources and methods. You will read in this chapter the processes of knowing, what it entails and what determines it. You will also learn the numerous ways of knowing and the role played by each in the process of knowledge construction. The various types of knowledge and their mutual interaction are also enumerated upon.

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After reading this unit you will be able to:

• describe the meaning of knowledge;

• identify the different ways of knowing;

• describe the process of knowledge construction; and

• enumerate the relative roles of knower and known in knowledge transmission and construction.

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As you know, in today’s world, the knowledge and the capability to create and utilise knowledge are considered to be most advantageous to an individual. Knowledge creation is a dialectical process, which involves systemisation of various facts through dynamic interactions between individuals and the environment. Knowledge creation is a spiral that goes through seemingly opposing concepts such as order and chaos, micro and macro, part and whole, mind and body, tacit and explicit, self and other, deduction and induction, and creativity and efficiency. There is a need to understand that knowledge creation is a transcending process through which entities (individuals, groups, and institutions) go beyond the boundary of the old into a new self by acquiring new knowledge. In the process, new conceptual artifacts and structures for interaction are created, which provide

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possibilities as well as constrain the entities in consequent knowledge creation. Thus, knowledge creation is a cyclic process.

You have learnt in the last chapter that knowledge is not part of the reality. It is a reality viewed from a certain angle or context. The same reality can be viewed differently depending on the angle (context) from which one sees it. The Indian context also emphasises on the role of desh (ecology), kala (time), and patra (person). The same reality is viewed differently by different persons, in different times, and in different contexts. It means that, in knowledge creation, one cannot be free from one’s own context. The social, cultural, and historical contexts are important for individuals, because such contexts give the basis to individuals to give meaning to it. That is why, limited interaction with the environment and externalisation of personal knowledge can lead to ontological ills and fallacies, because the whole complexity of given phenomenon may remain undiscovered.

Hence, in knowledge creation, one tries to see the entire picture of reality by interacting with those who see the reality from other angles. It is important here to understand how the interactions among the parts (individuals, work groups, etc.) are dynamically linked to form a continuously evolving whole, which, in turn, impacts the environment where the learning actually takes place.

Knowledge is created through interactions between human agency and social structures. Our actions and interactions with the environment create and enlarge knowledge through the conversion process of tacit and explicit knowledge. We enact our actions with two main levels of consciousness – practical consciousness and discursive consciousness in our daily lives. The discursive consciousness gives us our rationalisations for actions and refers to more conscious and therefore more explicitly theoretical knowing. The practical consciousness refers to the level of our lives that we do not really think about or theorise. In that sense, we can say that tacit knowledge is produced by our practical consciousness and explicit knowledge is produced by our discursive consciousness.

Any theory that attempts to define the process of knowing is required to explain as to how information is accessed,

Processof Knowing

stored, and retrieved in order to understand how learning takes place. Knowing begins with undifferentiated perception of personal space and time along with undifferentiated sensorial reactions to internal and external stimuli. With the acquisition of language, formulations of self and non-self co-emerge as differentiated entities that are stored, recalled, imagined, and communicated with maximum contextual relevance. Since, during the precursor stage, thoughts, emotions, and symbolic language are not fully functional, the process of knowing is limited to learning pre-linguistic visual-spatial contextual relevance.

Figure 1 illustrates the levels of the mind and the relationship among knower, process of knowing, and known.

The level of awareness of the knower determines the corresponding process of knowing, as well as the nature of the knowledge gained. Education traditionally trains the knower to use deeper levels of the mind to gain more useful and fulfilling knowledge. Knower and known are united on the ground of transcendental consciousness. The result is complete knowledge of natural law, and on that basis, thought and action are spontaneously most effective.

Figure1: Knower-known through the process of knowing

The process of knowing is a personalised, individual task that is influenced by experience and unintentional contextual cues. There are three aspects of knowledge – the knower (the consciousness of the participant), the known (the field of study), and the process of knowing (which connects the knower to the known). Modern education focuses only on the

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known, the field of study, and excludes the other two-thirds of knowledge, the knower and the process of knowing.

Activity 1

1. Think of how knowledge construction is the spiral process.

2. Select a few social incidents or phenomenon. Try to analyse how their meanings vary according to the context.

Learning Check 1

1. Why is it important to know the views of people having diverse perspectives in the process of knowledge construction?

2. Differentiate between practical and discursive knowledge.

3. Explain the relationship between knower, process of knowing, and known.