The 4 Ways of Knowing

 The 4 Ways of Knowing


Episteme

Episteme (ep-IST-em-ay) is what we currently conceive to be the point and activity of the psyche. It is the retention of propositions, of facts, and of memories. This kind of knowing is knowing that something is the case. This knowledge is directly bound with language and the capacity to explain, and this has a lot to with why it has come to have a total monopoly over our account of knowledge.

English term: Belief, knowledge

Vervaekean: Propositional Knowledge

Adjective: Epistemic

Faculty: Memory


Techne

Techne (TEK-nay) is the knowing of methods; ways of doing things. But not in the way of writing a set of instructions; this would be episteme. Techne is the demonstrable capacity to execute actions. It matters not how well one can explain (episteme) how to play tennis, and all the moves involved, one does not have techne unless one can actually execute the act. The English term I use for this is skill. It should come easily to say that one could be able to explain how one is to play tennis, but completely lack the skill to do so. Thus, we say that this kind of knowing is about knowing how to do things.

English term: Skill

Vervaekean: Procedural Knowledge

Adjective: Technic

Faculty: [no English word]


Noesis

Noesis (no-EE-sis) is a little more subtle than the previous two. It involves the connection and coordination of other kinds of knowledge. It therefore relies on the pre-existence of other kinds of knowledge, but also potentiates more complex versions of those other kinds. I am fairly certain that it mainly only applies in this way to the previous two, episteme and techne.

English term: Understanding

Vervaekean: Perspectival Knowledge

Adjective: Noetic

Faculty: Mind


Gnosis

Gnosis (NO-sis) is the most neglected way of knowing. In its most basic form, it involves the identification of affordances. An affordance is an opportunity for action - for example, the manner in which a chair, a nicely sized log, and a rock are all ‘sittable’, i.e. useful as somewhere to sit. This in turn is deeply tied to our capacity to register relevance, and therefore our attentional patterns; to recognise opportunities, we are recognising what skills (and indeed knowledge and connections) might be relevant in some situation. But it is not just affordances alone, but the integration of these affordances into higher and higher order affordances as well. These can go so high, in fact, that they can become more ethereal and less well defined things, such as attitudes, and mindsets.

English term: Wisdom

Vervaekean: Participatory Knowledge

Adjective: Gnotic (this is chosen to avoid using ‘gnostic’, which carries unwanted baggage)

Faculty: Spirit

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