Knowledge

Things that one knows. Similar to Knorr-Cetina's "objects of knowledge", which expands upon Rheinberger's "epistemic objects". For Knorr-Cetina, knowledge objects are like well-organized drawers in a filing cabinet. In contrast, gaps in knowledge or unexpected behaviour are characterized as untidy and incomplete drawers that exist in an unresolved state. For Knorr-Cetina, science is an endeavour focusing on deriving a coherent understanding of the world, which involves the use of already established knowledge objects in the validation of newly arrived at ideas. However, my notion of knowledge differs from this in that it is not necessarily useful in a utilitarian sense. Instead, it refers to the 'thick' substrate that new knowledge must be compatible with. It is the context within which archaeological activities are undertaken, which inform and motivate them. (Wittgenstein, Ryle, Polanyi, Geertz, ????) Legitimate knowledge is grounded and recognized by methodological rigour (i.e. the appropriateness and integrity of methods and data, see below), and therefore differs from Latour and Woolgar's characterization of "facts" as detached from the contexts from which they are derived.

Metaphors & Memnonics

I tend to use the term in both singular and plural forms, which has implications for how I think about how knowledge is partitioned. My instinct is to refer to knowledge as amalgamations of "chunks", similar to chunks of knotted bread torn from a loaf.