13 Types Of Knowledge

John Spacey, updated on March 23, 2021

Knowledge is information that is meaningful in cognitive forms such as understanding, awareness and ability. It is typically acquired by experience, information consumption, experimentation and thought processes such as imagination and critical thinking. Knowledge comes in several varieties and types:

A Posteriori

A posteriori, literally "from the latter", is a classical term for knowledge that extends from experience or empirical evidence.

A Priori

A priori is knowledge that can be deduced from first principles. For example, you can prove a theory with math.

Dispersed Knowledge

Dispersed knowledge is when information about a topic is fragmented with no single source of truth. It is common in fast moving situations such as financial markets.

Domain Knowledge

Domain knowledge describes the knowledge, skills and abilities of experts in a particular field.

Empirical Knowledge

Knowledge that stems from quantitative and qualitative observations, measurements and experiments.

Encoded Knowledge

Knowledge that is represented as data such a document, database, distributed database or artificial neural network.

Explicit Knowledge

Knowledge that can be articulated in a natural language such as French or Japanese.

Known Unknowns

Knowing that you don't know is a form of knowledge that is useful to decision making.

Meta Knowledge

Meta-knowledge is knowledge about knowledge such as bibliographic data.

Procedural Knowledge

Knowing how to do something such as riding a bike. Procedural knowledge is often difficult to encode or make explicit.

Propositional Knowledge

Statements of fact that can be represented in natural language or the language of a system of logic.

Situated Knowledge

Highly specific knowledge such as knowing that the soil conditions on the west side of a mountain are perfect for planting tulips in September.

Tacit Knowledge

A general term for knowledge that is difficult to explain, articulate or acquire such as mastering chess or the piano. Also associated with a sense of innate ability or unique set of experiences that allows a select few individuals to achieve mastery of a particular skill.