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"Information" and "Knowledge" - On the Semantic Transformation of Two Central Terms
No one else has worked out the breach with traditional thought in a more penetrating way.
The knowledge which emerges as the result of this way of thinking leaves many standards
behind which were previously valid: the relevant reality, truth, causality, order through
classification and representation and finally the traditional relationship between appearance
and being, simulation and reality. Under the influence of this radical change Bolz (1991,
p. 110) arrives at the following conclusion: "Digitality has replaced metaphysics." In this
way he characterises an epochal change.
Correspondences and Differences
Common Features
Certain formal correspondences between information and knowledge can be seen
immediately: both appear as systematised, encoded and communicated data sets. No
difference can be detected in their external forms. Furthermore, knowledge and information
are always located at first in the head of an individual and obtain in this way their
special nature. This is probably the reason why numerous experts, as we indicated in the
introduction, hardly differentiate between the two. Helmut Spinner (1994, p. 27; Degele,
2000, p. 13) even speaks of "beloved but fruitless pathos of differentiating between
'knowledge' and 'information' ". Perhaps it is the formal correspondence which causes
the frequent confusion of the terms. However, if we look closely the semantic content
begins to become blurred and in part begins to melt from one into the other. Some
examples can be given for this vagueness.
Rainer Kuhlen regards information as a "subset of knowledge". Hartmann and others
define information as the "specific knowledge which an individual requires in a defined
situation, for example, to solve a problem". A. J. Romiszowski (1981, p. 80) understands
knowledge as being merely the information which a subject has stored. And Sabina Pia
Jeger is even of the opinion that knowledge can be equated with the information which
is available to a person (Jeger, 2000). There is no doubt that with these authors the
meanings of these terms overlap and overlay each other. In this situation the recognition
that there are important structural differences can have a clarifying effect.
Differences
The partial correspondences and marginal points of contact which have been shown here
are not decisive. The structural differences are far more important.
1. Reference to a subject. With knowledge, and this has been proved above all by the
disciplinary concepts, the most prominent feature is the reference to further cognitive
activity of the subject. Only an individual or a group of individuals can evolve and
be the bearer of knowledge. In contrast, information is, as it were, a floating set of
facts, an object circulating in a network. If it is taken over by a historical subject it
can be turned into knowledge. A. J. Romiszowski (1981, p. 80) reduces this problem
to the simple formula: "Information: information which exists. Knowledge: information
stored in me”. In contrast to this simple explanation Don Tapscott (1997, p. 32)
characterises the difference more precisely by referring to the cognitive activity
which is required for changing information to knowledge: "Information that has
been interpreted and synthesized, reflecting certain implicit values, becomes
knowledge”.
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