I admit that I await each issue of Intelligent Life Magazine from The Economist with excitement, if not bated breath. The spine for the last quarter reads “Knowledge is Pleasure” – which it certainly is sometimes, but as I read the magazine I realised that sometimes it clearly isn’t. Knowledge can bring pain and fear and if it is the sense that we make of information (see my previous blog), knowledge certainly includes mistakes. So how can knowledge be owned or traded, and how indeed can a price be put on it?  Read the rest of this entry »

Raising public and policy debate is always easier if everyone understands the terminology. Obvious, perhaps, but in the case of ‘knowledge’, the definition may well stand in the way of understanding. There is wide-ranging debate among philosophers about what knowledge means, while among development specialists there seems to be an agreement to disagree and remain silent.  Read the rest of this entry »