Plato and the Internet - Kieron O'Hara

We live in a knowledge economy. Competition now straddles the world, and competitive advantage will be produced from now on by knowledge and creativity. Acquiring and managing knowledge better has become a political imperative. And yet - what is knowledge? The arguments have changed little since Plato. Arguing against sceptics who claim we have no knowledge at all, philosophers have focused on knowledge of facts, on how to distinguish true knowledge from mere belief. But the knowledge economy is less interested in knowledge about facts as in know-how - the Internet provides anyone with a PC and a phone line with access to billions of documents. We are drowning in information, while being starved of knowledge. What we really want is to get clever things done, in smarter ways. Plato and the Internet argues that what is important is not 'what facts you know', but 'what you know how to do', and that the essential contrast is not between knowledge and belief, but between knowledge and information. Is the Internet really something new - or a continuation of the past by other means?

Kieron O'Hara is currently research fellow in the Intelligence, Agents and Multimedia Group at the University of Southampton. He co-wrote the script of the computer game Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation, and is also the author of the only (as far as he knows) scholarly paper about Carry On Cabby.

'Advances in knowledge are the driving force behind the industries of the future.' Tony Blair, November 1998