knowledgewhat

Knowledgewhat is a term used in information philosophy and knowledge representation to refer to the content of knowledge—the propositions, facts, and data that a person or system holds. It emphasizes the 'what' of knowledge, in contrast to the procedural 'how' of know-how or the justificatory 'why' of reasons.

The term is not tied to a single doctrine but appears in discussions of declarative knowledge, ontologies, and knowledge graphs. It is used to describe the substantive content that can be stored, queried, and manipulated independently of the methods used to acquire it.

Representations of knowledgewhat typically take the form of propositions or relational structures among entities. In practice, this content is modeled as facts, data triples, or class-property statements, often with annotations for provenance, confidence, and context. The frame of reference (time, place, scope) may affect what counts as knowledgewhat in a given setting.

Applications include knowledge bases, semantic search, natural language understanding, and educational technology. By focusing on content, knowledgewhat supports validation, comparison, and interoperability across systems and domains.

Relation to related concepts: knowledgewhat is distinguished from knowledgehow (procedural knowledge) and from qualifiers such as knowledge when or where. Critics argue that separating content from justification or context can obscure epistemic status and complicate dynamic or uncertain knowledge.

See also: knowledge representation; declarative knowledge; ontologies; epistemology.