Types of Knowledge
Essentially is divided into three types. The first is defined when you know a person; I know that my mother loves to paint. The next type of knowledge would be when you know how to do something such as knowing how to ride a bike. The last type of knowledge would be knowing a fact. This is divided into theoretical and practical knowledge which are also known as knowledge- that and knowledge-how.
Theoretical Knowledge
Theoretical knowledge lays bare the complexity of convoluted concepts; it's the facts. It handles certainties and absolutes thus teaching the why. "It shows you the whole forest, builds the context, and helps you set strategy."(9)
In other words, it is the prior knowledge one has acquired due to either learning it from experience or being taught its concepts.
Practical knowledge
Practical knowledge is connected to the intricate, unpredictable and unruly patterns detected in real life. Therefore, it is knowlegde one gains through practicing or experience thus leading to a deeper comprehension of the concept due to this experience. "Where theory is often taught in the ideal of a vacuum, the practical is learned through the reality of life."(10)
Example
When I was younger, I would constantly climb trees when I was bored. Nevertheless, I had never climbed trees beforehand. So I learned to clim trees through reasoning, memory since I would watch my brother and other kids climb tree and imagination because I would envision how to get up there.
Example
At the age of eight, I stopped swimming since we moved around thus not permitting me to continue swimming. Because of this, my mother always qualified me as an under decent swimming. However, whenever I'm in a pool and swimming is require for me to not drown, I do just fine and my memory of the classes is very weak. Therefore, I merely reason how to swim from one side of the pool to the other.
Connection between Theoretical and Practical Knowledge
There's a continuous debate between the dependecy and independency of theoretical and practical knowledge.
Anti- intellectualism
Various scholars debate that knowledge how and knowledge that are independent on each other. In other words, people question if there is a distinctness between knowing how to do something and putting that concept into action. An example of the independency is when I started playing Basketball two years ago; I would watch my coach dribble and do lay ups nonetheless, when I would attempt to put it into practice, it would never turn out to be the same as hers. Because of this, though I had my theoretical knowledge through the memory of my coach doing the steps, I would never learn when putting it into practice.
Intellectualism
The other side of debate is that the two types of knowldge are dependent on each other. We require either theoretical knowledge for our practical knowledge or the other way around. An example of how they are dependent on each other would be studying math. When I do not comprehend a concept we are learning in math, I watch videos online to get the knowledge of it. However, I truly feel that I've learned when I put it into practic, also known as my practical knowledge.