The Five Orders of Ignorance:

What is this thing we call "knowledge"?  How do I know what I know?  How can we measure knowledge?   How would I know that one thing is knowledge but another thing is not?   Does knowledge have attributes?  If so, what are they?  

This blog/website is based on ideas formulated and published initially in my book The Laws of Software Process and then in the Business of Software column I wrote for 18 years for the Association for Computing Machinery's flagship magazine Communications of the ACM.  

I'm trying to answer some of the above questions or, when I can't do that, to show why we have questions in the first place.  I can't claim that any of these ideas are "new"—they're not.  Indeed, many of them have their origins in Socratic Dialogues (esp. Thaeatetus), but I hope they might stimulate  other thoughts and ideas.  This is an ongoing project for me, so I will continue adding and amending content over time.  Please bear with me in this.

In large part, I'm putting these ideas down as much to help me think through these issues as to elicit comments, agreement, or disagreement.  Though any of these, [to 5oifeedback | at | corvusintl.com ] respectfully given, are most welcome.   

Phillip Glen Armour

The Five Orders of Ignorance______________________

While this is the name of this website and is one of the most important elements of it (and my philosophy of knowledge and software), the site is really about knowledge.  

However, it behooves me to at least mention what the 5OI are upfront.  So here goes:

Zero Order Ignorance (0OI): . . . . .I know something  and I can demonstrate that I know it.

First Order Ignorance (1OI): . . . . .I know what I don't know.

Second Order Ignorance (2OI): . . I don't know what I don't know.

Third Order Ignorance (3OI): . . . . I lack an effective way to discover what I don't know I don't know.

Fourth Order Ignorance (4OI): . . .I don't know about the Five Orders of Ignorance

So with that as a starter, the following pages are intended to be read in sequence since that builds up the case that led me to the 5OI and other thoughts about knowledge.  But you can jump into the 5OI using the links above (or below).  Your choice.