THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE DECENTRALIZATION – A CONDITION FOR FREEDOM
Lecturer Bogdan ŞTEFANACHI Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Grant Recipient
Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch
Phone: 0740/192582
E-mail: stbogdan2000@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT. Within the economic space or within the social space the knowledge is essentially a dispersed one, and through it we must understand a practical knowledge peculiar to individual circumstances. Social knowledge is accumulated in rules and such rules are not consciously articulated, but instead, their obedience is vital for the efficiency of our actions; moreover, such rules are very difficult to remove or modify, even if, in a Cartesian manner, we fail in demonstrating their absolute truth. The fact that social sciences generate tacit knowledge represents a crucial element for the liberal political theory because it questions and ultimately excludes the possibility to plan. In other words, the analysis of the human behavior within the free market is not necessary a rational one, the scale of rationality may be applied only in the case of govern intromission (or of any planning authority) in the (tacit) knowledge flow. The refusal to accept the mosaic structure of the social space represents the direct effect of the attempt to consciously (rationally) coordinate the social process itself under the form of various social and political engineering. Therefore, the decentralized spontaneous processes express a form of rationality impossible to be entirely encompassed in the conceptual language which could justify the mechanisms of a control center. This thesis of human limited knowledge is an empirical reality or contingent regarding the human being, reality which can be modified (altered) through technological evolution. It is more a philosophical thesis concerning the shape in which the knowledge exists in the world and the way in which it becomes accessible to individuals.
Key words: knowledge, social knowledge, scientific knowledge, freedom