The Episteme of Knowledge Civilisation

The paper starts with a discussion of the concept of knowledge society, economy or civilization, while stressing possible different interpretations of several issues: the reasons of emergence of knowledge societies, the issue of perceiving knowledge as capacity of action versus perceiving it as intellectual heritage of humanity, the issue of public versus private ownership of knowledge as the source of the basic socio-economic conflict of the knowledge civilization era. In general, these differences of perception rely on different epistemic assumptions and axioms, even on different hermeneutical horizons. After these preliminary discussions, the paper proceeds to a short review of recent advancements in micro-theories of knowledge creation, in particular, related to the COE Program Technology Creation Based on Knowledge Science in JAIST. This is followed by comments on the role of technology in the knowledge civilisation era. Main attention is paid to the need for and a proposal of a new episteme for the knowledge civilisation era, called evolutionary constructive objectivism. The paper is concluded by indications of possible use of theories of knowledge creation in stimulating regional innovation.