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The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy and its Antithesis

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DOI: 10.7152/nasko.v2i1.12806

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The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy and its
Antithesis

Item type Conference Paper

Authors Bernstein, Jay H.

Citation The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy and

its Antithesis 2009, Vol 2:68-75

Downloaded 29-Jun-2016 20:30:43

Link to item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/105414

Jay H. Bernstein—Kingsborough Community College

The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy and

its Antithesis
Abstract
The now taken-for-granted notion that data lead to information, which leads to knowledge, which in turn
leads to wisdom was first specified in detail by R. L. Ackoff in 1988. The Data-Information-Knowledge-
Wisdom hierarchy is based on filtration, reduction, and transformation. Besides being causal and hierarchical,
the scheme is pyramidal, in that data are plentiful while wisdom is almost nonexistent. Ackoff’s formula
linking these terms together this way permits us to ask what the opposite of knowledge is and whether
analogous principles of hierarchy, process, and pyramiding apply to it. The inversion of the Data-
Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy produces a series of opposing terms (including misinformation,
error, ignorance, and stupidity) but not exactly a chain or a pyramid. Examining the connections between
these phenomena contributes to our understanding of the contours and limits of knowledge.

This presentation will revisit the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy

linking these concepts together as stages of a single developmental process, with the
aim of building a taxonomy for a postulated opposite of knowledge, which I will call
‘nonknowledge’.
Concepts of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom are the building blocks of
library and information science. Discussions and definitions of these terms pervade the
literature from introductory textbooks to theoretical research articles (see Zins, 2007).
Expressions linking some of these concepts predate the development of information
science as a field of study (Sharma 2008). But the first to put all the terms into a single
formula was Russell Lincoln Ackoff, in 1989.
Ackoff posited a hierarchy at the top of which lay wisdom, and below that
understanding, knowledge, information, and data, in that order. Furthermore, he wrote
that “each of these includes the categories that fall below it,” and estimated that “on
average about forty percent of the human mind consists of data, thirty percent
information, twenty percent knowledge, ten percent understanding, and virtually no
wisdom” (Ackoff, 1989, 3). This phraseology allows us to view his model as a
pyramid, and indeed it has been likened to one ever since (Rowley, 2007; see figure 1).
(‘Understanding’ is omitted, since subsequent formulations have not picked up on it.)
Ackoff was a management consultant and former professor of management science
at the Wharton School specializing in operations research and organizational theory.
His article formulating what is now commonly called the Data-Information-
Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy (or DIKW for short) was first given in 1988 as a
presidential address to the International Society for General Systems Research. This
background may help explain his approach. Data in his terms are the product of
observations, and are of no value until they are processed into a usable form to become
information. Information is contained in answers to questions. Knowledge, the next
layer, further refines information by making “possible the transformation of
information into instructions. It makes control of a system possible” (Ackoff, 1989, 4),
and that enables one to make it work efficiently. A managerial rather than scholarly
perspective runs through Ackoff’s entire hierarchy, so that “understanding” for him

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connotes an ability to assess and correct for errors, while “wisdom” means an ability to
see the long-term consequences of any act and evaluate them relative to the ideal of
total control (omnicompetence). While a scholarly perspective on this hierarchy might
prioritize the processes of inquiry and discovery, Ackoff does not account for them.
But his concept of omnicompetence, which refers to “the ability to satisfy any and
every desire” (Ackoff, 1989, 8), does encompass the satisfaction of user-defined needs.

Figure 1. The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy as a pyramid

In creating his hierarchy, Ackoff focused only on specific modes of data,

information, knowledge, and wisdom, and neglected important distinctions observed by
information scientists such as Buckland (1991), Machlup (1980), and Soergel (1985).
Clearly his model was directed primarily to the management of organizations and only
incidentally, if at all, to bibliographic materials and collections. But the notion of
interconnecting these phenomena as processes leading from raw data to wisdom
through filtration, reduction, and refinement created a powerful image of great value in
library and information science instruction and reflection for further research, shedding
light on the very nature of knowledge. In designing and managing systems to organize
information resources for retrieval we would like to know how data are transformed
into more complex phenomena. The hierarchy can also be used in reverse to see how an
example of wisdom was derived from phenomena at a lower level. With managerial
astuteness, Ackoff understood progression through the hierarchy to proceed on the
basis of increasing control. Crucially, Ackoff did not end his schema with knowledge
but went further to tie the entire system together with wisdom, an ideal state, at the
pinnacle.
Despite objections that the model glosses over the various different kinds of data,
information, knowledge, and wisdom, this hierarchical and pyramidal model captures
certain insights useful not only to personnel and organizational management but to the
organization of library resources. By providing a model of the ontology and structure
of knowledge it has become canonical to the field of knowledge organization.
As a case study of how the DIKW hierarchy can shed light on problems in
knowledge organization, I want to use it as background and starting point for reflecting

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on the opposite of knowledge. Looking at the way DIKW decomposes a sequence of
levels surrounding knowledge invites us to wonder if an analogous sequence of stages
surrounds ignorance, and where associated phenomena like credulity and
misinformation fit. These concepts need to be understood in the context of knowledge
organization. Besides psychological and sociological aspects, we would want to know
how the opposite of knowledge coheres conceptually, whether it constitutes a domain,
and how it is organized and positioned in knowledge organization systems.
Why would we want to know what the opposite of knowledge is? Ignorance,
misinformation, stupidity, and so forth do have discourses about them and it would be
useful to discover their underlying interrelations. They are also a part of culture.
Popular arts such as film and literature, as well as traditional folklore, all engage with
ignorance, stupidity, and error. Furthermore, a theory of the opposite of knowledge in
bibliography tests the boundaries of our concepts about knowledge. An investigation
toward such a theory asks, in effect, what, if anything, resides outside the universe of
documentary knowledge, how would we describe it, how would be gain access to it,
how should we organize it in libraries, and how, if at all, should it be identified to
distinguish it from valid knowledge.
To identify the negative counterparts to the terms in the Data-Information-
Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy we might start by simply finding common antonyms for
each term. This produces the following results:

Data Absence or want of data; missing data

Information Misinformation; disinformation; error
Knowledge Ignorance
Wisdom Folly; stupidity

Notice there is no single term for the opposite of data. Nevertheless, the idea of a
want of data or a gap in data does cohere as a comprehensible concept, and could be a
topic of writing. Frické (2009), for one, argues that for data to be data they must be
true, and that mistaken data are not data at all. This suggests that the notion of an
opposite of data is a logical possibility.
For ‘information’ we find several different opposites. An error is a mistake made
inadvertently or in ignorance, while misinformation is wrong information or a false
account of intelligence received, and disinformation is the deliberate dissemination of
false information with the intention of influencing the opinions and even policies of
those receiving it. These concepts suggest a continuum from error to disinformation
based on one’s state of awareness, volition, and culpability.
Unlike the other terms in this schema, ‘knowledge’ has an obvious single opposite,
namely ‘ignorance.’ But knowledge itself is highly slippery concept, since it is
culturally and linguistically relative and can be made obsolete. Just as there are many
kinds of knowledge, there may be many kinds of ignorance.
‘Wisdom’ yields two antonyms in the English language, ‘stupidity’ and ‘folly’.
Although the terms do not completely overlap in meaning, they do seem on initial
examination to be interchangeable in some senses, except that ‘stupidity’ connotes lack
of intelligence, or mental capacity, as well as lack (and indeed the inverse) of wisdom.
Although most psychologists and other writers have long taken care to distinguish

70
stupidity from mental disability, the actual meaning of stupidity is not sharply defined
in relation to folly. Ackoff himself (1989, 5) took into account the critical role of
intelligence in knowledge systems when he defined it as “the ability to acquire
knowledge on one’s own.”
Emerging from the above analysis is a separation of error and folly, with folly being
a more entrenched form of compounded errors, just as wisdom involves the synthesis
or compounding of knowledge. But ultimately I reject my own hypothesis that the
opposites of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom form a series mirroring DIKW.
Errors can ensue even with the presence of accurate data or information, through
misinterpretation or unsound reasoning, and misinformation and disinformation
proceed not from a want of data but from distorting or incorrectly communicating
information or knowledge, including information and knowledge that is correctly
understood at the source. These hazards, and probably others, can intervene at different
points in the development from data towards wisdom.
Nevertheless, the various phenomena I have identified as contrary to knowledge do
seem to cohere as some kind of category. At this point I want to use the word
nonknowledge, literally meaning “want of knowledge,” and extend it to cover this
entire spectrum from absence of data to stupidity and beyond. Given that knowledge is
understood through DIKW to be connected in a system of interconnected and verbally
identified phases representing different levels of complexity, synthesis, and refinement,
there is a need for a concept that unites all the negative counterparts to these processes
and phenomena. Just as DIKW does not only posit a hierarchy but explores the
relations between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, I would like to examine
relations between phenomena on the negative side.
As might be expected, the literatures on error, stupidity, folly, misconceptions, and
ignorance are disconnected. Some of these subjects appear to have undergone minor
reawakened interest. At least three serious books on stupidity have appeared in English
since the year 2000: The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity by Matthijs van Boxsel (2003),
Stupidity by Avital Ronell (2002), and Why Smart People can be so Stupid, edited by
Robert J. Sternberg (2002). As indicated in the title of the latter book, the recent
literature distinguishes stupidity from low I.Q. This distinction was blurred in some
writings on the subject up until the 1950s. Even so, the exact meaning of stupidity is
sometimes unclear, since various authors think it is something outside the boundaries
of discourse and inquiry. Boxsel, in his Encyclopaedia of Stupidity (2003, 29), says that
“Stupidity is unfathomable; it can only be defined negatively, by contrast with another
quality or as a deficit.” This view, first expressed by the Austrian novelist Robert Musil
(1990) in a 1937 lecture, sums up the paradox or riddle of conceptualizing stupidity.
People point out what is stupid in others, but even when it is recognized in oneself, the
stupidity of an action or phenomenon is only noticed in hindsight, and it does not seem
to be a coherent quality in its own right. James F. Welles, author of the important but
little-known and apparently self-published Understanding Stupidity (1986), suggests
there is a taboo on examining stupidity, which he believes has shaped history far more
than has knowledge or wisdom.
Despite or perhaps because of the sense of imponderability and indefinableness
expressed about stupidity, it is clear that attention to it has increased in recent years.
The analysis of stupidity is slowly coming into focus as an intellectually coherent and

71
legitimate subject matter, even though it is still in its formative stage. Similarly, a new
book called The Virtues of Ignorance, edited by Vitek and Jackson (2008), calls for a
reappraisal of our culture’s knowledge-based worldview inspired by the enlightenment
and a shift to a worldview that enables us to admit our almost total ignorance as a
species. Postmodern theory, which posits that knowledge and rationality are coercive
and hegemonic practices, helps open up a space for such subversive analyses.
But while some of the recent literature on stupidity might have been sparked or
flavored by postmodern epistemologies, Welles’s book, Understanding Stupidity,
which is not cited by any other author, does not fit this description. Welles, whose
academic background is in zoology, is alone in examining stupidity in and of itself
rather than from the perspective of any individual discipline. He defines stupidity in
terms of maladaptive responses to change. In stupidity the response to changing
conditions is either insufficient, due most likely to self-deception and the tendency to
stick to known ways of thought behavior, or an overly drastic and radical response that
is not informed by data. The failure to recognize change that requires response arises
from the tendency to insulate oneself from information about changes, which could
help one devise an appropriate adaptive response. This analysis in terms of assessing
information and using it to make an appropriate response and the ability to detect errors
fits neatly with Ackoff’s (1989) view of knowledge as the means to control a situation
for a desirable outcome. The difference between stupidity and ignorance, for Welles,
lies in the adaptiveness or functionality of not heeding available information. In
ignorance, unlike stupidity, a socially and psychologically adaptive mechanism is at
work blocking the unwanted information from penetrating the cognitive system. Only
in stupidity does the failure to absorb and process information work against one’s best
interest.
Smithson (1989), who focuses on ignorance, makes a similar point without
mentioning stupidity by positing “irrelevance” as one of the two categories of
ignorance, along with error. Irrelevance means deciding that something is irrelevant
based on untopicality, undecidability, or taboo. Disregarding information due to
untopicality would be in Welles’s terms an adaptive filtering mechanism, whereas the
shunning of information as taboo may well be maladaptive, in which case it would lead
to stupidity.
Folly has been mentioned along with stupidity as an antonym of wisdom. A quasi-
religious concept of the fool, portrayed as court-jesters and merry-makers, came to the
fore in medieval Europe and was canonized as a theme in literature first in Sebastian
Brant’s 1494 Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant and then in 1511 by Desiderius Erasmus
in The Praise of Folly. Despite the unserious depiction of fools, folly was identified as
moral failure. This attribute helps us define it as a species of nonknowledge, since
Ackoff specifically mentions morality as a key component in the development of
knowledge toward a condition of wisdom.
The word ‘folly’ also has the modern connotations of fallacies and
misunderstandings resulting in devastation and calamity. This sense of folly as “policy
contrary to self-interest” is expounded upon by Barbara Tuchman in The March of
Folly: from Troy to Vietnam (1984). A policy or decision may seem correct or sensible
when it is made, and it only becomes apparent later, after the damage is done, that the
decision or policy was misguided. Folly in this sense follows from errors. In Deadly

72
Decisions, Christopher Burns (2008) looks at the background of the sinking of the
Titanic, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and other disasters, finding that
in all cases warnings were ignored, system safeguards designed to alert operators about
a crisis blocked or disguised real data, communication systems broke down, and blame
and even error were denied and covered up by all parties. The literature on folly in this
sense is cataloged with the Library of Congress Subject Heading ‘Error’ rather than
‘Folly’, but it can be seen that folly proceeds from error and exacerbates it. The titles of
other recent books also reveal this concept of folly, even though they are not assigned
‘Folly’ as a subject heading: Profiles in Folly: History’s Worst Decisions and Why they
Went Wrong by Alan Axelrod (2008) and How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and
Great Military Blunders by Bill Fawcett (2006). The study of error or folly in this sense
would apply to ongoing crises such as global warming and the subprime mortgage
debacle.
A related species of nonknowledge is popular misconceptions arising from
credulity. A classic in the field is Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions
and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841 and widely reprinted. The subject
has been taken up most recently by Damian Thompson in Counterknowledge (2008),
which covers creation science, alternative medicine, get rich quick schemes, alternative
histories as evidenced in Afro-centric textbooks, and web sites promulgating
conspiracy theories about the September 11 terrorist attacks. In many instances,
counterknowledge begins with errors, but there is often awareness of untruthfulness if
not outright deceptive intent in the dissemination of misinformation. Thompson
identifies an entire “counterknowledge industry,” which includes authors and
publishers, who value profits over other concerns. Nor can booksellers be counted on to
distinguish science from pseudoscience, or history from pseudo-history. The products
of the counterknowledge industry produces make their way into libraries, where
materials are selected according to how they meet the community’s needs. As library
materials, they must be cataloged according to their subject. Now counterknowledge
can serve useful purposes in a library collection, but it can also spawn further
misinformation and error. Therefore, the treatment of counterknowledge, or
nonknowledge, in libraries and information services raises important problems and
responsibilities (see Swan & Peattie 1989).
Indeed, it is important to distinguish between the various areas of nonknowledge as
a subject treated by writers from various disciplines and angles (history, psychology,
etc.) and nonknowledge as content. The clearest examples of nonknowledge as the
content rather than subject matter of documents are fraud (including forgery) and
propaganda. Fraud is a deliberate as opposed to inadvertent misrepresentation resulting
in false conclusions conveyed by fabricating and distorting evidence. A claim of
encountering the Loch Ness monster may honestly represent a person’s subjective
experience or it may be a fantasy or tall tale, but creating or planting false evidence to
back up such a claim is fraud. Propaganda is the technique of influencing human
action by the manipulation of representations to evoke a certain response. Recalling
Ackoff’s point about knowledge being for control, it may be noted here that
propaganda is created with the intent of controlling the reader either in beliefs or
emotions, so that the consumer of propaganda is the one being controlled! Both fraud
and propaganda involve deliberate deception by disguising falsehoods as facts with the

73
purpose of tricking readers. As such, neither fraud nor propaganda is ever self-
identified as such. As with errors, stupidity, and folly, it remains for the information
consumer to discover them.
To review, we have identified several categories of nonknowledge standing as
counterpoints to data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Although we can conceive
of an antithesis to each term in the DIKW hierarchy, the opposites of data, information,
knowledge, and wisdom do not form a pyramid. It is not the case that the opposite of
data leads to the opposite of information, etc. But there is no real reason to expect such
a sequence. The purpose of the exercise is to develop a comprehensive concept of
nonknowledge that can then be broken down into phases or facets that interconnect.
Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom provide terms that help us generate a
classification of nonknowledge. We can also see different levels of intensity and
consequentiality in nonknowledge. Clearly, folly is the aggravated outcome of certain
kinds of errors. Popular misconceptions also proceed from errors in thought along with
gullibility and deception. Meanwhile, stupidity has been identified as a maladaptive
variety of ignorance.
To conclude, the hierarchical way of thinking about the relations between data,
information, knowledge, and wisdom spawned by Ackoff’s DIKW hierarchy can serve
as an intriguing framework for considering the opposite of knowledge as a spectrum,
and this lets us circumscribe a domain we can call nonknowledge, which posits
opposites of each of the terms in the DIKW hierarchy. Investigation into the areas of
stupidity, folly, errors, misinformation, and data gaps finds important connections
between these areas, though not a perfect mirror of DIKW. Then again, it is wrong to
assume that the DIKW model accurately reflects the stages of the development of
knowledge, and the hierarchy itself seems due for a fresh reappraisal if not necessarily
banishment from the canon of information science, as Martin Frické (2009) advocates.
Even though nonknowledge cannot be decomposed into a strictly ranked order of levels
it is still possible for us to discern a hierarchy from simple to complex, entrenched, and
aggravated modes of nonknowledge. Nonknowledge is part of the world we live in, and
it presents special challenges in knowledge organization, particularly in differentiating
nonknowledge as a topic and as a form. Finally, by revealing these interconnections,
we see the potential for nonknowledge studies to further examine problems within the
compass of nonknowledge.

References
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Boxsel, Matthijs van (2003). The encylopaedia of stupidity, trans. Arnold and Erica
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Burns, Christopher (2008). Deadly decisions: How false Knowledge sank the Titanic,
blew up the shuttle and led America into war. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Frické, Martin. (2009). The knowledge pyramid: A critique of the DIKW hierarchy.
Journal of Information Science 35: 131-142.

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 Machlup, Fritz (1980). Knowledge and knowledge production. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
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