Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

Information-Knowledge and Action-Knowledge

by

*Israel M. Kirzner* was born in London, UK in 1930, spending the years 1940-48 in Cape Town, South Africa. Graduating from Brooklyn College, NY in 1954, he went on to complete his Ph.D. in economics at New York University, after which he joined the facult

Abstract

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE, as these words are commonly used, is fairly clear and quite important. We wish to point out, however, that the importance of this distinction becomes very substantially greater when we understand it as pointing to a different distinction—that between two levels of knowledge itself. The purpose of this note is to develop this insight and remark on whether modern economics accommodates these matters.