The study of human knowledge is as old as human history itself. It has been a central subject matter of philosophy and epistemology since the Greek period. Knowledge has also begun to gain a new wave of attention in recent years in relation  to the importance of knowledge as management resource and power.

But knowledge is fundamentally different from information: the difference is that between knowing a thing versus simply having information about it. And if, as one writer claims, “knowledge management covers three main knowledge activities: generation, codification, and transfer”, then topic maps can be regarded as the standard for codification that is the necessary prerequisite for the development of tools that assist in the generation and transfer of knowledge.

Human knowledge systems are classified into two kinds: formal scientific knowledge (SK) system and traditional knowledge (TK) system. The main difference of these two kinds of knowledge systems is their format. The SK system is essentially in explicit format – can be articulated in formal language including grammatical statements, mathematical expressions, specifications, manuals, and so forth. This kind of knowledge thus can be transmitted across individuals formally and easily. This has been the dominant mode of knowledge according to the (Western) scientific philosophy. However, the format of TK system is mostly tacit – hard to articulate with formal language. This knowledge is embedded in the experiences of indigenous or local people and involves intangible factors, including their beliefs, perspectives, and value systems.

Differences between these knowledge systems can be discerned. The most important of these are related to how indigenous or scientific knowledge is acquired (lived experience versus formal training), and how that knowledge is used on a day-to-day basis (local versus non-local applications). In both the North and the South, indigenous knowledge is increasingly regarded as a precious resource. However, that knowledge needs to be formalised, since it is essentially of a fragmentary and provisional nature. It is in this formalisation phase that problems with respect to the application of indigenous knowledge are most likely to arise. This type of knowledge is still not as well known as the coded and circulated objective language and the printed products of scientific discourse.

Inherent in the classification and categorisation of traditional knowledge is the notion that Western knowledge traditions are scientific while non-Western traditions are unscientific and no longer valid.

The idea that modern reductionist science is a description of objective reality, unprejudiced by value judgements, is being rejected increasingly on historical and philosophical grounds. It has been historically established that all knowledge, including modern scientific knowledge, is built on the use of many methodologies, and reductionism itself is only one of the scientific options available.

There is no 'scientific method'; there is no single procedure, or set of rules that underlies every piece of research and guarantees that it is scientific and, therefore, trustworthy. Scientists revise their standards, their procedures, their criteria of rationality as they move along and enter new domains of research just as they revise and perhaps entirely replace their theories and their instruments as they move along and enter new domains of research .

The emergent biological theories of complexity, dissipative structures and self-organisation have more in common philosophically with traditional systems of knowledge than with Cartesian science.