The Classic Greeks

Plural universals began c. 440 B.C. Universals became perceptual.

We can find the start of the plural parts of the periods by again looking for revolutions. In Greece the universals entity shifted from singular to plural about 440 B.C. The Parthenon, begun in 448 and completed in 432, was not only the greatest Greek monument, but it was profoundly different from any temple built before it. Its columns were no longer perfect cylinders nor equidistant apart; its forms were all designed for perceptual rather than mathematical ideals. Socrates sought truths internally. He taught his followers to look inside of themselves by assiduous questioning of assumptions and experiences rather than by constructing an external logical and mathematics-like system. Democratus invented atoms to explain both matter and its human perception and sensation. Thucydides cataloged real events, actions, and words to explain the Peloponnesian War. And Hippocrates searched for the sources of illness not from the gods but through the interactions of people.

The Enlightenment

Plural objects began with Newton and Locke. The Laws of Nature were interactions between bodies within.

In the objects period, the break was clear; it came in 1686 with the publication of Newton's Principia. For Newton the objects were the "particles of bodies."  

...for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that [mechanical principles] may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards one another, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from one another.
Issac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Preface to the First Edition, 1686

Gone was the central object that acted on other objects found in the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Descartes. Now all objects were qualitatively equal with their interactions as causes. Gravity was the interaction of minute bodies which caused them to coalesce into larger bodies and which pulled across space to move these collections - the planets - in their orbits. John Locke, Newton's contemporary, created a political vision of society as interacting people, fundamentally equal, and self-governing under the laws of nature. From the music of Bach, as the interaction of instruments and melodies, to the new novels of Henry Fielding with lovers and enemies bumping into and away from each other, the universe was mechanical, a giant clockwork filled with objects whose interactions were lawful forces that could be known.

The 20th Century

Plural Environments began with the onset of the 20th century. Environments became internal.

In the environments period, the beginning of the 20th century was marked by the revolutions of Freud, Einstein, Matisse, Wright, Pavlov, and Conrad. Their environments were plural - perceptual, realistic, internal and relative - environments known by interaction. In physics, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were developed around the problems of the measurement of physical environments, because the only way we can know them, is to measure them. In Special Relativity, Einstein in 1905 raised the principle of relativity to a postulate, that all observers must perceive the same fundamental laws of physics despite their "frame of reference." Heisenberg in his 1927 work on the "Uncertainty Principle" made the limit on the ability to measure the location and momentum of a particle the foundation for Quantum Mechanics. Ours is a perceptual world because we are within it. Our abstract arts depend upon our frame of reference. Our philosophies are realistic and practical. Our societies are pluralistic and egalitarian. And we exist within environments looking for the elements and the laws which are collective, which are shared by all things. We see ourselves as environments and as interacting with other environments.

The pattern follows "Western" tradition but applies to all cultures. 

The sequence repeats after 476 A.D., the fall of the Western Roman Empire, starting anew with Northern European tribes.

We have, of course, left out many historical times and many different cultures from this description of the patterns of the history of knowledge. The use of the symbol in both singular and plural periods by all tribes and feudal empires strongly suggests that these tools are common to all of human knowledge. For simplicity, I have mainly followed and will continue to follow the "Western" tradition from the Greeks on. In that tradition we can create a complete and continuous picture of the pattern of knowledge. I believe that other cultures show the same pattern, although their indigenous knowledge building generally did not traverse all of the phases seen in Western intellectual history.

The theory takes center stage.

We now have a broad scale pattern to the development of knowledge, a pattern to the history of knowledge. But these periods are very long and there is great variety to the kinds of knowledge produced during them. Is it possible that there is an order to the knowledge in each of these periods? Is it possible that this order is the same in all of the periods? Is it possible to use the same kinds of methods and similar tools to find it? The answer to all three questions is yes! There is a further and more refined pattern to the knowledge in each period and that pattern is common to all of the periods. The search for this pattern of phases of knowledge works much the same way as the search for the periods.  

But before we would plunge headlong into that search, there is a compelling question that also comes out of the pattern of broad scale periods. What comes next?  

And that question leads us off on an entirely different trail, for predictions require theories if they are to be anything more than educated guesses. We would thus have to build a theory of knowledge in order to predict the next element. And as we shall quickly find out, we will have to make good guesses about the next element in order to build a theory of knowledge.  

We have these two choices of paths to take, and both are valuable. But if we take the theory path then that theory should produce the pattern of these phases within the periods of knowledge and make it much easier to find them. This direction enables us to more quickly establish these ideas and use the patternmaking to help us to understand them. In a short work such as this one, this trail is perhaps a little more direct and easier to navigate. It is thus the one I will lead you on. If you are impatient to see the final form look at the Pattern of Knowledge.  

These two paths, one leading to a complete pattern of experience, the other leading to prediction and theory, are typical of the invention of knowledge. In every actual invention of knowledge these trails naturally intertwine, for one informs the other. But following both would be confusing and they would make it very difficult to both follow a logical argument and fill in the detailed pattern. Thus we will begin by looking for the prediction of the next period of knowledge, and follow this path to a theory of knowledge and once there begin to fill in the pattern.

It is based on a new element!

There is good reason to believe that we are near the end of a great period and that the next element is on the horizon. Plural environments has been going on for just short of 110 years, more than twice as long as singular environments. Furthermore, the past several decades have a great deal in common with those before 1859 and 1498. While the pace of new invention is rapid, few of these inventions are novel. Much like the waning years of both the objects and the universal periods, there is lots going on, but there have been no great new ideas. To be honest, knowledge building seems stale. We have seen no great new theories, no great new artistic visions, no fundamentally new ways of thinking, no breakthrough ideas in either the sciences or the arts. Incredibly, we even have scientists of the first rank who tell us that theory making is near the end, just as they did in the 1890's; that we simply have to fill in the blanks to understand all of nature.  

There is very good reason to believe that this Pattern of Knowledge is not based on environments. Nothing we have been investigating has suggested environments. Indeed, environments are only one of the elements. It would be surprising if the plural environments entity could actually explain itself. These elements of knowledge, symbols, universals, objects, environments, are archetypes and not atoms. They pervade knowledge during a given period because they shape it and not because they are the simple building blocks. They have the characteristics of singular periods and not plural ones. They are ideals, they are external, they are singular, they are central. There is something new going on here - very new! These ideas smell different from what we have been used to.

The pattern breaks down further into a series of consistent phases.

The descriptive path, delving further into the periods, does lead to a detailed pattern to the history or knowledge. Each half period, with either a singular or a plural entity is made up of six parts or phases that are common to all. The result is a Pattern of Knowledge that is well formed and that, I believe, fully defines the knowledges we invent. The other path enters uncharted territory and leads to the theory. I will take you down this latter path. It is shorter, allowing me to condense the descriptions of each phase and to give you a sense of both the pattern and the theory with less attention to the detail of the pattern. But it is the more difficult path, so I hope that you will make use of the Pattern of Knowledge chart to help you find your way. I also encourage you to try to order your own areas of expertise as you reconstruct this theory and pattern for yourself.