Thank you, Hannah Scollen, for a great question – this was fun to think about!
The most important part of this question, the part that would most likely lead to an answer, the useful part (see what I did there?), is the relationship between utility and applicability. So, let’s have a look at that first, and then see what happens when we plug knowledge into it.
When we use something, we are employing it as a sort of tool to achieve some sort of goal; I’m using a keyboard right now to type this Opinion, for example. My choice of the keyboard as the appropriate tool to use for this task relied heavily on the relevance of the keyboard’s function to my desired goal. While I could well have used a pen and notepad to write my answer, those tools are not as relevant; they don’t apply to the digital format of our discussion. Since the pen and paper don’t apply to this particular goal, they aren’t in any deep way useful to me in my pursuit. So, for things to be useful, they must be applicable. The reverse is also true. Applicability is only revealed in our examination for utility; in other words, I’m only interested in whether something is applicable if I intend to use it for something. This is a conclusion I doubt will change when we consider knowledge.
I was going to launch into a discussion about the nature of knowledge, but I think that for our purposes it would be irrelevant (I did it again!). So, here is the short answer: no, knowledge is not useful if it isn’t applicable. But what I suspect you are really asking, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is this: Is impractical knowledge useful? Or, better yet, is such knowledge worth having? I suspect this because your question appeared on a philosophy forum; and, as someone who studies philosophy, I’ve had to ask this question of relevance for years.
I would define practical knowledge as something that is generally applicable in day-to-day life. This concept is usually employed when questioning the relevance of philosophical knowledge to that be-all-end-all goal of financial success. The good news for philosophy majors, however, is that knowledge of any type can always be relevant to something, even if it seems absurdly irrelevant. Let’s say I know that Plato liked to wear his left sandal on his right foot and his right sandal on his left foot. I know this because I have seen him do it many times. This knowledge may be irrelevant, and thus useless, on a daily basis (i.e. at the grocery store or in 99.99% of job interviews). But if someone is looking to create the most accurate likeness of Plato possible, this knowledge is not only relevant and useful but also quite worth having. (Note that I have no idea how Plato wore his sandals.)
I feel that we can draw a 3-part conclusion from this discussion: (1) a particular piece of knowledge that is not applicable in a certain case is not useful in that case; (2) from the example about Plato’s sandals, we can suggest that there is always at least one case to which any piece of knowledge is applicable; and (3) since there is always at least one case to which a piece of knowledge is applicable, a piece of knowledge is always useful in at least one case. It can therefore be argued that it is always worth having any knowledge in your back pocket.
Here’s something you can take with you on an evening walk, and, if you do, let me know what you come up with: Is practical knowledge, that is, knowledge that is generally applicable in day-to-day activity, what we usually call ‘wisdom’?
What do you think? Is knowledge only worth having if it is useful? Let us know in the comments.
And, as always, if you have a question for the Armchair Philosophers, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You could send us a message or fill in this form.
Image credit: The Attributes of the Sciences, by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin (1731)
I received a BA in philosophy from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008. After that, I spent roughly a decade traveling Europe and North America as a touring musician. Now I am working on a master’s in philosophy and philology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden with the goal of teaching at the university level. Some specific areas of interest include medieval grammar and free will. Michel Foucault’s approach to the history of philosophy has been a huge influence on me, and his work on notions of the self and power structures bring history to the present.