# What is the intellectual history of the 4Ps ways of knowing: propositional, procedural, participative and perspectival? **URL:** https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/t/what-is-the-intellectual-history-of-the-4ps-ways-of-knowing-propositional-procedural-participative-and-perspectival/311 **Category:** Research and Sense-Making **Created:** [April 22, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/t/what-is-the-intellectual-history-of-the-4ps-ways-of-knowing-propositional-procedural-participative-and-perspectival/311 "2025-04-22T18:52:05Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 11
### Author: ![Naeema](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/user_avatar/forum.secondrenaissance.net/naeema/32/226_2.png) [@Naeema](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/u/Naeema) #### Post date: [April 27, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/t/what-is-the-intellectual-history-of-the-4ps-ways-of-knowing-propositional-procedural-participative-and-perspectival/311/11 "2025-04-27T14:48:54Z")
After reviewing my notes on [the lectures](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ&si=kXiTYDu4sbWaAq9O), I was able to sum a sort of excerpt segments of the 4 kinds of knowing Vervaeke talks about, also this video sums it up pretty clear: [Why There Are Actually Four Ways You Can Know Something](https://youtu.be/seNq39DUP4I?si=I54vJ0FVwa49WbNh) ### **Procedural Knowing** (_ **knowing how to do something** _) > “ **Procedural knowing** is knowing _how_ to do something. It’s your skill knowledge. Knowing how to catch a ball. Knowing how to speak a language. Knowing how to play the piano.” > “Procedural knowing is knowledge that is expressed in skills, in abilities that you can perform.” ### **Perspectival Knowing** (_ **knowing from a situated perspective, salience landscape** _) > “ **Perspectival knowing** is how you are situationally, perspectivally connected to your environment. It’s your sense of presence, your salience landscaping, your sense of what’s standing out to you right now.” > “Perspectival knowing is knowing _what it’s like_ to be here now, from _this_ point of view, with _this_ field of affordances.” _(“Affordances” = opportunities for action that the environment offers you.)_ ### **Participatory Knowing** (_ **knowing by being, mutual shaping of agent and arena** _) > “ **Participatory knowing** is not something you have… it’s something you are. It’s how your identity is bound up with how the world is disclosed to you, and how you are disclosed to the world. You are _participating_ in the co-creation of the agent-arena relationship.” > “Participatory knowing is the kind of knowing that is grounded in your being. It’s not just about how you frame the world… it’s about how you are _fundamentally connected to it_.” ### **Propositional Knowing** (_ **knowing that something is the case — statements, facts** _) > “This is the kind of knowing most familiar to us. **Propositional knowing** is knowing _that_ something is the case. It’s captured in statements, assertions, descriptions.” > “Propositional knowing is knowledge in the form of truth claims… beliefs that can be true or false.” Exploring the roots of John Vervaeke’s 4Ps of knowing, propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory, reveals that while the first two are well-established in classical epistemology, the latter two open a deeper, embodied understanding of cognition! - **Propositional Knowing** : “knowing _that_” facts, logical truths. - **Procedural Knowing** : “knowing _how_” skills, practices. - **Perspectival Knowing** : “knowing _what it is like_” situated perception, context. (embodied and felt orientation) - **Participatory Knowing** : “knowing _through being_” co-shaping of self and world. (world-creating, distributed across systems) Insights from **[enactivism](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://cspeech.ucd.ie/Fred/docs/ChemeroEnaction2021.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjCjvKVrfiMAxWNgP0HHfQnD2EQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1-q5CeN5Zi-qdbrdhCUUof)** (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, _The Embodied Mind_), **[extended mind theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis)** (Clark & Chalmers, “The Extended Mind”), and **[process philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/)** (Whitehead, _Process and Reality_) suggest we can take this even further by adding a fifth dimension! Some sort of Dynamic Knowing\* (5th P maybe?!) Knowing through participation in the ongoing flow of transformation. In this view, knowing is no longer static or representational; it is living, felt, relational, and time-sensitive. The knower is not separate from the world but co-evolves with it, constantly attuning to the rhythms of becoming. This dynamic framework offers a richer epistemology for our age, one capable of responding to complexity, uncertainty, and the deep need for meaning. **Key Ideas:** - Reality is not made of objects, but of evolving events. - Knowing is inseparable from **timing, rhythm, adaptation**. - “Truth” is not just correspondence; it is **attunement to the evolving real**. **Center** = _You_ (the knower) Around you, dynamic flows connect: ![P5?! "Processual Knowing"?](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/uploads/db6903/original/1X/8750d3887db319dc85678df5e254c3f0bfeef01e.jpeg) The model is **not hierarchical**. It’s a **living system** sometimes you operate mainly propositionally, sometimes processually, depending on what life demands. This “5Ps” model points toward **a new epistemology** : - Rooted in **embodiment**. - Open to **altered states** and **multiple modes of being**. - Responsive to **complex, evolving systems** (ecological, social, technological). - Emphasizing **transformation and adaptation** , not just static truth. In a way, it’s **an epistemology for the meaning crisis** : It restores **being** , **feeling** , **doing** , and **transforming** to our sense of what it means to “know.” **Knowing is not just representing reality. It is participating in, perceiving from, practicing with, proposing about, and processing the real.** \*Please note that I am presenting the concept of dynamic knowing as preliminary reflections and in-process field notes from the frontier of emerging thought. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/t/what-is-the-intellectual-history-of-the-4ps-ways-of-knowing-propositional-procedural-participative-and-perspectival/311)._