Rhetorical DIKW

Patrick Love

Rhetorical DIKW Pyramid

Reframing the DIKW pyramid around rhetoric prioritizes concern for change, mobility, and justice that reflects present and future justice and sustainability (Aristotle 2007, Edbauer 2005, Hinks 1940, Gries 2015). It also builds metalanguage for students entering DIKW driven fields, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) wherein these concepts are gateways to dealing with human (and humanities) issues. The DIKW pyramid exists, in part, to rationalize how machines can process human experiences, so metalingual ways to interact with these boundary terms benefits humanists while maintaining their disciplinary concerns (Kelleher and Tierney 2018). Furthermore, engaging with DIKW helps rhetoricians and compositionists re-engage with what ‘knowledge’ means to people with other concerns, whose knowledge-making experiences are shaped by the ecology of circulation platforms and technology (Gunkel 2009 pp. 63). Therefore, a rhetorical rendering of the DIKW pyramid would transform it from figure 2 to reflect the recursivity and futurity (connecting past, present and future) rhetorical inquiry requires, like in figure 7.

Figure 7: Full DIKW Pyramid in the style of Kithin’s from figure 2, with new verbs and descriptions that emphasize the ecological and rhetorical processes that connect the same levels (World up through Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom).

Figure 7 reiterates rhetorical relationships between each level, treating them as ecologically related (that is, affecting each other across time and location) rather than as a linear process foregrounding reduction. The productive trouble inherent in recognizing recursivity (Law 2004) reflects daily life’s messy interactions rather than assuming all knowledge-production is a clean, laboratory-driven process (similar to the shift from rhetorical situations to rhetorical ecologies Edbauer (2005) argues for). This pyramid employs more verbs to emphasize the plastic and movement-oriented nature of rhetorical inquiry while resisting docilely practicing it. Circulation deals practically with the way experience-sharing is revolutionized in the 21st century, but it also provides precedence for understanding the recursivity involved in knowledge labor on which we should maintain a firm grip.

Information Theory avoids assuming that humans set out to make purposeful wisdom, implying it is always emergent and collective, so a machine can accomplish the same labor apolitically. The logic at work implies humanity has innocently (maybe luckily) produced the world’s current state because it is the best possible, or that our traditions and laws result from a higher wisdom we are pragmatically realizing. Both visions imply conservative bias. Intersectionally and ecologically, a great deal of suffering is perceptible in everyday life, and Rhetorical DIKW emphasize the choices and labor necessary to make knowledge and present the skills students need to develop even if machines automate portions of the labor. Thinking about wisdom as a purposeful and lasting product also highlights that we can choose to repair injustice and ecological damage (or not). What’s left to explore is what GenAI can contribute to these projects and fit into this rhetorical pedagogy.