Much of what is considered
knowledge is inscribed in written text and is the result of communal processes of production, sharing, and evaluation among social groups and institutions bound together with the aim of producing and disseminating knowledge-bearing texts; the contemporary world identifies such social groups as disciplines and their products as disciplinary literatures. The invention of writing facilitated the sharing, comparing, criticizing, and evaluating of texts, resulting in knowledge becoming a more communal property across wider geographic and temporal domains.
Religious texts formed the common knowledge of scriptural religions, and knowledge of those sacred scriptures became the focus of institutions of religious belief, interpretation, and schooling. Scholars have disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature, but the oldest surviving literary texts date from a full millennium after the invention of writing. The earliest literary author known by name is
Enheduanna, who is credited as the author of a number of works of Sumerian literature, including
Exaltation of Inanna, in the
Sumerian language during the 24th century BC. The next earliest named author is
Ptahhotep, who is credited with authoring
The Maxims of Ptahhotep, an instructional book for young men in
Old Egyptian composed in the 23rd century BC. The
Epic of Gilgamesh is an early-2nd-millennium BC work of
Akkadian epic poetry, which originally possibly served in some form to glorify a historical
Gilgamesh who may have existed as a king in Sumer, recounting his natural and supernatural accomplishments. The identification of sacred
religious texts codified distinct belief systems, and became the basis of the modern concept of religion. The reproduction and spread of these texts became associated with these scriptural religions and their spread, and thus were central to proselytizing. Their status created expectations that believers either read or otherwise respect their contents; priests charged with reading, interpretation and application of texts were especially vital in societies prior to the advent of mass literacy.
Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and Mesoamerica In Mesopotamia and Egypt, scribes became important for roles beyond the initiating roles in the economy, governance and law. They became the producers and stewards of astronomy and calendars, divination, and literary culture. Schools developed in tablet houses, which also archived repositories of knowledge. In ancient India, the Brahman caste became stewards of texts that aggregated and codified oral knowledge. Those texts then became the authoritative basis for a continuing tradition of oral education. A case in point is the work of
Pāṇini, a linguist who analysed and codified knowledge of
Sanskrit syntax, prosody, and grammar. Mathematics, astronomy, and medicine were also subjects of classic Indian learning and were codified in classic texts. Less is known about Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican learning because of the destruction of texts by the
conquistadors, but it is known that scribes were revered, elite children attended schools, and the study of astronomy, map making, historical chronicles, and genealogy flourished.
China In China, the
Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) that unified the country wielded state power to marginalize the competing
Confucian tradition. By contrast, the succeeding
Han dynasty (202 BC220 AD) made
philological knowledge the qualification for those in the government bureaucracy, so as to restore knowledge seen to be in danger of vanishing. A meritocratic
imperial examination system was established to staff the civil service, and comprised a written exam based in large part around knowledge of the
Confucian classics. To support students preparing for the imperial examinations, schools were established for studying the classics and the knowledge built up in the philological tradition surrounding them. These texts covered philosophical, religious, legal, astronomical, hydrological, mathematical, military, and medical knowledge.
Printing, as it emerged, largely served the knowledge needs of the bureaucracy and the monasteries, with substantial vernacular printing only emerging around the 15th century.
Classical Greece and Rome Although
Socrates () argued that writing was an inferior means of transmission of learning (recounted in the
Phaedrus), his dialogues were preserved as written works authored by
Plato. Havelock also connects the philosophical work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle with literacy, as it enabled the development of critical thinking via the analysis of permanent texts written both by the author and their peers.
Aristotle wrote treatises and lectures which were the core of education at the
Lyceum, along with the may volumes collected in the Lyceum's library. The
Stoics and
Epicureans also wrote and taught during the same period in Athens, although their works survive only in fragments. Greek writers were the founders of many other fields of knowledge.
Herodotus and
Thucydides, who wrote in 5th-century BC Athens, are considered founders of the Western historiographical tradition, incorporating genealogy and mythic accounts into systematic investigations of events. Thucydides developed a more critical, neutral history through greater examination of documents, transcription of speeches, and interviews. During the same period,
Hippocrates authored several works codifying what was known within the field of
medicine. The works of
Galen, a Greek physician living in Rome during the 2nd century AD, were important in European medical practice through the Renaissance. Hellenized writers in Egypt also produced compendia of knowledge using the resources of the
Library of Alexandria, such as ''
Euclid's Elements'', which remains a standard reference work in geometry.
Ptolemy's
Almagest, an astronomy treatise, was used throughout the Middle Ages. Roman scholars continued the practice of writing compendia of knowledge, including
Varro,
Pliny the Elder, and
Strabo. While much of Roman accomplishment was in material culture of construction,
Vitruvius documented much of the contemporary practice to influence design until today. Agriculture also became an important area for manuals, such as
Palladius's compendium. Numerous manuals of rhetoric and rhetorical education that were to influence future generations also appeared, such as the anonymous '''',
Cicero's '''' and
Quintilian's ''''.
Islamic world Following the
fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, the Middle East became the crossroads for learning, with knowledge bearing texts from the West and East meeting in Constantinople,
Damascus, and then Baghdad. The
House of Wisdom founded during the
Islamic Golden Age in Baghdad featured a large library where Greek works of medicine, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy were translated into Arabic, along with Indian works on mathematics and therapeutics. To these texts, philosophers such as
al-Kindi and
Avicenna and astronomers such as
al-Farghani made new contributions.
Al-Khwarizmi authored the first work on algebra, drawing on both Greek and Indian resources. The centrality of the
Quran within Islam also led to growth of
Arabic linguistics. From Baghdad, knowledge and texts were to flow back to South Asia and down through Africa, with a large collection of books and an educational centre around the
Sankoré Madrasah in
Timbuktu, the seat of the
Songhai Empire. During this period the deposed Abbasid Caliphate moved its seat of power and learning to
Córdoba, now in Spain, where they founded a major library which reintroduced many of the classic texts back into Europe along with texts of Arab learning.
Medieval and early modern Europe European manuscript culture From the fall of Rome until the 11th century, the maintenance of manuscript culture in Western Europeand intellectual life at-largelargely became the domain and responsibility of the Christian church. As one of their duties in the monastery, monks copied manuscriptssometimes in dedicated rooms for writing known as
scriptoria (
scriptorium).
Early European universities The reintroduction of classical texts into Europe through the library and intercultural intellectual culture in Córdoba, including the classical Greek canon, as well as Arabic texts by Avicenna and al-Khwarizmi, created a need for interpretation and scholarship to make those works more accessible to scholars in monasteries and urban centres. During the 12th century, universities emerged from clusters of scholars in Italy at
Bologna, in Spain at
Salamanca, in France at
Paris and in England at
Oxford. By 1500, there were at least 60 universities throughout Europe enrolling at least 750,000 students. Each of the four facultiesliberal arts,
theology, law, and medicinewas oriented around transmission of and commentary on classical texts, rather than the production of new knowledge. This form of
scholastic education continued well into the 17th century in some locations and disciplines.
European print culture The invention of the moveable type
printing press by
Johannes Gutenberg created new opportunities in Europe for the production and widespread distribution of books, fostered much new writing, and had particular consequences for the development of knowledge, as documented by
Elizabeth Eisenstein. The production and distribution of knowledge was no longer tied to monasteries or universities with their libraries and collections of scribal copies. Over the ensuing centuries, no single authority in a politically and religiously divided Europe was able to censor or control the production of books. While universities remained dedicated to the dissemination of traditional texts, publishing houses became the new centres of knowledge production. With presses located in different jurisdictions leading to a greater diversity of ideas becoming available, and printed books able to move across borders, scholars came to see themselves as citizens of the
Republic of Letters. The comparison of multiple editions of traditional texts led to improved textual scholarship. The ability to share and compare results from many regions and enlist more people into the production of science soon led to the development of early modern science. Books of medicine began to incorporate observations from contemporary surgery and dissections, including printed plates providing illustrations, to improve knowledge of anatomy. With many copies of traditional books and new books appearing, debates arose over the value of each in what became known as the "battle of the books". Maps and discoveries of exploration and colonization also were recorded in books and governmental records, often with the purpose of economic exploitation as in the
General Archive of the Indies in Seville but also to satisfy curiosity about the world. Printing also made possible the invention and development of scientific journals, with the appearing in France and the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in England, both in 1665. Over the years, these journals proliferated and became the basis of disciplines and disciplinary literature. Genres reporting experiments and other scientific observations and theories developed over the ensuing centuries to produce modern practices of disciplinary publication with the extensive
intertexts which represent the collective pursuits of disciplinary knowledge. The availability of scientific and disciplinary books and journals also facilitated the development of modern practices of scientific reference and
citation. These developments from the impact of printing on the growth of knowledge contributed to the
Scientific Revolution,
science in the Renaissance and during the
Enlightenment.
Modern academia In the 18th century, dissident Scottish and English universities began offering practical instruction in rhetoric and writing to enable non-elite students to influence contemporary events. Only in the 19th century did the universities in some countries begin making place for the writing of new knowledge, turning them in the ensuing years from primarily disseminating knowledge through the reading of classical texts to becoming institutions devoted to both reading and writing. The creation of research seminars and the associated seminar papers in history and philology in German universities were a significant starting point for the reform of the university. Professorships in philology, history, economy, theology, psychology, sociology, mathematics and the sciences were to emerge over the century, and the German model of disciplinary research university was to influence the organization of universities in England and the United States, with another model developing in France. Both emphasized production of new knowledge by faculty and acquisition thereof by students. In elite British universities, writing instruction was supported by the
tutorial system with weekly writing by students for their tutors, while in the
United States regular courses in writing were often required starting in the late 19th century, with
writing across the curriculum becoming an increasing focus, particularly towards the end of the 20th century. ==Psychological implications==