metaknowledge

Metaknowledge or meta-knowledge is knowledge about knowledge.

Some authors divide meta-knowledge into orders: zero order meta-knowledge is knowledge whose domain is not knowledge (and hence zero order meta-knowledge is not meta-knowledge per se) first order meta-knowledge is knowledge whose domain is zero order meta-knowledge second order meta-knowledge is knowledge whose domain is first order meta-knowledge most generally, n + 1 order meta-knowledge is knowledge whose domain is n order meta-knowledge. Other authors call zero order meta-knowledge first order knowledge, and call first order meta-knowledge second order knowledge; meta-knowledge is also known as higher order knowledge.