What is relationship types knowledge?

Relationship types knowledge is a concept in personal epistemology: Relationships can be causal, temporal, sequential, hierarchical, associative, and more. Naming the type of a relationship determines what reasoning you can perform across it.

Example: You notice that your morning run improves your focus at work. But what type of relationship is this? If it is causal (running produces neurochemicals that enhance attention), then skipping the run will reduce your focus. If it is merely associative (both happen on days when you slept well), then forcing a run on a bad-sleep day will not help. If it is temporal (running works only when done before 8 AM), the timing matters more than the activity. The same two nodes — running and focus — connected by different relationship types produce entirely different predictions and decisions.

This concept is part of Phase 13 (Relationship Mapping) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for relationship mapping.