Michael Polanyi & Tacit Knowledge

We can know more than we can tell. Consider The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi’s philosophy of science argued that there is no scientific method that can be transmitted as a logical and rigorous method to be learned in textbooks (or philosophy books). Science is learned by the practice that is transmitted from master to apprentice, as in the guilds of medieval and early modern Europe. A crucial part of scientific knowledge that is learned is tacit in character, so that it cannot be spoken, but only demonstrated and imitated. The Tacit Knowledge and Intuition Website has one take on tacit knowledge. When Polanyi talks of tacit knowledge, he is more often referring to a subconscious process than a set of things we know or could know subconsciously. In his words, “Knowledge is an activity that would be better described as a process of knowing.” Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing. Karl Erik Sveiby also has an interesting page in Tacit Knowledge and provides you the opportunity to Test Your Tacit Knowledge. Tacit and implicit learning have in common the idea of not knowing what you do know or have learned. “Tacit knowledge” has been all but hi-jacked by management gurus, [Not to mention software architects, engineers, designers and theologians–y2karl] who use it to refer to the stock of expertise within an organisation which is not written down or even formally expressed, but may nevertheless be essential to its effective operation.”Tacit knowledge and Implicit learning provides yet another view. I don’t pretend to understand much of this and yet I feel the concept has merit–ah, as Wittgenstein observed, Of that of which we can not speak, we must be silent.