The Tacit Dimension

Polanyi offers an insightful examination of tacit knowledge, that which we "know but cannot say." He sets the study in the context of science and its pursuit of objective knowledge of the world through skepticism and methodological purification, but the arguments apply more broadly to other knowledge pursuits.

Through three lectures, Polanyi argues that the tacit dimension is a realm of knowing that we comprehend (or maybe intuit) but do not articulate. Nevertheless, what we comprehend tacitly guides our explicit, concrete practices of knowledge creation. It guides our selection of problems to attend to, our choice of techniques, and our moment-by-moment assessment of whether something is right or wrong. The more skilled we become in show more any kind of practice (whether riding a bicycle, driving, singing, or doing an experiment) the more likely we are to look through the particulars of our actions to the more distant intent that is guiding those actions. In doing so, we are looking into the realm of comprehension and knowing that encompasses and mediates the more particular areas of knowledge. Areas of knowledge creation that focus outward (e.g., psychology, sociology, literature, art) afford us some glimpse of what might motivate the particulars of our actions. This tacit realm is then the seat of knowledge production: it provides the exigence, the selection of problems, and the hunches and intuitions that drive the development of more specific questions or concrete attempts at forming knowledge that are the particulars of knowledge creation. We bring our specific knowledge practices into coordination with what we understand tacitly. Although (and this is me speaking) surely there must be times when our tacit understanding of a situation is just play wrong because we cannot form an accurate tacit comprehension of something. I am not sure how concrete knowledge practices that conflict with tacit comprehension work backwards to change our tacit sensibilities. Maybe that, too, is a function of art and literature.

For such a slender book, it puts up a fight. As clearly as Polanyi is able to describe something as ineffable as tacit knowledge, readers will need to give it a measure and half of attention. show less

This book contains, or at least it's based on, a series of lectures given by Polanyi in the 1960's. It's quite short and only gives a basic introduction to Polanyi's philosophy of science, so philosophers may just as well skip directly to his longer work Personal Knowledge which deals with the same questions in much more detail. Polanyi has a distinct writing style which seems to move in and out of focus. One point is brilliantly insightful, the next one might not seem to make any sense at all. But I still liked this short book and I recommend it as an introduction to his unique perspective on science.

Denne boken er et resultat av over 20 års arbeid fra en vitenskapsmann innen naturvitenskap, vitenskapsteori og filosofi.

Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi (1983)