This study explored tacit knowledge based on an expert nurse's practice who cares for stroke patients by using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The participant (‘Ms. A’) was a nursing researcher and college faculty member involved in the education of advanced practice nurses; her specialty was stroke rehabilitation nursing. She was asked to describe the meaning and value she gained from her memorable nursing experiences. Four interviews—approximately 1 h each—were conducted, and the associated data were interpreted together with the participant based (...) on the method of interpretive circulation. Notably, the analysis was ended when a fusion of horizons was recognized. The participant recalled her nursing experiences based on six model cases. During the analysis, the following five elements were extracted: [belief in the ability of vulnerable people to survive]; [being together]; [respect for human dignity]; [preparedness to respond to and bear suffering together]; and [theoretical knowledge base approaches true understanding of patient experience]. Further, the nursing model—the Roy Adaptation Model—utilized by Ms. A in the process of recognizing humans as whole beings was deeply interpreted and implemented as a guideline for her implicit advanced practice. Moreover, her deep understanding and utilization of theoretical knowledge base also built the foundation for her implicit advanced practice. In conclusion, Ms. A's tacit knowledge and the elements support the process of tacit knowledge acquisition. Her narratives, hermeneutic attitude as an interpreter, and learning attitude throughout interaction with others will strongly help her knowledge development. We intend to continue the study with multiple participants and explore the structure of tacit knowledge possessed by advanced practitioners. Future endeavours will include the development of a tacit knowledge learning strategy. (shrink)

This introduction to the papers on Tacitism presented at the Renaissance Society of America’s conference in Dublin in 2022, summarises some broader tendencies in the scholarship on Tacitism, and presents a provisional sketch of the contribution to that scholarship which the current Warsaw research group on Tacitism and its connected researchers are developing, as exemplified by the articles in this collection.

Some of the problems that Harry Collins has faced in his general framework for theorizing tacit and explicit knowledge are, I will argue, due to an inadequate formulation of the problem. It is this inadequacy that has led to pseudo-problems regarding the ‘tacit’ in general. What-is-more, the vehicle for his theory as objectified in ‘strings’ is symptomatic of the problem that his division of tacit and explicit faces. I will argue that the philosophy of Martin Heidegger will give us adequate (...) conceptual tools to re-think Collins’ general framework, to help us understand the origins of these problems, and possibly indicate a way to solve them. To which ends I suggest that either the tacit Collins has in mind is either not truly tacit or it is not tacit enough. (shrink)

This essay reflects upon certain aspects of Wittgenstein's own practices as a teacher. Doing philosophy always took priority for Wittgenstein, whether this was in oral or written form: it was important to show the deep puzzles in our language (and our culture and thinking) as a step toward dissolving them. In this respect, one can teach only as a guide; it is a matter of showing more than saying. Wittgenstein's approach suggests a model that I will call tacit teaching. Tacit (...) teaching refers to the many forms of informal instruction—some intentional, some unintentional, and some difficult to categorize simply as one or the other—by which skills, capacities, and dispositions are passed along within a domain of practice. Wittgenstein repeatedly uses the language of signposts, of wandering through a city, of being lost and finding one's way, of needing a guide, of learning how to go on by one's self, to refer to the complex web of knowledge and understanding that allows successful autonomous practice in some discipline: most pertinently, in the context of Wittgenstein's own teaching and writing, the discipline of doing philosophy, but with clear reference to teaching and learning in other complex and ill-structured domains as well. (shrink)

Tacit knowing as a concept and legitimate topic of scholarship came up in philosophical research in the second half of the 20th century in the form of some influential works by Michael Polanyi (although similar concepts had been discussed before). Systematic epistemological studies on the topic are still scarce, however. In this article, I support the thesis that tacit knowing pervades all our common major divisions of knowledge and that it therefore must not be neglected in epistemological research. By this (...) approach I am simultaneously giving a systematic back-up for Polanyi's claim that the tacit component is found in all knowledge. (shrink)

In his paper ‘Scmantic Theory and Tacit Knowlcdgc’, Gareth Evans uscs a familiar kind of cxamplc in ordcr to render vivid his account of tacit knowledge. We arc to consider a finite language, with just one hundrcd scntcnccs. Each scntcncc is made up of a subjcct (a name) and a prcdicatc. The names are ‘a’, ‘b’, . . ., T. The prcdicatcs arc ‘F’, ‘G’, . . ., ‘O’. Thc scntcnccs have meanings which dcpcnd in a systematic way upon their (...) construction. Thus, all scntcnccs containing ‘a’ mean something about john; all scntcnccs containing ‘b’ mean something about Harry; all scntcnccs containing ‘F’ mean something about being bald; all scntcnccs containing ‘G’ mean something about being happy; and so 011. For this vcry simple language L, wc arc to consider various semantic theories. We could consider thcorics whosc dclivcranccs about wholc scntcnccs are of.. (shrink)

Though historically important, the notion of tacit consent plays little role in contemporary discussions of political legitimacy. The idea, in fact, is often dismissed as obviously implausible. The ambition of this paper is to challenge this assumption and show that tacit consent can become a key ingredient in a theory of legitimacy. Instead of defining tacit consent through residence (where, according to John Locke or Plato's Socrates, staying in the country amounts to tacitly consenting to its system of rule), the (...) paper explores a different strategy, delimiting tacit consent as an absence of active dissent. The basic idea starts from the fact that widespread anti-government protests and demonstrations always carry a potent delegitimating force. Political legitimacy is therefore never permanent and unchangeable, regardless of the nature of the regime, and can be undermined at all times by active dissent from the population. Having established the relationship between dissent and delegitimation of political power, even the inverted, stronger claim is defended: the absence of active dissent (i.e., tacit consent) can, under certain circumstances, serve to legitimize political power. The paper sets up and defends several conditions that need to be met for the right normative mandate to be created by the population tacitly accepting the existing power arrangements. If those are fulfilled (especially when full freedom of expression and information is granted), tacit consent can become a vital element of political legitimacy. (shrink)

Tacit knowledge is the form of implicit knowledge that we rely on for learning. It is invoked in a wide range of intellectual inquiries, from traditional academic subjects to more pragmatically orientated investigations into the nature and transmission of skills and expertise. Notwithstanding its apparent pervasiveness, the notion of tacit knowledge is a complex and puzzling one. What is its status as knowledge? What is its relation to explicit knowledge? What does it mean to say that knowledge is tacit? Can (...) it be measured? Recent years have seen a growing interest from philosophers in understanding the nature of tacit knowledge. Philosophers of science have discussed its role in scientific problem-solving; philosophers of language have been concerned with the speaker's relation to grammatical theories; and phenomenologists have attempted to describe the relation of explicit theoretical knowledge to a background understanding of matters that are taken for granted. This book seeks to bring a unity to these diverse philosophical discussions by clarifying their conceptual underpinnings. In addition the book advances a specific account of tacit knowledge that elucidates the importance of the concept for understanding the character of human cognition, and demonstrates the relevance of the recommended account to those concerned with the communication of expertise. The book will be of interest to philosophers of language, epistemologists, cognitive psychologists and students of theoretical linguistics. (shrink)

Pierre Bourdieu has developed a philosophy of social science, grounded in the phenomenological tradition, which treats knowledge as a practical ability embodied in skilful behaviour, rather than an intellectual capacity for the representation and manipulation of propositional knowledge. He invokes Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following as one way of explicating the idea that knowledge is a skill. Bourdieu’s conception of tacit knowledge is a dispositional one, adopted to avoid a perceived dilemma for methodological individualism. That dilemma requires either the explanation of (...) regularities in social behaviour as the result of the tacit representation of procedural rules (‘legalism’) or the self-conscious representation of behavioural goals (‘voluntarism’) by individuals. After explaining the apparent dilemma, I then argue that Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule following actually undermine, rather than support, a dispositional solution. Nonetheless, the philosophy of social science can survive without a dispositional account of knowledge. Such a social science needs, firstly, to embrace one horn of the dilemma, voluntarism, provided that the relevant regularities can be explained as unintended consequences of agents’ self-represented intentions. Secondly, such a social science should treat theorists’ interpretations as unifying generalizations, not hypotheses about the acquisition of tacit knowledge. Finally, where appeal to cognitive psychology can distinguish otherwise equivalent theories in social science, social science should incorporate the data of cognitive psychology concerning tacit mental processes. (shrink)

How does tacit knowledge inscribe itself into cultural and social practices? As the established distinction between tacit and explicit or discursive forms of knowledge does not explain this question, the contributions in this volume reconstruct, describe, and analyze the manifold processes by which the tacit reveals itself: They focus, for example, on metaphors, myths, and visualizations as explications of the tacit as well as on processes of embodiment. Taken together, they demonstrate that the tacit does not constitute a single or (...) unified knowledge complex, but has to be understood in its differentiated and fragmented forms. (shrink)

How can we identify and estimate workers’ tacit knowledge? How can we design a personnel mix aimed at improving and speeding up its transfer and development? How is it possible to implement tacit knowledge sustainable projects in remote areas? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to distinguish between types of tacit knowledge, to establish what they allow for and to consider their sources. It is also essential to find a way of managing the tacit knowledge ‘stock’ and (...) distribution within the workforce. In short, a conceptual framework is needed to manage tacit knowledge. Based on previous works and 2 years of action research, this paper introduces such a framework and describes its partial application to support the pre-operational training and hiring in a large industrial plant in Brazil. Two contributions emerge from the research. First, the concept of ‘levels of similarity’ is introduced as a means to qualify the experience of workers and estimate the associated tacit knowledge. Second, the capability of carrying out three types of judgement properly and speedily is put forward as being a core ability of those who possess what has been called ‘collective tacit knowledge’ (Collins in Organ Stud 28(2):257–262, 2007). In practical terms, the results indicate the opportunity for companies to capitalize on the experience and tacit knowledge of their workers in a systematic way and with due recognition. Ultimately, positive impacts are expected in their absorptive capacity as well as in their management and human resources systems, accident prevention, productivity and the development of sustainable projects in remote areas. (shrink)

Suitable for students and scholars, this title challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

Whereas “professional vision” has been mostly analyzed in apprenticeship and other settings where knowledge is made explicit or reflected upon, I focus on how expertise tacitly plays out in task-oriented interaction among practitioners. The paper considers orientation both to the coworker’s and one’s own expertise in the collaborative accomplishment of airport security work. I show how screeners recruit action from colleagues in largely underspecified ways, based on shared access to the visibility field and expected professional vision. Requesting is tacitly accomplished (...) via “highlighting,” which also accounts for one’s request. Accepting is silently achieved via locomotion, which also serves as a display of understanding. Embodied action is systematically preferred to verbal one. Talk is employed in larger proportions when the domain of scrutiny is not equally accessible to interactants, and when “face-work” is required. (shrink)

The evidence-based medicine movement advocates basing all medical decisions on certain types of quantitative research data and has stimulated protracted controversy and debate since its inception. Evidence-based medicine presupposes an inaccurate and deficient view of medical knowledge. Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge both explains this deficiency and suggests remedies for it. Polanyi shows how all explicit human knowledge depends on a wealth of tacit knowledge which accrues from experience and is essential for problem solving. Edmund Pellegrino’s classic treatment of (...) clinical judgment is examined, and a Polanyian critique of this position demonstrates that tacit knowledge is necessary for understanding how clinical judgment and medical decisions involve persons. An adequate medical epistemology requires much more qualitative research relevant to the clinical encounter and medical decision making than is currently being done. This research is necessary for preventing an uncritical application of evidence-based medicine by health care managers that erodes good clinical practice. Polanyi’s epistemology shows the need for this work and provides the structural core for building an adequate and robust medical epistemology that moves beyond evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

To combat the ecological crisis, fundamental change is required in how humans perceive nature. This paper proposes that the human-nature bifurcation, a metaphysical mental model that is deeply entrenched and may be environmentally unsound, stems from embodied and tacitly-held substance-biased belief systems. Process philosophy can aid us, among other things, in providing an alternative framework for reinterpreting this bifurcation by drawing an ontological bridge between humans and nature, thus providing a coherent philosophical basis for sustainable dwelling and policy-making. Michael Polanyi's (...) epistemology can further help us understand these environmentally-oriented tacit processes of knowing, and also provide a basis for the political and educational implementation of process-philosophical insights, particularly via the nudging of mental models. (shrink)

The paper outlines the role that tacit knowledge plays in what might seem to be an area of knowledge that can be made fully explicit or codified and which forms a central element of Evidence Based Medicine. Appeal to the role the role of tacit knowledge in science provides a way to unify the tripartite definition of Evidence Based Medicine given by Sackett et al: the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. Each of these three (...) elements, crucially including research evidence, rests on an ineliminable and irreducible notion of uncodified good judgement. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on a set of arguments whose upshot is that, whatever tacit knowledge of the axiomatic base of a semantic theory is, it cannot be construed as a genuine propositional attitude or intentional state. It outlines three criticisms that Crispin Wright has raised against Evans's dispositionalist account of tacit knowledge of semantic axioms, and the responses that have been offered by Martin Davies on Evans's behalf. The chapter outlines Wright's alternative proposal, and argues that it presupposes, rather than (...) undercuts, the Evans‐Davies account which proceeds via the imposition of the mirror constraint. It attempts to defend the suggestion that the construction of theories of meaning should be subject to Davies's mirror constraint. The chapter concludes by considering whether the project of constructing semantic theories in accordance with the mirror constraint is in tension with Wittgenstein's reflections on rule‐following. (shrink)

At the confluence of the philosophy of education and social/political philosophy lies the question of how we should educate the next generation of philosophy professors. Part of the question involves how broad such an education should be in order to educate teachers with the ability to, themselves, educate citizens competent to function in a diverse, globalized world. As traditional Western education systems from elementary schools through universities have embraced multicultural sources over the last few decades, philosophy Ph.D. programs have bucked (...) this trend, clinging tightly to traditional Western sources and problems. While this claim will come as no surprise to those working in the field, there is little published evidence or discussion of the tacit rejection of multiculturalism by philosophy Ph.D. programs, and few people outside the field realize how Eurocentric these programs remain. This article provides evidence and discussion of this fact, focusing on the case of Chinese philosophy in American Ph.D. programs. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show, by the example of Hugo Grotius's Annales et Historiae de rebus Belgicis (AH), that the nature and content of the concept of Tacitism (Tacitist, Tacitean) in the period around 1600 was markedly different from modern perceptions of the style and political purport of Tacitus's works. This gap between current and early-modern conceptions of Tacitus is important to bear in mind for intellectual historians dealing with early-modern intellectual currents such as Reason of (...) State, Neo-Stoicism, Tacitism, and others. This article first describes how the Tacitean style is characterised in literary criticism around 1600; then it explores the qualities of Hugo Grotius's imitation of Tacitus from the 17th-century perspective and from that of some main aspects of the present-day view of Tacitus. It concludes that Grotius's imitation shows Tacitus's style in a characteristically 17th-century mirror, in that it puts emphasis on Tacitean syntax, brevity and choice of words (the stylistic micro-level), as well as on political iudicium and Reason of State, but omits imitation of the narrative and structural qualities of Tacitus's composition, and their implications, which are central to modern interpretations. ☆ This article is part of the outcome of a research project on Grotius's Annales et Historiae conducted at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2004–2008 with a VENI-grant from the Dutch research organisation NWO. I thank Corinna Vermeulen, Marc van der Poel, Hans Blom and HEI's anonymous referees for their comments on this piece. (shrink)

This paper tries to express a critical point of view on the computational turn in philosophy by looking at a specific field of study: philosophy of science. The paper starts by briefly discussing the main contributions that information and communication technologies have given to the rising of computational philosophy of science, and in particular to the cognitive modelling approach. The main question then arises, concerning how computational models can cope with the presence of tacit knowledge in science. Would it be (...) possible to develop new ways of handling this specific type of knowledge, in order to incorporate it in computational models of scientific thinking? Or should tacit knowledge lead us to other approaches in using computer sciences to model scientific cognition? These questions are addressed by making reference to a detailed case study of a recent innovation development in the field of biotechnology. (shrink)

In this paper, I define tacit knowledge as a kind of causal-explanatory structure, mirroring the derivational structure in the theory that is tacitly known. On this definition, tacit knowledge does not have to be explicitly represented. I then take the notion of a modular theory, and project the idea of modularity to several different levels of description: in particular, to the processing level and the neurophysiological level. The fundamental description of a connectionist network lies at a level between the processing (...) level and the physiological level. At this level, connectionism involves a characteristic departure from modularity, and a correlative absence of syntactic structure. This is linked to the fact that tacit knowledge descriptions of networks are only approximately true. A consequence is that strict causal systematicity in cognitive processes poses a problem for the connectionist programme. (shrink)

Harry Collins’ Tacit and Explicit Knowledge is engaged to clarify and expand the notions of tacit and explicit. A broader continuum for tacit knowledge and its indirectly or only partially explicable components is provided by complementing Collins’ exposition of tacit knowledge with a discussion of formal systems and Polanyi’s exposition of tacit knowing. Support is provided for Collins’ distinction between strings and language, mechanical modeling as a form of explication, and the notion that machines lack tacit knowledge and language. While (...) Collins emphasizes the inexplicability of cultural fluency as tacit knowledge, Polanyi emphasizes the functional dimension of skillful performances. The conceptual strengths and weaknesses of Collins’ and Polanyi’s approaches are examined. Collins’ emphasis on string transformation and his division of tacit knowing into Relational (RTK), Somatic (STK), and Collective (CTK) are helpful tools, but should not flatten Polanyi’s multiple levels of knowing and being into a dualism that may encourage reductionism. (shrink)

In recent decades many sociologists and philosophers of science, especially the so-called ‘new experimentalists’, have stressed the need for detailed studies of real, ongoing experimental practices, and have claimed that a new image of science results from such an approach. Among the new objects of interest that have emerged from laboratory studies, an important one is the tacit dimension of scientific practices. Harry Collins, in particular, has insisted that irreducibly tacit presuppositions and skills are inevitably involved in experimental practices, and (...) that these tacit resources play an essential role in the stabilization of successful scientific achievements. What I will call the ‘opacity of experimental practices’ has been analyzed in different ways, but on the whole, it has been claimed to have harmful epistemological consequences with respect to crucial issues such as the nature of experimental facts, scientific realism, scientific rationality, and the contingency of what acquires the status of an established scientific result in practitioners’ eyes. Such claims remain highly controversial. The aim of this paper is to discuss the epistemological implications of the involvement of tacit resources in experimental practices and to provide helpful conceptual tools with respect to the issue of tacit resources in science. Specifically, the paper provides an analytical clarification of the relation between the opacity of experimental practices and the principle of experimenters substitutability, the latter being a principle commonly viewed as a necessary feature of any good science. Serious doubts are finally raised about the validity of the experimenters substitutability principle, and the impact of these doubts with respect to the contingency of scientific facts and results is considered. (shrink)

Designing and developing a digital musical instrument (DMI) to a level of refinement that provides musically rich applications and nuanced interaction capabilities requires a long-term commitment to both technical and creative aspects. This process often leads to the acquisition of sensory, communicative, and intuitive knowledge—dimensions of instrument design that are typically overlooked in mainstream discussions. This paper explores this development journey through the lens of three instruments: the Resonant Object Interface (ROI), the Floors, and the Table Floor. These instruments have (...) undergone extensive development, with the latest instrument building upon the lessons learned from the previous two. We discuss the challenges encountered during the ongoing refinement of these devices and our evolving interaction with their physical complexities. A key focus is the tacit knowledge gained through hands-on engagement, which, though often taken for granted once established, requires significant time and effort to develop. Further, we reflect on our experiences sharing these instruments with other musicians, highlighting how tacit engagement plays a critical role in the creation of new processes, materials, sensing technologies, and sensory experiences in the realm of digital musical instrument design. (shrink)

Most clinicians take for granted a simple, reductionist understanding of medical knowledge that is at odds with how they actually practice medicine; routine medical decisions incorporate more complicated kinds of information than most standard accounts of medical reasoning suggest. A better understanding of the structure and function of knowledge in medicine can lead to practical improvements in clinical medicine. This understanding requires some familiarity with epistemology, the study of knowledge and its structure, in medicine. Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowing (...) is advanced as the basis for developing a more accurate understanding of medical knowledge. Tacit knowing, which explores the taken-for-granted background knowledge that underlies all human knowing, is explained in detail with a focus on its relevance for clinical medicine. The implications of recognizing tacit knowing in medicine and medical decisions are discussed. These include the ability to explain the importance of the clinical encounter in medical practice, mechanisms for analysing patient and doctor as persons, and the need for humility given the uncertainty that the tacit dimension injects into all medical decisions. This more robust medical epistemology allows clinicians to better articulate the nature and importance of patient-centred care, to avoid pitfalls inherent in reductionist approaches to medical knowledge, and to think more clearly about the relationships between medicine and health care at the individual and population levels. (shrink)

Tacit knowledge is both a ubiquitous and puzzling notion, related to the idea of hidden assumptions. The puzzle is partly a result of the conflict between the idea that assumptions are in the mind and the apparent audience-relativity of the "fact" of possessing an assumption or of the tacit knowledge that is articulated. If we think of making the tacit explicit as constructing a certain kind of inference repairing explanation for a particular audience "on the fly" we come closer to (...) an explanation of what happens when we "make our tacit knowledge explicit." We can account for our capacity to construct such statements for particular audiences by reference to our non-conceptual capacities to understand others. This approach avoids problematic assumptions about shared representations that are common in cognitive science, and the equally problematic notion that tacit knowledge is sentence-like content that we retrieve when we articulate something based on our tacit knowledge. (shrink)

The empirical nature of our understanding of language is explored. I first show that there are several important and different distinctions between tacit and accessible awareness. I then present empirical evidence concerning our understanding of language. The data suggests that our awareness of sentence-meanings is sometimes merely tacit according to one of these distinctions, but is accessible according to another. I present and defend an interpretation of this mixed view. The present project is shown to impact on several diverse areas, (...) including inferential role semantics and holism, the nature of learning, and the role of linguistics in the law. (shrink)

The concept of tacit knowledge is widely used in social sciences to refer to all those knowledge that cannot be codified and have to be transferred by personal contacts. All this literature has been affected by two kind of biases : (1) the interest has been focused more on the result (tacit knowledge) than on the process (implicit learning); (2) tacit knowledge has been somehow reduced to physical skills or know-how; other possible forms of tacit knowledge have been neglected. These (...) two biases seem interconnected one with each other. A greater consideration of the role and relevance of implicit learning allows us to consider tacit knowledge as something more than pure physical skills or know how. This is the first step in order to develop more detailed categorisation of the different forms that tacit knowledge can assume. (shrink)

Human beings employ concepts not merely to re-constitute their worlds, realities, including their selves, minds, consciousness, lives and loves but to fabricate and constitute these things. .Concepts, conceptual practices, usage and meanings are loaded and associated with predetermined -isms, presuppositions, assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, restrictions, perspectives, frames of reference, and other phenomena that will determine how they are used, their effects, results, consequences, etc. Concepts, conceptual practices, usage and meanings are loaded and associated with pre-determined -isms, pre-suppositions, assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, restrictions, (...) perspectives, frames of reference, and other phenomena that will determine how they are used, their effects, results, consequences, etc. -/- The above is earth- and anthropo-centered and restricted. The origins, nature, past, present and future is explored. This is suggested as point of reference and not the minute and irrelevant planet earth. Changes, modifications even the destruction of this planet will have little effect on and consequences for our galaxy and the universe. Against or in this universal context the nature, the functions, aims, objectives, methods, techniques, relevance, meaning and possibility of philosophy and philo- sophizing is explored. -/- Reductionistic humans are obsessed with and drawn to minimalist and generalized patterns or sets and systems of ideas as explanations and underlying foundations of complex realities and phenomena. (shrink)

Recent analytic-philosophical works in the field of situated cognition have proposed to conceptualize the self as deeply entwined with the environment, and even as constituted by it. A common move has been to characterize the self in narrative terms, and then to argue that the narrative self is partly constituted by narratives about the past that are scaffolded (shaped and maintained) by, or distributed over, a variety of objects that can rekindle episodic memories. While we are sympathetic to these approaches, (...) here we propose a different strategy to situate the self—one which can be seen as complementing the narrative one, and which draws from concepts and ideas central to the phenomenological-existentialist tradition. We suggest, first, that the self has a sense of its past not just via narratives and episodic memories, but in virtue of being embodied and thus, importantly, _sedimented_ (in other words, it has, or rather is, a _body memory_). Embodiment and sedimentation, in turn, always necessarily imply an environment or a situation, entailing that the self is also _inherently situated_. Second, we discuss the future-oriented dimension of selfhood, and argue that we understand ourselves as _projected_ into the future, again not necessarily only narratively and reflectively, but also tacitly, in a bodily and inherently situated way. (shrink)

Harry Collins’s Tacit and Explicit Knowledge characterises tacit knowledge through a number of antonyms: explicit, explicable, and then explicable via elaboration, transformation, mechanization and explanation and, most fundamentally, what can be communicated via “strings”. But his account blurs the distinction between knowledge and what knowledge can be of and has a number of counter-intuitive consequences. This is the result of his adoption of strings themselves rather than the use of words or signs as the mark of what is explicit and, (...) I suggest, it may stem from his earlier response to Wittgenstein’s rules regress. (shrink)

'Tacit consent' has long interested historians of political thought and political philosophers, but its nuances nevertheless remain unappreciated. It has its roots in the Roman law concept of a 'tacit declaration of will'. Explicating this concept allows a new conception of tacit consent to be proposed, which I term the 'tacit declaration of consent'. The tacit declaration of consent avoids both the triviality of common sense views and a weakness in Hobbes' account. Unlike other contemporary philosophical accounts, it avoids fictions (...) and meets the condition of intentionality. Furthermore, it also advances understanding of the sorts of claim offered by proponents of a tacit consent-based theory of political obligation, whilst facilitating a more radical critique. The tacit consent-based theory of political obligation is not simply limited in application, but indefensible. It unwarrantedly transposes onto tacit consent the potentially fictional character of declarations of will. (shrink)

The role of testimony in the transmission and generation of knowledge has been debated vigorously in contemporary epistemology. More recently, types other than propositional knowledge are also being discussed, among them know-how. No special attention, however, has been paid so far to tacit forms of know-how. In this article, I am arguing for the thesis that testimony, if understood in an inclusive way, can play a central role in the transmission and generation of tacit know-how. This thesis is embedded in (...) a virtue-theoretic framework: next to testimony, successful acquisition of tacit know-how crucially depends on the relationship between teacher and student and the virtues they both display. (shrink)

We discuss the effectiveness of mediated communication (internet communication via a computer tablet) and tacit engagement in a Project on mental health. The project is aimed at improving the wellbeing of adult women living with chronic mental disorders in long-term psychiatric internment. The computer tablets act as "portals" to provide access and conatct with the outside world for patients who have poor (if any) external social support. This support includes a patient-centred psycho-social care, and accompanying clinical and pharmaceutical treatment. Both (...) patients and their relatives accepted the benefits of internet mediation, for very different reasons. For the patient, this is a flash of contact with humanity, and for the relatives the internet communication this proved to be an alternative to the need for physical proximity. As some patients had no relatives or friends to communicate (even remotely) with the outside world, and because there is a school next door to the clinic, we visualized that the communication between these two communities could provide both a therapeutic and poetic act of learning and compassion. The electronic portal could serve as a virtual bridge between two forbidden domains. Although awareness of students of the nearby school was raised about mental health, the use of internet mediation devoid of physical proximity made the students suspicious of the goal of the mediation. From the patient's side, however, each contact was an instance of joy. Several issues were raised from this exercise. (shrink)

In the management of the Covid 19 crisis, digital technologies were used in a major way. This article defends the hypothesis that these technologies took the form of a “tacit social experimentation”. This article justifies this concept in three levels. The first part uses this concept to qualify the form of biopolitics that was implemented to manage the crisis. Digital technologies were used to discipline the population and, literally speaking, as instruments of knowledge of the population. Uncertainty forced experts to (...) make preliminary observations and act to produce knowledge. Second, this article shows that the use of digital technologies during the crisis was experimental in a second sense. By promoting telemedicine within a more flexible legal framework, the authorities authorised an experimental use of telemedicine without knowledge or control of its side effects. Finally, the article defends the use of the concept of “tacit social experimentation” for ethical and political purposes. For indeed, understanding the experiments carried out during the crisis begs the question of the involvement of the participants and their democratic steering. (shrink)

This article offers a detailed reading Gascoigne and Thornton’s book Tacit Knowledge, which aims to account for the tacitness of tacit knowledge while preserving its status as knowledge proper. I take issue with their characterization and rejection of the existential-phenomenological Background—which they presuppose even as they dismiss—and their claim that TK can be articulated “from within”—which betrays a residual Cartesianism, the result of their elision of conceptuality and propositionality. Knowledgeable acts instantiate capacities which we might know we have and of (...) which we can be aware, but which are not propositionally structured at their “core”. Nevertheless, propositionality is necessary to what Robert Brandom calls, in Making It Explicit and Articulating Reasons, “explicitation”, which notion also presupposes a tacit dimension, which is, simply, the embodied person, without which no conception of knowledge can get any purchase. On my view, there is no knowledgeable act that can be understood as such separately from the notion of skilled corporeal performance. The account I offer cannot make sense of so-called “knowledge-based” education, as opposed to systems and styles which supposedly privilege “contentless” skills over and above “knowledge”, because on the phenomenological and inferentialist lines I endorse, neither the concepts “knowledge” nor “skill” has any purchase or meaning without the other. (shrink)

In what follows I propose to bring out certain methodological properties of projects of modelling the tacit realm that bear on the kinds of modelling done in connection with scientific cognition by computer as well as by ethnomethodological sociologists, both of whom must make some claims about the tacit in the course of their efforts to model cognition. The same issues, I will suggest, bear on the project of a cognitive psychology of science as well.

Since Michael Polanyi coined the term “tacit knowledge” in 1958, a huge amount of literature has been produced on this topic. Gascoigne and Thornton’s monograph represents one of the most recent attempts to clarify the concept of tacit knowledge.For other recent publications on tacit knowledge see Collins , Yu and Turner . In their engagement with various thinkers, most notably Polanyi, Ryle, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, John Searle, Hubert Dreyfus, and John McDowell, etc., the authors make impressive efforts to situate the discussion (...) of tacit knowledge in the context of mainstream philosophy. They shed new light on the concept of tacit knowledge by embedding it in contemporary debates, such as those on knowing how, rule-following, conceptualism, language maste .. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach to clinical practice aiming to resolve the dilemma of choosing between a mechanistic and a phenomenological model. The approach is an extension of Polanyi's epistemology. Michael Polanyi, devised an epistemology of science which overcomes the problem of detachment, inherent in the mechanistic approach, and resolves the problem of subjectivity troubling phenomenologists. His epistemology is known as Personal Knowledge. An extension of this epistemology, a Neo-Polanyian proposal, is offered as a more (...) successful model for clinical practice than previous suggestions addressing the dilemma. (shrink)

This chapter sets out an account of tacit knowledge as conceptually structured, situation specific practical knowledge. It sets this out against two claims from Michael Polanyi which conjoin the idea that we know more than we can tell with the suggestion that knowledge is practical. Any account of tacit knowledge which attempts to respond to Polanyi’s first claim faces a twofold test of adequacy. It must be tacit and it must be knowledge. To count as knowledge some content must be (...) known but that puts pressure on its tacit status. What stops such a content being put into words? I reject Polanyi’s attempt to answer this based on a distinction between focal and subsidiary awareness. And I reject Harry Collins’ process-based approach that looks more to ontology than epistemology or reference more than sense. By equating tacit knowledge with conceptually structured, situation specific practical knowledge or know-how, I show the respect in which it remains tacit. Although it can be expressed in demonstrations, and is related to concepts, it cannot be expressed in words alone. (shrink)

메를로-퐁티의 철학은 언제나 지각이라는 근원 지대에 대한 신념을 바탕으로 지탱된다. 이때 지각이 근원 지대로 기능한다는 말은 세계의 구성 요소들이 모두 지각적 인식으로부터 파악되어 존재의 영역과 반성의 영역으로 분화된다는 것을 의미한다. 이런 의미에서 메를로-퐁티의 철학은 존재의 기원에 관한 철학이자 세계 요소들의 분화를 이해하는 연속성의 철학이라고 할 수 있다. 이러한 구도는 “암묵적 코기토(cogito tacite)”라는 개념에 기대어 설명된다. 메를로-퐁티에게 암묵적 코기토는 사유가 아닌 신체에 의한 세계 인식을 강조하는 독특한 주체 개념으로서, 지각적 주체이자 사유의 가능성으로 설명된다. 그런데 암묵적 코기토는 필연적으로 모순적인 개념일 수밖에 없다. (...) 왜냐하면 ‘세계의 체험 내용 그 자체’가 가능하기 위해서는 암묵적 코기토의 ‘자기 인식’이 사라져야 하며, 암묵적 코기토의 ‘자기 인식’이 존재한다는 것은 ‘세계의 체험 내용 그 자체’가 이미 ‘그 자체’의 내용일 수 없음을 의미하기 때문이다. 메를로-퐁티의 철학에서 이 모순성은 반드시 해결되어야만 한다. 왜냐하면 암묵적 코기토에 대한 정당성의 문제는 그 자체로 메를로-퐁티 철학의 정당성과 연결되기 때문이다. 암묵적 코기토의 존재가 그 정당성을 확보할 수 없다면, 암묵적 코기토에 기대어 설명되는 언어의 현상 또한 정합적으로 설명될 수 없으며, 언어의 현상이 정합적으로 설명되지 않는다면 지각으로부터 사유의 영역으로의 연속성과 분화에 대한 주장이 완결되지 않기 때문이다.BR 이 글은 암묵적 코기토의 정당성을 확보하기 위해 그 개념에 관한 문제를 구체화함을 목적으로 한다. 이를 위해 우리는 첫째, 암묵적 코기토와 관련된 이중적 문제를 밝힌 후, 둘째, 암묵적 코기토의 코기토가 의미하는 것이 무엇인지를 고민한다. 이러한 과정을 통해, 셋째, 암묵적 코기토의 의의를 보다 분명히 확인할 수 있는 지점들을 중심으로 메를로-퐁티 철학의 독창성을 주장한다. (shrink)

Polanyi’s post-critical epistemology is empirical and not transcendental but it grounds knowledge in perception; knowledge is thus primarily aesthetical and only partly conceptual. The conceptual is always embedded in the perceptual and comprehension or judgment always has an integrative structure. Polanyi’s tacit knowledge is pre-conscious and must be distinguished from the personal which implies conscious commitment. If knowledge produces a cathartic effect, then it is more than merely tacit. The Polanyian revolution in epistemology argues that the human ability to reach (...) truth through use of our cognitive powers is an art. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims at developing a preliminary typology of subconscious, tacit mechanisms that underlie the conscious exercise of practical skills as well as the formation and functioning of conscious mental representations such as perceptual experiences, mental images, explicitly held beliefs and explanatory hypotheses. Second, it employs the typology to consider whether these tacit mechanisms can be examined and explicated by what Ryszard Wójcicki calls heuristic theorizing or heuristic reasoning , i.e., by a cognitive (...) procedure whose job is to study one\'s tacit or personal knowledge. (shrink)