Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension LO25748

From: Fred Nickols (nickols@att.net)
Date: 12/05/00


Responding to AM de Lange in LO25723 --

AM de Lange, responding to Artur Silva, writes in part:

>Greetings Artur,
>
>How is it possible that Polanyi can define "tacit knowledge" as knowledge
>which CANNOT be made explicity, yet write a book on his idea of "tacit
>knowledge"? One possibility is that his book is an explication on
>something else than "tacit knowledge". Another possibility is that the
>articulation of "tacit knowledge" into "formal knowledge" is something
>complex and which does not happen automatically. A last possibility, among
>many others, is that demanding to articulate exactly what has been
>articulating before leaves no time to articulate what has not yet been
>articulated or not aritculated satisfactoraly.

I'm sure Artur will have his own answer to your question and so do I.

The map ain't the territory. Writing about tacit knowledge doesn't
necessarily entail making tacit knowledge explicit. So far as I can tell,
Polanyi could write volumes about tacit knowledge and (a) never make
explicit a shred of tacit knowledge and (b) be quite consistent with his
own view of tacit knowledge.

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@att.net
(609) 490-0095

-- 

Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>


"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.