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Den tavse dimension
Endelig foreligger denne klassiker fra 1966 på dansk. Den appellerer til alle, der interesserer sig for, hvad viden er, og hvordan vi tilegner os den.
Polanyi introducerer i denne bog begrebet tavs viden, som peger på, at vi kan vide mere, end vi kan redegøre for. Den tavse viden må ses som en afgørende del af videnskabelig erkendelse og som det grundlag, vores værdier og vurderinger udspringer af. Mennesket handler på baggrund af denne ikke-sproglige viden. Bogen har tre dele; først en introduktion til begrebet tavs viden, skellet mellem aktuel tavs viden og principiel tavs viden, dernæst ideen om flere virkelighedsniveauer, der ikke kan reduceres op eller ned, og sidst beskrivelsen af etableringen af et samfund af opdagere.
”Han ønsker, at vi alle skal være engagerede opdagere i og af vores liv. Deri ligger hans revolutionære potentiale. Friheden ligger i engagementet, i at stille sig til rådighed, i at tænke kritisk i forhold til det eksisterende, i at få øje på et godt problem”, skriver Allan Holmgren i bogens danske forord.
Nyt forord af nobelprisvinder Amartya Sen.
MICHAEL POLANYI (1891-1976) var en ungarsk-britisk polyhistor, der gav væsentlige teoretiske bidrag til fysisk kemi, økonomi, filosofi og sociologi. Blandt hans vigtigste bøger er Science, Faith and Society og Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
Polanyi introducerer i denne bog begrebet tavs viden, som peger på, at vi kan vide mere, end vi kan redegøre for. Den tavse viden må ses som en afgørende del af videnskabelig erkendelse og som det grundlag, vores værdier og vurderinger udspringer af. Mennesket handler på baggrund af denne ikke-sproglige viden. Bogen har tre dele; først en introduktion til begrebet tavs viden, skellet mellem aktuel tavs viden og principiel tavs viden, dernæst ideen om flere virkelighedsniveauer, der ikke kan reduceres op eller ned, og sidst beskrivelsen af etableringen af et samfund af opdagere.
”Han ønsker, at vi alle skal være engagerede opdagere i og af vores liv. Deri ligger hans revolutionære potentiale. Friheden ligger i engagementet, i at stille sig til rådighed, i at tænke kritisk i forhold til det eksisterende, i at få øje på et godt problem”, skriver Allan Holmgren i bogens danske forord.
Nyt forord af nobelprisvinder Amartya Sen.
MICHAEL POLANYI (1891-1976) var en ungarsk-britisk polyhistor, der gav væsentlige teoretiske bidrag til fysisk kemi, økonomi, filosofi og sociologi. Blandt hans vigtigste bøger er Science, Faith and Society og Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Michael Polanyi
31 books129 followersMichael Polanyi was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy.
His wide-ranging research in physical science included chemical kinetics, x-ray diffraction, and adsorption of gases.
He argued that positivism supplies a false account of knowing, which if taken seriously undermines humanity's highest achievements.
He pioneered the theory of fibre diffraction analysis in 1921, and the dislocation theory of plastic deformation of ductile metals and other materials in 1934. He emigrated to Germany, in 1926 becoming a chemistry professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and then in 1933 to England, becoming first a chemistry professor, and then a social sciences professor at the University of Manchester. In 1944 Polanyi was elected to the Royal Society.
His wide-ranging research in physical science included chemical kinetics, x-ray diffraction, and adsorption of gases.
He argued that positivism supplies a false account of knowing, which if taken seriously undermines humanity's highest achievements.
He pioneered the theory of fibre diffraction analysis in 1921, and the dislocation theory of plastic deformation of ductile metals and other materials in 1934. He emigrated to Germany, in 1926 becoming a chemistry professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and then in 1933 to England, becoming first a chemistry professor, and then a social sciences professor at the University of Manchester. In 1944 Polanyi was elected to the Royal Society.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
June 22, 2012
Polanyi's premise is that we know more than we can tell. Think about the face of someone you know well. Try to describe it. You probably can't. But if the police were to subject you to their technique of using photo albums to identify the different features of the face, you'd likely end up with a workable approximation. This is tacit knowledge and we rely on it more often than we admit. Scientists, he says, are not only not explicitly aware of the experiments that came before them, but they take them for granted during their own. We think of scientists as explorers of the unknown, but in reality they often have an idea of where they going even on totally new ground. They have vague notion of what they wish to discover - a tacit understanding - and able to recognize it as it is confirmed. Polayni's work was influential to Thomas Kuhn, who wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I had trouble reading Kuhn about a year ago and had to stop. After I read Polayni, I was able try again and slowly make my way through the whole thing. I feel better for having read both books and can now see their implications on a regular basis. In my recommendation to read them, I would suggest following a similar order.
May 2, 2018
Uma obra que discute a impossibilidade da redução da ação humana a meros algoritmos. De caráter filosófico, porque aquilo que defende não é em si mesmo passível de circunscrição metodológica. Uma obra essencial para quem quiser compreender a interação humana.
February 24, 2020
Polanyi is brilliant - I will certainly be reading more of him.
The first point of this book is that we know more than we can articulate: this is called tacit knowledge. This is because when we know something, we recognize wholes, not particulars: we absorb the particulars. For instance, we can easily recognize a face, but cannot usually tell what in particular distinguishes it from other faces. The police, for instance, can get around this problem by creating collages of facial features to identify a suspect, and the reason they have to resort to pictures and not a description is that we recognise things as wholes before we identify particulars. Knowledge thus has an 'indwelling' aspect to it: the particulars indwell us and are tacit. This structure of knowledge extends also to our use of instruments. We 'possess' a telescope and use it to extend our being to see things we are not normally able to see. We do this without necessarily knowing all the mechanical details of how the lenses work, how the light is refracted etc: these are particulars that are present but subservient to the larger whole of recognising an object outside ourselves. The role of mechanic and driver show this distinction well: the mechanic may have an intimate understanding of how a car works, but be a bad driver. Conversely, the driver may be excellent, but lack understanding of car mechanics. Artist and critic are also similar in this regard. Both are necessary, but one role is in a sense higher or basic: the critic and mechanic cannot exist without the prior existence and 'excess' of the whole (art or travel). No matter how much work a mechanic does, they cannot create driving or travel: they are always subservient to this larger whole, which encompasses a larger reality than they can.
This creates a curious possibility regarding scientific discovery: We recognize a whole scientific truth before we identify the particulars that might support and give body to it. This wholeness is what gives scientific theories their beauty. It is also why theories are pursued in the face of intense opposition (such as that faced by Copernicus), and why they may take many years to be properly varified. This fits with a traditional metaphysic: we accept a reality of being that impresses itself on our understanding before we can fully understand it (and we may never understand it). Science is thus a pursuit of actual truth, not mere utility, as is commonly thought.
The first point of this book is that we know more than we can articulate: this is called tacit knowledge. This is because when we know something, we recognize wholes, not particulars: we absorb the particulars. For instance, we can easily recognize a face, but cannot usually tell what in particular distinguishes it from other faces. The police, for instance, can get around this problem by creating collages of facial features to identify a suspect, and the reason they have to resort to pictures and not a description is that we recognise things as wholes before we identify particulars. Knowledge thus has an 'indwelling' aspect to it: the particulars indwell us and are tacit. This structure of knowledge extends also to our use of instruments. We 'possess' a telescope and use it to extend our being to see things we are not normally able to see. We do this without necessarily knowing all the mechanical details of how the lenses work, how the light is refracted etc: these are particulars that are present but subservient to the larger whole of recognising an object outside ourselves. The role of mechanic and driver show this distinction well: the mechanic may have an intimate understanding of how a car works, but be a bad driver. Conversely, the driver may be excellent, but lack understanding of car mechanics. Artist and critic are also similar in this regard. Both are necessary, but one role is in a sense higher or basic: the critic and mechanic cannot exist without the prior existence and 'excess' of the whole (art or travel). No matter how much work a mechanic does, they cannot create driving or travel: they are always subservient to this larger whole, which encompasses a larger reality than they can.
This creates a curious possibility regarding scientific discovery: We recognize a whole scientific truth before we identify the particulars that might support and give body to it. This wholeness is what gives scientific theories their beauty. It is also why theories are pursued in the face of intense opposition (such as that faced by Copernicus), and why they may take many years to be properly varified. This fits with a traditional metaphysic: we accept a reality of being that impresses itself on our understanding before we can fully understand it (and we may never understand it). Science is thus a pursuit of actual truth, not mere utility, as is commonly thought.
August 7, 2025
came for the refutation of positivism, stayed for the heartfelt odes to scientific creativity
I previously associated “tacit knowledge” with physical know-how (e.g. cooking), but Polanyi actually focuses on intellectual intuitions—tacit knowledge as interiorizing a theory so you can apply it easily, having the right “hunches” about what research problems are worth pursuing
I also found the writing quite beautiful:
> My account of scientific discovery describes an existential choice. We start the pursuit of discovery by pouring ourselves into the subsidiary elements of a problem and we continue to spill ourselves into further clues as we advance further, so that we arrive at discovery fully committed to it as an aspect of reality.
I previously associated “tacit knowledge” with physical know-how (e.g. cooking), but Polanyi actually focuses on intellectual intuitions—tacit knowledge as interiorizing a theory so you can apply it easily, having the right “hunches” about what research problems are worth pursuing
I also found the writing quite beautiful:
> My account of scientific discovery describes an existential choice. We start the pursuit of discovery by pouring ourselves into the subsidiary elements of a problem and we continue to spill ourselves into further clues as we advance further, so that we arrive at discovery fully committed to it as an aspect of reality.
April 6, 2021
First chapter about tacit knowledge was interesting and useful at a personal level. His ideas are supported by a very limited number of experiments, but I think that's ok given that those studies in psychology were only nascent at the time (so I have been told). Also the author abuses of careless language such as "we conclude that..." or "it was proven in this chapter that...", which is unexpected from a scientist like him, but also excusable.
Up to this point I was enjoying the read and looking forward to chapter two. I had heard people talking about emergent phenomena before and seemed like a reasonable concept, so I had an open mind. Even so, I was shocked by Polanyi's ideas. He defends the so-called strong emergence, which is an antireducionist position which states that a system cannot be described in terms of its constituent parts. But more than that: his arguments have a concealed (tacit, if you will) spiritual/supernatural undertone, in which he assumes Humanity to be in the apex of nature and still not to be ruled by its laws somehow.
If you think I'm misunderstanding his points, all I can say in my defense is that I read the book very carefully. But I can't help a bad writer. Chapter 1 begins by introducing a political and historical context that is simply ignored until mid third chapter, although it plays a central part in his motivation. Chapter 2 doesn't have a clear thesis, and his ideas are all over the place. He shamelessly uses concepts such as good and evil without introducing them beforehand, which makes his thoughts even more ill-defined.
In summary: sloppy writing, unbacked claims, and lack of focus. If you are interested in this book, I recommend the first chapter and no more than that. If you are interested in reading about emergent phenomena, read the essay "More is different" by P. W. Anderson.
Up to this point I was enjoying the read and looking forward to chapter two. I had heard people talking about emergent phenomena before and seemed like a reasonable concept, so I had an open mind. Even so, I was shocked by Polanyi's ideas. He defends the so-called strong emergence, which is an antireducionist position which states that a system cannot be described in terms of its constituent parts. But more than that: his arguments have a concealed (tacit, if you will) spiritual/supernatural undertone, in which he assumes Humanity to be in the apex of nature and still not to be ruled by its laws somehow.
If you think I'm misunderstanding his points, all I can say in my defense is that I read the book very carefully. But I can't help a bad writer. Chapter 1 begins by introducing a political and historical context that is simply ignored until mid third chapter, although it plays a central part in his motivation. Chapter 2 doesn't have a clear thesis, and his ideas are all over the place. He shamelessly uses concepts such as good and evil without introducing them beforehand, which makes his thoughts even more ill-defined.
In summary: sloppy writing, unbacked claims, and lack of focus. If you are interested in this book, I recommend the first chapter and no more than that. If you are interested in reading about emergent phenomena, read the essay "More is different" by P. W. Anderson.
February 3, 2022
Instant favorite when I first read this volume years ago; Polanyi is the most under-rated and under-recognized philosopher of science of the 20th century; everybody knows Kuhn and Popper but they drew from Polanyi, whether in direct fashion by meetings and correspondence (Popper) or indirectly (Kuhn) via his works, in particular this volume and Personal Knowledge : Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy; central to his works is the adage: 'you know more than you can tell'; i.e. there is explicit knowledge that you can put int a formal description (knowing 'what') and knowledge that does not lend itself to articulation (knowing 'how'); a distinction familiar to any practicing professional (plumbers, carpenters, doctors etc);a tacit dimension; but Polanyi's conception of knowledge takes it a step further to tackle the problem of 'new knowledge', or as he co-opts Meno's paradox: how to go about gaining new knowledge? if you know what to look for you don't have to seek it, and if you you don't know what to look for; you'll never recognize it when you see it; so here the tacit dimension of knowledge has its role; our mind can hold subsidiary knowledge; background particulars, skills, cues from which we can intuit a comprehensive entity; the whole or 'focal knowledge'; this epistemology requires what he describes as an act of 'indwelling' or embodying particulars in order to arrive at new insights; a 'from (particulars)-to (wholes)' paradigm or what his later promotor/advocate Esther Lightcap Meek so often calls 'subsidiary-focal integration'; and this is a radical conception; new knowledge is not deduced from axioms, or induced from a particular set of well, particulars; it is 'given' only after sustained mindful attendance to embodied knowledge particulars and as such not a willful act of reasoning, but a gracious act of receiving.
November 28, 2018
I originally dove into this work hoping it would better unfold Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing or tacit knowledge. But I think, in the end, his Tacit Dimension is essentially a place where tacit knowing forms the foundation for human growth and expansion of knowledge. Polanyi seems to have a slightly meandering strategy to his organization, and about halfway through he really zeros in on what he perceives as a malformed concept of evolution. He strives to redefine this through his concept of tacit knowing, and I think he lands in a place which has interesting implications or congruences with Christianity (though he seems to have this less in mind). Ultimately he lands the book with a stronger argument for the expansion of scientific knowledge and understanding than he does defining tacit knowing in any thorough sense.
Do I recommend this book? Less so. I suspect if you’ve never read Polanyi or any of his works, this will be the least helpful introduction to his works and concepts. But it’s a shorter and decently easy read, so it has that going for it. For the most part I enjoy how he thinks, though his applications when it comes to religion fall short (he was a trained scientist, not theologian, so his failure is understandable). All in all, I think this work clarifies some of his thoughts which are more thoroughly covered in other works. Not bad, but it doesn’t stand too well on its own.
Do I recommend this book? Less so. I suspect if you’ve never read Polanyi or any of his works, this will be the least helpful introduction to his works and concepts. But it’s a shorter and decently easy read, so it has that going for it. For the most part I enjoy how he thinks, though his applications when it comes to religion fall short (he was a trained scientist, not theologian, so his failure is understandable). All in all, I think this work clarifies some of his thoughts which are more thoroughly covered in other works. Not bad, but it doesn’t stand too well on its own.
June 20, 2022
Polanyi connects epistemology and emergence theory. Interesting
June 8, 2018
Highly highly highly recommended.
A renowned scientist (he taught 3 Nobel winners) takes on the general understanding of "scientific knowledge" with the simple premise: "We know more than we can say."
This is all about "tacit knowledge" versus "explicit knowledge", from the perspective of philosophy of science… and he even gets a bit into critical theory and politics (correctly, IMV).
Lemme know if you want to borrow.
A renowned scientist (he taught 3 Nobel winners) takes on the general understanding of "scientific knowledge" with the simple premise: "We know more than we can say."
This is all about "tacit knowledge" versus "explicit knowledge", from the perspective of philosophy of science… and he even gets a bit into critical theory and politics (correctly, IMV).
Lemme know if you want to borrow.
July 4, 2024
Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension. University of Chicago, 1966 [2009].
If you want to begin reading Michael Polanyi, and you should want that, I have good news and bad news about this book. First the good news: it is short and many of his arguments are to the point. In some ways, he clarifies arguments from Personal Knowledge. Now the bad news: it is difficult. Be prepared for that.
Before we begin, we have to define and emphasize two key terms: proximal and distal.
Proximal: the particulars
Distal: the meaning of a term or entity
His argument is straightforward: knowledge has a from-to character. In other words, we know the primary term only by relying on our awareness of it for attending to the second (Polanyi 10). The first term is proximal, or tacit. The second term is distal. The proximal term represents the particulars in knowledge. As Polanyi notes, “Our body is the ultimate instance of all our knowing” (15). Polanyi does not use the metaphor, but our body is the interface between our mind and the outside world.
Thus, we “interiorize” the knowing process. This is “to identify ourselves with the teachings in question” (17). The proximal term of tacit knowledge establishes the framework, integrating the particulars. In Polanyi’s fine phrase, we are “not looking at particulars but dwelling in them” (18).
Dealing with the problem raised by Plato’s Meno, Polanyi explores the paradoxical nature of research. How does one find a good topic to research? On one hand, it has to be original, yet on the other hand there is no guarantee it will be good. At best, we are merely guessing at a coherence before we have the particulars. Plato, by contrast, did not see that we can know things we cannot tell, at least on the tacit level.
Our body is invested in our perceptions. That is how it participates in the knowing process. The body’s (tacit) knowing expands into the world, gaining new sets of particulars (29).
There is a correspondence (in tacit knowledge) between the structure of comprehension and the structure of the comprehended entity which is its object (33-34).
Levels of Tacit Knowing
The proximal level is the foundation. The distal builds upon it, yet the proximal can never account for the range of knowledge. For instance, one’s vocabulary builds upon phonetics, yet phonetics can never limit the range of knowledge (36). The distal relies on the provincial but its operations are not explained by it. This leads to the problem of emergence. Higher levels control the boundary conditions left open by the operation of the next lower level (45). In other words, “a level can only come into existence through a process not manifest in the lower level.”
Kataphysical Knowledge
Knowledge is personal but also subject to and shaped by impersonal requirements. This might be what Thomas Torrance called “Kataphysical knowledge.” Far from an impersonal knower, the scientist is engaged in “imagination seeking discovery” (79).
Conclusion
This is necessary reading for the student of Polanyi, but most people would be better served by reading Esther Lightcap Meeks.
If you want to begin reading Michael Polanyi, and you should want that, I have good news and bad news about this book. First the good news: it is short and many of his arguments are to the point. In some ways, he clarifies arguments from Personal Knowledge. Now the bad news: it is difficult. Be prepared for that.
Before we begin, we have to define and emphasize two key terms: proximal and distal.
Proximal: the particulars
Distal: the meaning of a term or entity
His argument is straightforward: knowledge has a from-to character. In other words, we know the primary term only by relying on our awareness of it for attending to the second (Polanyi 10). The first term is proximal, or tacit. The second term is distal. The proximal term represents the particulars in knowledge. As Polanyi notes, “Our body is the ultimate instance of all our knowing” (15). Polanyi does not use the metaphor, but our body is the interface between our mind and the outside world.
Thus, we “interiorize” the knowing process. This is “to identify ourselves with the teachings in question” (17). The proximal term of tacit knowledge establishes the framework, integrating the particulars. In Polanyi’s fine phrase, we are “not looking at particulars but dwelling in them” (18).
Dealing with the problem raised by Plato’s Meno, Polanyi explores the paradoxical nature of research. How does one find a good topic to research? On one hand, it has to be original, yet on the other hand there is no guarantee it will be good. At best, we are merely guessing at a coherence before we have the particulars. Plato, by contrast, did not see that we can know things we cannot tell, at least on the tacit level.
Our body is invested in our perceptions. That is how it participates in the knowing process. The body’s (tacit) knowing expands into the world, gaining new sets of particulars (29).
There is a correspondence (in tacit knowledge) between the structure of comprehension and the structure of the comprehended entity which is its object (33-34).
Levels of Tacit Knowing
The proximal level is the foundation. The distal builds upon it, yet the proximal can never account for the range of knowledge. For instance, one’s vocabulary builds upon phonetics, yet phonetics can never limit the range of knowledge (36). The distal relies on the provincial but its operations are not explained by it. This leads to the problem of emergence. Higher levels control the boundary conditions left open by the operation of the next lower level (45). In other words, “a level can only come into existence through a process not manifest in the lower level.”
Kataphysical Knowledge
Knowledge is personal but also subject to and shaped by impersonal requirements. This might be what Thomas Torrance called “Kataphysical knowledge.” Far from an impersonal knower, the scientist is engaged in “imagination seeking discovery” (79).
Conclusion
This is necessary reading for the student of Polanyi, but most people would be better served by reading Esther Lightcap Meeks.
Read
March 28, 2021In the 1960s, Hungarian-British scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi laid out his theory of tacit knowledge. According to this theory, learning and discovery is a process that is often difficult if not impossible to explain, and happens through the integration of concepts and actions we perceive in others. Through this process, we develop an awareness of how something “should” be done and what is expected to result from it. We may see someone else do it, we may read about it in a book, or we may use our imagination. This is how we are able to take actions toward what we want to be able to know or do. At some point we may actually integrate knowledge without being able to describe precisely how we did it.
Breakthroughs in scientific knowledge stem also from the tacit dimension, a sort of gut feeling we have that there’s a truth yet to be discovered. Polanyi describes this process as a leap-of-faith that happens within a bounded potential that emerges from previous knowledge and experience, morals, the sociopolitical environment, physics, and societal expectations. In this theoretical framework, science isn’t the objective and dispassionate endeavor it’s proclaimed to be, but rather one outcome of collective thinking that raises objectivity above other virtues as indispensable.
Polanyi’s ideas feel very relevant today, a time when history, science, and knowledge structures are being actively re-examined through the lens of intersectionality. He describes a “society of explorers” that seeks unknown truths and challenges existing constructs – a society that needs to be safeguarded and fostered. A message I imagine rang very true in the 60s, and still does today.
“Any tradition fostering the progress of thought must have this intention: to teach its current ideas as stages leading on to unknown truths which, when discovered, might dissent from the very teachings which engendered them. Such a tradition assures the independence of its followers by transmitting the conviction that thought has intrinsic powers, to be evoked in men’s minds by intimations of hidden truths. It respects the individual for being capable of such response: for being able to see a problem not visible to others, and to explore it on his own responsibility. Such are the metaphysical grounds of intellectual life in a free, dynamic society: the principles which safeguard intellectual life in such a society. I call this a society of explorers.”
Breakthroughs in scientific knowledge stem also from the tacit dimension, a sort of gut feeling we have that there’s a truth yet to be discovered. Polanyi describes this process as a leap-of-faith that happens within a bounded potential that emerges from previous knowledge and experience, morals, the sociopolitical environment, physics, and societal expectations. In this theoretical framework, science isn’t the objective and dispassionate endeavor it’s proclaimed to be, but rather one outcome of collective thinking that raises objectivity above other virtues as indispensable.
Polanyi’s ideas feel very relevant today, a time when history, science, and knowledge structures are being actively re-examined through the lens of intersectionality. He describes a “society of explorers” that seeks unknown truths and challenges existing constructs – a society that needs to be safeguarded and fostered. A message I imagine rang very true in the 60s, and still does today.
“Any tradition fostering the progress of thought must have this intention: to teach its current ideas as stages leading on to unknown truths which, when discovered, might dissent from the very teachings which engendered them. Such a tradition assures the independence of its followers by transmitting the conviction that thought has intrinsic powers, to be evoked in men’s minds by intimations of hidden truths. It respects the individual for being capable of such response: for being able to see a problem not visible to others, and to explore it on his own responsibility. Such are the metaphysical grounds of intellectual life in a free, dynamic society: the principles which safeguard intellectual life in such a society. I call this a society of explorers.”
June 29, 2024
I really liked this, despite occasionally getting quite lost. I think I'm convinced by the first two sections, which are more abstractly about the function and nature of tacit knowledge compared to the third's application of tacit knowledge to a "society of explorers"; it didn't totally land for me, but that could be more about my ignorance in relation to philosophy of science conversations than Polanyi's reasoning. Much to consider!
September 20, 2026
“Moral skepticism and moral perfectionism thus combine to discredit all explicit expressions of mo-rality. We have, then, moral passions filled with contempt for their own ideals. And once they shun their own ideals, moral passions can express themselves only in anti-moralism. Professions of absolute self-assertion, gratuitous crime and perversity, self-hatred and despair, remain as the only defenses against a searing self-suspicion of bad faith.”
And to think I thought this book would be boring…
A very eye opening book and one I think is very worth taking the time to fully digest and explore the implications of. What I expected to be in essence a tired defense of the totality and virtue of “hard science” was anything but. Instead, Polyani aims to correct what he sees as the hubristic failures of the Vienna circle and our post-enlightenment faith in the ability to provide a completely objective account of reality.
In Section 1, “Tacit Knowing”, Polanyi articulates the basis of his theory of tacit knowledge as the tacit integration and aggregation of particulars into meaningful experiential structures which thus become accessible to awareness. Therefore, consciousness (maybe better put here as awareness) and meaning making takes on a from-to dynamic wherein the individual attends from the particulars to the focal meaning of those particulars. Think of his classic facial analogy, where the mood or expression of an individual may be easily recognized though the particulars which constitute a certain expression are not easily identifiable, if at all. This is exemplary of the subconscious integration of particulars into explicit knowledge.
In Section 2, “Emergence”, Polanyi argues that this emergent from-to structure is identifiable across multiple ‘layers’ of reality and that the meaning or experiential aspect of that layer which is constituted by one set of particulars possesses a degree of autonomy from its particulars in that higher level principles possess their own logical structure and cannot be exhaustively described merely by the awareness and knowledge of lower level components (eg consciousness not being entirely reducible to brain chemistry, the inability to reconstruct or ‘discover’ the laws of chemistry from our knowledge of physics). Perhaps an even better example of this is his example of the machine, in which an exhaustive description of the laws of physics and materials governing a machine will not provide you with access to the the engineering principles and intention by which the machine is designed to perform a particular function. There then exists a hierarchy among these layers, looking something like physics, chemistry, biology, consciousness, human meaning/ culture. He also outlines the concept of marginal control here in which higher level boundary conditions control the configuration in which the lower level laws aggregate to constitute that higher configuration (physics utilized to create machine). Higher realities are shown here to exert a sort of downward constraint without violating lower level laws.
Section 3, “A Society of Explorers”, presents what is perhaps his most profound analysis of the post-enlightenment self and world. Living in a time when the brutal totality of the Soviet empire, Marxist revolution, and nihilism was sweeping the globe, Polanyi understandably sought to identify the ideological and psychological conditions which allowed such brutal regimes and ideologies to proliferate. How could the individual possibly justify mass death, genocide, and systemic ethnic cleansing? How could such paranoia and repression of ideological and individual liberty be tolerable for those governing and governed by these systems? Polanyi answers that Marxism is, like everything he sees in culture, a dialectical product of this structure of emergence. Not only this, but also a result of our own inherited tacitly western ideological commitments and philosophies.
“The story has often been told how scientific rationalism has impaired moral beliefs, first by shattering their religious sanctions and then by questioning their logical grounds; but the usual account does not explain the state of the modern mind.
It is true that the Enlightenment weakened ecclesiastical authority and that modern positivism has denied justification to all transcendent values.
But I do not think that the discredit which the ideal of exact scientific knowledge had cast on the grounds of moral convictions would by itself have much damaged these convictions. The self-destructive tendencies of the modern mind arose only when the influence of scientific skepticism was combined with a fervor that swept modern man in the very opposite direction. Only when a new passion for moral progress was fused with modern scientific skepticism did the typical state of the modern mind emerge.”
He goes on to further articulate his point saying,
“The new social aspirations had their origins in Christianity, but they were evoked by the attacks on Christianity. It was only when the philosophy of Enlightenment had weakened the intellectual authority of the Christian churches that Christian aspirations spilled over into man's secular thoughts, and vastly intensified our moral demands on society………. What is more, scientific skepticism smoothly cooperated at first with the new passions for social betterment. By battling against established authority, skepticism cleared the way for political freedom and humanitarian reforms. Throughout the nineteenth century, scientific rationalism inspired social and moral changes that have improved almost every human relationship, both private and public, throughout Western civilization. Indeed, ever since the French Revolution, and up to our own days, scientific rationalism has been a major influence toward intellectual, moral, and social progress.”
Where then is the tension and self destructive undercurrents of these two passions? How did it arise? This inherited moral perfectionism, combined with the destructive power of unbound skepticism, culminated in the individual as the birth of modern existentialism. This existentialism propounded a philosophy of scientific detachment, coldly presenting a world of bare scientific fact. There is nothing in this system by which to justify authority or tradition. (These facts are there; for the rest man’s choice is unrestricted). One might expect moral perfectionism to be directly antithetical to this teaching. But no, the utopian nature of moral perfectionism renders it incapable of satisfaction and thus this inherited morality takes pleasure in seeing the immolation of self and tradition as our skeptical natures condemn the morality of yesterday as “artificial, ideological, hypocritical.”
“Moral skepticism and moral perfectionism thus combine to discredit all explicit expressions of mo-rality. We have, then, moral passions filled with contempt for their own ideals. And once they shun their own ideals, moral passions can express themselves only in anti-moralism. Professions of absolute self-assertion, gratuitous crime and perversity, self-hatred and despair, remain as the only defenses against a searing self-suspicion of bad faith.”
He continues
“Scientific skepticism and moral perfectionism join forces then in a movement denouncing any appeal to moral ideals as futile and dishonest. Its perfectionism demands a total transformation of society; but this utopian project is not allowed to declare itself. It conceals its moral motives by embodying them in a struggle for power, believed to bring about automatically the aims of utopia. It blindly accepts for this belief the scientific testimony of Marxism. Marxism embodies the boundless moral aspirations of modern man in a theory which protects his ideals from skeptical doubt by denying the reality of moral motives in public life. The power of Marxism lies in uniting the two contradictory forces of the modern mind into a single political doctrine……. Bukharin, explaining urbanely, in the spring of 1935, that scientific truth would no longer be pursued for its own sake under socialism, completed the wheel full circle. Embodied in a scientifically sanctioned political power, moral perfectionism had no place left for truth. Bukharin confirmed this three years later when, facing death, he bore false witness against himself. For to tell the truth would have been to condemn the Revolution, which was un-thinkable.”
With Bukharin, moral perfectionism and moral skepticism culminate in the ultimate death, the death of truth and the forsaking of our own rational discernment, our freedom. Polanyi advocates that to avoid this nihilistic degradation of our cultures, ideologies, and ultimately selves, limitations need to exist within culture as a backdrop upon which freedom may operate. He argues that scientific inquiry and exploration, a dedication to the tacit commitment of truth must exist before a successful and healthy society can exist. In essence, he wants to avoid the restrictive, crushing, ideological totality that Marxism exerted over its constituents while at the same time avoiding a rule of nihilism and anarchy. Thus, the constraints placed on society and the individual must be constraining to some degree to avoid self immolation, but not restrictive enough that these systems stagnate, are immune to criticism, or become faith like in one particular form.
I would argue that this argument reasonably extends from his analysis of Marxism to psychopathic tendencies of economistic capitalism, also rooted in the belief of a world of material immediacy as an exhaustive account of human value and societal structure and Protestant tradition, that is susceptible to the very mistruths and ideological failures that Marxism is susceptible to. This cold material calculation that is innate to capitalist systems operates similarly to the pseudo-scientific/historical grounding of Marxism, which necessitated and grounded itself in its own material necessity or historical inevitability. Not only does capitalism shield itself from truth and criticism by anchoring itself in what it sees to be reality of “bare fact” mediated by preference, it also (through its economic valuation of the individual and the inextricability of the individual from the market) degrades humanity, undercutting its own judeo-Christian principles of autonomy and worth. The Bezos’, musks, Altmans, Gates, and Zuckerbergs of the world then commit the same philosophical suicide as Bukharin did in 1938.
And to think I thought this book would be boring…
A very eye opening book and one I think is very worth taking the time to fully digest and explore the implications of. What I expected to be in essence a tired defense of the totality and virtue of “hard science” was anything but. Instead, Polyani aims to correct what he sees as the hubristic failures of the Vienna circle and our post-enlightenment faith in the ability to provide a completely objective account of reality.
In Section 1, “Tacit Knowing”, Polanyi articulates the basis of his theory of tacit knowledge as the tacit integration and aggregation of particulars into meaningful experiential structures which thus become accessible to awareness. Therefore, consciousness (maybe better put here as awareness) and meaning making takes on a from-to dynamic wherein the individual attends from the particulars to the focal meaning of those particulars. Think of his classic facial analogy, where the mood or expression of an individual may be easily recognized though the particulars which constitute a certain expression are not easily identifiable, if at all. This is exemplary of the subconscious integration of particulars into explicit knowledge.
In Section 2, “Emergence”, Polanyi argues that this emergent from-to structure is identifiable across multiple ‘layers’ of reality and that the meaning or experiential aspect of that layer which is constituted by one set of particulars possesses a degree of autonomy from its particulars in that higher level principles possess their own logical structure and cannot be exhaustively described merely by the awareness and knowledge of lower level components (eg consciousness not being entirely reducible to brain chemistry, the inability to reconstruct or ‘discover’ the laws of chemistry from our knowledge of physics). Perhaps an even better example of this is his example of the machine, in which an exhaustive description of the laws of physics and materials governing a machine will not provide you with access to the the engineering principles and intention by which the machine is designed to perform a particular function. There then exists a hierarchy among these layers, looking something like physics, chemistry, biology, consciousness, human meaning/ culture. He also outlines the concept of marginal control here in which higher level boundary conditions control the configuration in which the lower level laws aggregate to constitute that higher configuration (physics utilized to create machine). Higher realities are shown here to exert a sort of downward constraint without violating lower level laws.
Section 3, “A Society of Explorers”, presents what is perhaps his most profound analysis of the post-enlightenment self and world. Living in a time when the brutal totality of the Soviet empire, Marxist revolution, and nihilism was sweeping the globe, Polanyi understandably sought to identify the ideological and psychological conditions which allowed such brutal regimes and ideologies to proliferate. How could the individual possibly justify mass death, genocide, and systemic ethnic cleansing? How could such paranoia and repression of ideological and individual liberty be tolerable for those governing and governed by these systems? Polanyi answers that Marxism is, like everything he sees in culture, a dialectical product of this structure of emergence. Not only this, but also a result of our own inherited tacitly western ideological commitments and philosophies.
“The story has often been told how scientific rationalism has impaired moral beliefs, first by shattering their religious sanctions and then by questioning their logical grounds; but the usual account does not explain the state of the modern mind.
It is true that the Enlightenment weakened ecclesiastical authority and that modern positivism has denied justification to all transcendent values.
But I do not think that the discredit which the ideal of exact scientific knowledge had cast on the grounds of moral convictions would by itself have much damaged these convictions. The self-destructive tendencies of the modern mind arose only when the influence of scientific skepticism was combined with a fervor that swept modern man in the very opposite direction. Only when a new passion for moral progress was fused with modern scientific skepticism did the typical state of the modern mind emerge.”
He goes on to further articulate his point saying,
“The new social aspirations had their origins in Christianity, but they were evoked by the attacks on Christianity. It was only when the philosophy of Enlightenment had weakened the intellectual authority of the Christian churches that Christian aspirations spilled over into man's secular thoughts, and vastly intensified our moral demands on society………. What is more, scientific skepticism smoothly cooperated at first with the new passions for social betterment. By battling against established authority, skepticism cleared the way for political freedom and humanitarian reforms. Throughout the nineteenth century, scientific rationalism inspired social and moral changes that have improved almost every human relationship, both private and public, throughout Western civilization. Indeed, ever since the French Revolution, and up to our own days, scientific rationalism has been a major influence toward intellectual, moral, and social progress.”
Where then is the tension and self destructive undercurrents of these two passions? How did it arise? This inherited moral perfectionism, combined with the destructive power of unbound skepticism, culminated in the individual as the birth of modern existentialism. This existentialism propounded a philosophy of scientific detachment, coldly presenting a world of bare scientific fact. There is nothing in this system by which to justify authority or tradition. (These facts are there; for the rest man’s choice is unrestricted). One might expect moral perfectionism to be directly antithetical to this teaching. But no, the utopian nature of moral perfectionism renders it incapable of satisfaction and thus this inherited morality takes pleasure in seeing the immolation of self and tradition as our skeptical natures condemn the morality of yesterday as “artificial, ideological, hypocritical.”
“Moral skepticism and moral perfectionism thus combine to discredit all explicit expressions of mo-rality. We have, then, moral passions filled with contempt for their own ideals. And once they shun their own ideals, moral passions can express themselves only in anti-moralism. Professions of absolute self-assertion, gratuitous crime and perversity, self-hatred and despair, remain as the only defenses against a searing self-suspicion of bad faith.”
He continues
“Scientific skepticism and moral perfectionism join forces then in a movement denouncing any appeal to moral ideals as futile and dishonest. Its perfectionism demands a total transformation of society; but this utopian project is not allowed to declare itself. It conceals its moral motives by embodying them in a struggle for power, believed to bring about automatically the aims of utopia. It blindly accepts for this belief the scientific testimony of Marxism. Marxism embodies the boundless moral aspirations of modern man in a theory which protects his ideals from skeptical doubt by denying the reality of moral motives in public life. The power of Marxism lies in uniting the two contradictory forces of the modern mind into a single political doctrine……. Bukharin, explaining urbanely, in the spring of 1935, that scientific truth would no longer be pursued for its own sake under socialism, completed the wheel full circle. Embodied in a scientifically sanctioned political power, moral perfectionism had no place left for truth. Bukharin confirmed this three years later when, facing death, he bore false witness against himself. For to tell the truth would have been to condemn the Revolution, which was un-thinkable.”
With Bukharin, moral perfectionism and moral skepticism culminate in the ultimate death, the death of truth and the forsaking of our own rational discernment, our freedom. Polanyi advocates that to avoid this nihilistic degradation of our cultures, ideologies, and ultimately selves, limitations need to exist within culture as a backdrop upon which freedom may operate. He argues that scientific inquiry and exploration, a dedication to the tacit commitment of truth must exist before a successful and healthy society can exist. In essence, he wants to avoid the restrictive, crushing, ideological totality that Marxism exerted over its constituents while at the same time avoiding a rule of nihilism and anarchy. Thus, the constraints placed on society and the individual must be constraining to some degree to avoid self immolation, but not restrictive enough that these systems stagnate, are immune to criticism, or become faith like in one particular form.
I would argue that this argument reasonably extends from his analysis of Marxism to psychopathic tendencies of economistic capitalism, also rooted in the belief of a world of material immediacy as an exhaustive account of human value and societal structure and Protestant tradition, that is susceptible to the very mistruths and ideological failures that Marxism is susceptible to. This cold material calculation that is innate to capitalist systems operates similarly to the pseudo-scientific/historical grounding of Marxism, which necessitated and grounded itself in its own material necessity or historical inevitability. Not only does capitalism shield itself from truth and criticism by anchoring itself in what it sees to be reality of “bare fact” mediated by preference, it also (through its economic valuation of the individual and the inextricability of the individual from the market) degrades humanity, undercutting its own judeo-Christian principles of autonomy and worth. The Bezos’, musks, Altmans, Gates, and Zuckerbergs of the world then commit the same philosophical suicide as Bukharin did in 1938.
June 23, 2025
every single word is intentional. I can only hope to write with such knowledge and clarity.
November 23, 2021
Blew my mind how in about five pages it dismantled both some of my deeply held beliefs about science, and provided a language for my growing disquiet about existentialism. What is frustrating is that while he writes in broad terms about the moral perfectionism-nihilism conflict and hints at the solution for them being in understanding the tacit and the levels of knowledge, he does not expound on these. I mean, he could have done my homework for me, is all I'm saying.
May 31, 2014
I found some good things in this brief book. I loved his description of how tacit knowing is dismembered by attempts to break it down into explicit knowing. This resonated with me because it is so much of what goes on in the schools. Teaching kids the rules of grammar, for example, instead of teaching them how to actually write. I also really liked his challenge to the positivist conception of the world, showing how scientists are people with ambitions, beliefs, and drives that seek to unveil a world of hidden possibilities within a community of like-driven individuals. A good work to accompany Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I have to say, though, that much of the book was somewhat tedious to me, his analytic approach to dissecting the components of tacit knowing (e.g. proximal and distal), which actually smacked a bit of explicit knowing (I know what he means by tacit knowing, but when he breaks it down, my understanding starts to fall apart!). Also, his hierarchical description of units of meaning (e.g. sounds, words, sentences, styles etc.), although I actually do a workshop on literacy using these distinctions, so maybe I'm bored with myself! I liked his society of explorers concept - I wondered how much it might be related to Popper's Open Society (which I still have to read). Also, the fact that he knew Bakhunin and was inspired to develop these ideas in reaction to Stalinist scientism, was quite interesting to me, given that I'm reading two books on Stalin in the thirties, right now. I've always wanted to read some Polanyi since I was an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts and I saw everybody walking around with a copy of Personal Knowledge under their arm. I think I'll stop at this book, however, given that I have now a tacit sense of what he's talking about.
August 5, 2015
A worthwhile read for a quick intro into the unique thoughts of Polanyi on epistemology and the Philosophy of Science. The idea of the involvement of tacit knowledge in our day-to-day activities is intriguing, much like the proverbial part of the iceberg that is immersed, and unseen.
He develops his argument well, with salient examples, and then he expands his basic principle into numerous applications. I like his depiction of reality as a series of successive levels, each with different rules, but with a dependence of the rules on a previous level. At the basic level, this was clarified by the example of the behavior of a single molecule versus a chemical reaction involving kinetics and a mass of molecules. Perhaps one can extrapolate this principle for example, and compare the rules that govern individual human behavior (morality) versus the rules that govern societies of individuals (ethics), and the ties that bind them.
He also rides this principle of succeeding levels of reality into sufficiently complex upper levels that demonstrate emergent properties, such as the evolution of life - very interesting stuff. I didn't like, though, how he bridged the challenging-to-explain gap between inanimate and animate matter with the speculation that religion could offer an answer. The gap is complicated and mysterious, but does not necessitate a religious explanation.
He develops his argument well, with salient examples, and then he expands his basic principle into numerous applications. I like his depiction of reality as a series of successive levels, each with different rules, but with a dependence of the rules on a previous level. At the basic level, this was clarified by the example of the behavior of a single molecule versus a chemical reaction involving kinetics and a mass of molecules. Perhaps one can extrapolate this principle for example, and compare the rules that govern individual human behavior (morality) versus the rules that govern societies of individuals (ethics), and the ties that bind them.
He also rides this principle of succeeding levels of reality into sufficiently complex upper levels that demonstrate emergent properties, such as the evolution of life - very interesting stuff. I didn't like, though, how he bridged the challenging-to-explain gap between inanimate and animate matter with the speculation that religion could offer an answer. The gap is complicated and mysterious, but does not necessitate a religious explanation.
September 29, 2014
A dense, yet clear, well-organized and brief exposition on human knowledge, hinging on the thesis that we know more than we think we do. Much of what we know is subconscious, not in an id vs. ego sort of way, but in a background vs. focus sort of way. I found his example of identifying faces particularly enlightening. We may not be very good at attaching a name to a face, or even describe facial features in detail, but we'll instantly be able to identify a person by his/her face if we encounter it again. Thus our knowledge of the particulars of a person's face is hidden from our conscious knowledge, though we made use of this information to identify someone.
Polanyi expands on this idea of tacit knowing to discuss how scientific discoveries are made, what motivates scientists, and moving beyond the positivistic notion that science relies on totally impersonal mechanisms for validation. He even critiques modern notions that reject truth for the purpose of moral perfection. His proposed solution may surprise you.
If you are interested in epistemology, or the study of how we know what we know, then this book is for you.
Polanyi expands on this idea of tacit knowing to discuss how scientific discoveries are made, what motivates scientists, and moving beyond the positivistic notion that science relies on totally impersonal mechanisms for validation. He even critiques modern notions that reject truth for the purpose of moral perfection. His proposed solution may surprise you.
If you are interested in epistemology, or the study of how we know what we know, then this book is for you.
December 2, 2021
A short and powerful summary of Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge. The style is not overly academic given that it's based on a series of lectures.
The foreword by Amartya Sen is quite helpful, as it highlights the key concepts that are then elaborated.
The foreword by Amartya Sen is quite helpful, as it highlights the key concepts that are then elaborated.
Did Not Finish
July 4, 2008Somehow I am understanding every individual word and every individual sentence without really understanding the meaning of anything...
June 14, 2023
Still trying to digest this one, will be looking over it for a while yet. (I get it now, on the fence, but mostly convinced).
June 8, 2012
Tactic learning as an emergent property of our physiology and patterns of cognition...
August 3, 2017
With the premise that we know more than we can tell, Polanyi sets up an interesting study of how we function, think, and apply logic. The premise is established with the simple statements: "I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough, though it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person's face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know." In this way he sets up the argument that we possess the ability to have "tacit" knowledge which we know nut struggle to share.
When one discusses learning, one can consider the fact that it requires some form of tacit knowledge to develop in the student - the learned cooperation between the offered knowledge and how the student applies tacit knowledge to grow in intellect. Polanyi argues that "sciences study physiognomies that cannot be fully described in words, nor even in pictures." The book examines experiments that demonstrated that people have this tacit knowledge even if they do not know they have the knowledge themselves or are unable to share or convey the knowledge to others. As an educator, I read these elements with interest as Polanyi readily points out that tacit knowledge means that information beyond particulars is still able to offer elements of the "true conceptions of things." There are elements of "dual control" - the laws of what govern a discipline must be mitigated by the "comprehensive entity" that form an understanding of the law itself - what we know but cannot share still works to determine what we know well.
Polanyi ends up adding to and simultaneously critiquing educational thoughts by Dewey and other educators. It would be interesting to strike comparisons between Polanyi's arguments for how tacit knowledge is required for an understanding of our understanding and how Paulo Freire argues for learning based on understanding the student as an educator themselves.
The book is insightful and sets up many good discussions and considerations. A solid read for anyone interested in knowing, learning, or understanding.
When one discusses learning, one can consider the fact that it requires some form of tacit knowledge to develop in the student - the learned cooperation between the offered knowledge and how the student applies tacit knowledge to grow in intellect. Polanyi argues that "sciences study physiognomies that cannot be fully described in words, nor even in pictures." The book examines experiments that demonstrated that people have this tacit knowledge even if they do not know they have the knowledge themselves or are unable to share or convey the knowledge to others. As an educator, I read these elements with interest as Polanyi readily points out that tacit knowledge means that information beyond particulars is still able to offer elements of the "true conceptions of things." There are elements of "dual control" - the laws of what govern a discipline must be mitigated by the "comprehensive entity" that form an understanding of the law itself - what we know but cannot share still works to determine what we know well.
Polanyi ends up adding to and simultaneously critiquing educational thoughts by Dewey and other educators. It would be interesting to strike comparisons between Polanyi's arguments for how tacit knowledge is required for an understanding of our understanding and how Paulo Freire argues for learning based on understanding the student as an educator themselves.
The book is insightful and sets up many good discussions and considerations. A solid read for anyone interested in knowing, learning, or understanding.
October 28, 2021
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 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.
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 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.
March 26, 2025
Tengo sentimientos encontrados respecto a este libro. Por un lado, me ha resultado muy inspirador el proceso de reflexión que desarrolla sobre el conocimiento tácito. Sin embargo, no comparto su manera de conceptualizarlo. La denominada “estructura del conocimiento tácito” (compuesta por un “término proximal” y un “término distal”) me parece imprecisa y, en mi opinión, no abarca todas las posibles situaciones.
Los otros dos capítulos que componen el libro tampoco terminaron de convencerme. En “Emergencia”, aunque presenta intuiciones valiosas, considero que la sección sobre jerarquías contiene numerosas debilidades conceptuales. En cuanto al tercer capítulo, “Sociedad de exploradores”, me resulta francamente desacertado. No percibo una tesis definida, su conexión con el resto de la obra es difusa y los argumentos carecen de una dirección clara.
Me quedo con dos ejemplos muy buenos sobre las implicaciones del conocimiento tácito en ciencia. Por un lado, sobre la aparente contradicción de seleccionar un problema sobre el que investigar: ¿cómo podemos escoger un buen problema de investigación si no conocemos de antemano su solución? Detectar un problema es ver algo que está oculto. Es tener indicio de la coherencia de detalles no comprendidos hasta ahora. El problema es bueno si esta insinuación es verdadera, y es original si nadie más puede ver las posibilidades de la comprensión que estamos anticipando. Esto genera la contradicción que Platón señaló en el Menón: si sabemos lo que buscamos, no hay problema; si no lo sabemos, ¿cómo reconocerlo? Esta paradoja nos lleva a aceptar el conocimiento tácito como parte esencial del proceso investigador.
La otra tiene que ver con la corriente del positivismo científico, la cual solo cree que el único conocimiento válido es el conocimiento formal. Polanyi demuestra que esta visión va en contra de la propia ciencia, pues al negar la existencia del conocimiento tácito, dejamos fuera gran parte del saber que realmente utilizamos en la práctica científica. Las múltiples evidencias de conocimiento tácito que presenta el autor revelan que la ciencia no puede reducirse a fórmulas y procedimientos explícitos sin perder su esencia.
Los otros dos capítulos que componen el libro tampoco terminaron de convencerme. En “Emergencia”, aunque presenta intuiciones valiosas, considero que la sección sobre jerarquías contiene numerosas debilidades conceptuales. En cuanto al tercer capítulo, “Sociedad de exploradores”, me resulta francamente desacertado. No percibo una tesis definida, su conexión con el resto de la obra es difusa y los argumentos carecen de una dirección clara.
Me quedo con dos ejemplos muy buenos sobre las implicaciones del conocimiento tácito en ciencia. Por un lado, sobre la aparente contradicción de seleccionar un problema sobre el que investigar: ¿cómo podemos escoger un buen problema de investigación si no conocemos de antemano su solución? Detectar un problema es ver algo que está oculto. Es tener indicio de la coherencia de detalles no comprendidos hasta ahora. El problema es bueno si esta insinuación es verdadera, y es original si nadie más puede ver las posibilidades de la comprensión que estamos anticipando. Esto genera la contradicción que Platón señaló en el Menón: si sabemos lo que buscamos, no hay problema; si no lo sabemos, ¿cómo reconocerlo? Esta paradoja nos lleva a aceptar el conocimiento tácito como parte esencial del proceso investigador.
La otra tiene que ver con la corriente del positivismo científico, la cual solo cree que el único conocimiento válido es el conocimiento formal. Polanyi demuestra que esta visión va en contra de la propia ciencia, pues al negar la existencia del conocimiento tácito, dejamos fuera gran parte del saber que realmente utilizamos en la práctica científica. Las múltiples evidencias de conocimiento tácito que presenta el autor revelan que la ciencia no puede reducirse a fórmulas y procedimientos explícitos sin perder su esencia.
May 28, 2023
This short little book is a fascinating collection of ideas! Polanyi describes tacit knowledge, how we always seem know more than we know that we know; connecting this to emergence theory as higher levels of organization work in a different level without knowledge of the particulars that define the lower level of organization. We perceive things at a holistic level without necessarily noting the particulars, like in our knowledge of human faces; and particularistic knowledge might actually hinder our holistic perceptions. He connects this to evolutionary theory where sentience is something that operates at a higher level and is inexplicable by solely material factors. He then moves on to connect this to scientific progress, where scientific progress is made through a process of identifying a theory based on a holistic perception of the world; and are not solely explicable in terms of the particular factors.
Through tacit knowledge, he also shows us the importance tradition plays in science.
He also explores how scientific research works through systems of mutual control etc. Science is however for him a system of seeking pure truth and not utility as reality is something we always know more of than we can tell. He concludes that we should encourage a 'society of explorers', where individual freedom of though to radically upturn disciplines is encouraged; and instead of a dogmatic pedagogy, scientific truths are taught as stages leading on to unknown truths. All fascinating ideas!
Through tacit knowledge, he also shows us the importance tradition plays in science.
He also explores how scientific research works through systems of mutual control etc. Science is however for him a system of seeking pure truth and not utility as reality is something we always know more of than we can tell. He concludes that we should encourage a 'society of explorers', where individual freedom of though to radically upturn disciplines is encouraged; and instead of a dogmatic pedagogy, scientific truths are taught as stages leading on to unknown truths. All fascinating ideas!
September 9, 2026
This book was surprisingly short and recommended to me by Claude for a piece I'm working on. I would be even more wow'd if I didn't already have so much other literature on various topics.
That said in it's time it deserves a proper jaw drop for what it's trying to say. For most, I think it will open rabbit holes.
These are the items I want to keep.
“I was struck by the denial of the very existence of independent scientific thought came from a socialist theory which derided its tremendous persuasive power from its claim to scientific certainty… The conception denied altogether any intrinsic power of thought and thus denied also any grounds for claiming freedom of thought.” P 3-4
P. 14 - Tacit knowing is seen to operate here on an internal action which we are quite incapable of controlling or even feeling in itself.
P 21 He talks about the idea of experiencing a problem is itself a uniquely outside of science thing. It’s a form of tacit knowledge. (Plato’s Meno)
P. 22 The solution which Plato offered for this paradox was that all discovery was remembering of past lives.
P. 59: Marxism embodies the boundless moral aspirations of man in a theory that protects his ideals from skeptical doubt by denying the reality of moral motives in public life.
That said in it's time it deserves a proper jaw drop for what it's trying to say. For most, I think it will open rabbit holes.
These are the items I want to keep.
“I was struck by the denial of the very existence of independent scientific thought came from a socialist theory which derided its tremendous persuasive power from its claim to scientific certainty… The conception denied altogether any intrinsic power of thought and thus denied also any grounds for claiming freedom of thought.” P 3-4
P. 14 - Tacit knowing is seen to operate here on an internal action which we are quite incapable of controlling or even feeling in itself.
P 21 He talks about the idea of experiencing a problem is itself a uniquely outside of science thing. It’s a form of tacit knowledge. (Plato’s Meno)
P. 22 The solution which Plato offered for this paradox was that all discovery was remembering of past lives.
P. 59: Marxism embodies the boundless moral aspirations of man in a theory that protects his ideals from skeptical doubt by denying the reality of moral motives in public life.
November 10, 2024
This book was originally published in 1966. Michael Polanyi was an old man - an old scholar - at this point. He was a master of scholarship, research and writing. Reading this book is like watching Spencer Tracy in Guess who's coming to dinner? A master of the content and the form. Confident. Stroppy. But also generous for what may come next.
This book - just like Polanyi's career - could not happen now. It was formed by long sabbaticals at posh universities. It was formed by delivering a delicate lecture series at these posh universities. In our post-lecture, post-research, post-intellectually generous time, this book would not be written. Who attends lectures? Who thinks deeply and offers robust commentary on the content presented, rather than their ego-fuelled, next big thing?
This book has confidence. And it is contagious in that confidence. If you are interested in thinking about knowledge, and the knowledge that we do not know - but may wish to - then this is a foundational text. Beside learning about the concept of 'tacit knowing,' we also see what we have lost from the history of ideas. And the profound consequences of that loss from our universities.
This book - just like Polanyi's career - could not happen now. It was formed by long sabbaticals at posh universities. It was formed by delivering a delicate lecture series at these posh universities. In our post-lecture, post-research, post-intellectually generous time, this book would not be written. Who attends lectures? Who thinks deeply and offers robust commentary on the content presented, rather than their ego-fuelled, next big thing?
This book has confidence. And it is contagious in that confidence. If you are interested in thinking about knowledge, and the knowledge that we do not know - but may wish to - then this is a foundational text. Beside learning about the concept of 'tacit knowing,' we also see what we have lost from the history of ideas. And the profound consequences of that loss from our universities.
March 8, 2017
Polanyi sets out to argue that "We know more than we can tell" in a beautiful defense of what he calls "tacit knowing" (akin if not equal to "intuition," it seems). He goes on to explain that tacit knowing is the foundation of all knowledge including science and so to claim that science is completely objective and somehow then superior to all other pursuits of knowledge is both ridiculous and false.
Honestly, I'll need to read it through again (or more than that, even) before I feel confidant enough to really critique Polanyi's work here. That said, the thoughts in this book are exciting and Polanyi is so precise with his language that you have to follow carefully basically every word. It's a well-written, tight little book, and its ideas crucial to the study of intuition and epistemology.
Honestly, I'll need to read it through again (or more than that, even) before I feel confidant enough to really critique Polanyi's work here. That said, the thoughts in this book are exciting and Polanyi is so precise with his language that you have to follow carefully basically every word. It's a well-written, tight little book, and its ideas crucial to the study of intuition and epistemology.
October 7, 2021
This is a wonderful little collection, featuring three lectures given by Michael Polanyi in 1961. They are very much creatures of the mid-20th century, what with their references to Gestalt psychology and the like. Still, Polanyi's ideas about the nature of knowledge and scientific understanding, about how our always-already (that's a Heideggerianism which I don't apologize for; though Polanyi never cites him, there are constant examples throughout the lectures of wording and conceptualizations which are coming out of the exact same phenomenological tradition that Heidegger did) tacit grasp of the "comprehensive entity" enables are knowledge of empirical particulars, and what all of that has to do with questions of innovation, technique, and more, are as relevant as ever. A short, dense, rewarding read.
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