Replying to LO25723
Dear At, Dear org-learners:
I want to thank you for your reply on this subject. We both know that each
of us has different positions on this. But, apart from that, or because of
that, this can be a great dialog.
For me it's not easy to write this reply, but I think it will even more
difficult for you to read it; I suppose that you will have to mobilise all
your capacities of "emergent learning" (the one that implies a "profound
shift of mind"), only to try to understand my point of view (Polanyi's
point of view, indeed) before you can decide if you shall maintain your
previous position, or not. As I will have to do when I shall received your
next reply...
In the following post, please take in consideration my respect for your
capacities, and my conviction that you are able to see a different point
of view (even if later you will not agree with it), if the correct
arguments are used. So, let us go and see if I can manage to put forward
the correct arguments...
At 12:34 29-11-2000 +0200, AM de Lange wrote:
>Artur Silva <artsilva@mail.eunet.pt> writes:
>
> >Some people, respecting Polanyi, defined "tacit knowledge"
> >as the knowledge that CAN NOT be made explicit. Others
> >decided that they preferred to think about "tacit knowledge"
> >as knowledge that had NOT YET emerged to the explicate
> >level. An alternative has been proposed, reserving the expression
> >tacit to what Polanyi (who "coined" the idea) intended to say,
> >but recognizing that in certain skills (but not in all of them)
> >there is "implicit knowledge" that can be formalized and
> >made explicit - but that this has nothing to do with Polanyi
> >concepts, so the use of a word different from "tacit" (like
> >"implicit") should be used.
>
>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.
It is very interesting, At, that you made a lot of assumptions about
Polanyi possible "reasons", all of them based on YOUR conception of the
question. At any moment have you tried to put yourself in Polanyi's shoes
(or thoughts)?
Let me come back to your first sentence:
>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"?
Yes, how can it be? Is Polanyi stupid or very limited, as all your
hypothesis imply? Or is it that you, At, have not been able to detach
yourself from a position where tacit (implicit) knowledge must always
become to explicate level, because this one is (in your opinion) superior.
You have not been able to accept, what Polanyi defends (and I have
summarised): for him "tacit knowing" (not knowledge) is the SUPERIOR form
of knowing: some knowing can be learnt directly in tacit way (to play
basketball, to ride a bicycle) but others are learnt in explicate form -
but when someone is a "master" all that explicate knowledge has already
emerged (more high level - not imerged) to tacit level.
The tacit DIMENSION is a book that articulates and makes explicit
Polanyi's conviction that the tacit knowing and dimension is the superior
part of the emergence of knowing. And normal science and Academia are
wrong because they think the contrary. And this dominant view has very bad
effects in what concerns individual and organisational learning. The main
point is that what you call "emergence" of new knowledge - going from
tacit to explicit - Polanyi would call "imergence"; for him knowing
emerges when it goes from explicit to the level that one doesn't have to
think about it any more, then, to tacit level.
At, please follow me in a game: please for a moment, assume that Polanyi
may be right; during that small moment, can you understand his coherence?
and the way your above repeated sentence proves that you have not
understood Polanyis idea? I am not claiming that he is right and you are
wrong; I am claming that before one decides on that, and in order to
decide, one must be able to understand both points of view.
Let me give you a friendly suggestion: obtain and read Polanyi's book. I
am sure you will like it very much, even if (or because) it will oblige
you to change some parts of your mental model, in order to emerge to a
more deep understanding. Or not: you will decide that later.
> >So, from "Tacit Dimension", the ideas of Polanyi seem
> >very clear: Polanyi departs from the evidence that there
> >are thinks that one knows but can't speak, and refers to
> >it as "tacit knowing" to include both formal knowledge and
> >practical skills.
> >
> >And gives arguments to conclude:
> >
> >- that the efforts to explicit the tacit knowing are impossible
> >and dangerous.
>
>It is for me fine trying to understand what exactly Polanyi articulated.
If it is so, don't accept to be based only on my opinion. Go and read
Polanyi...
>But should I be prevented to use his understanding to improve on my own
>understanding because my own understanding happen to differ from his, then
>it is not fine with me.
If you read and try to understand Polanyi, you can THEN "use his
understanding to improve on your own", of course. But after reading and
understanding him; not before. To improve FROM someone, implies to know
what this someone said and why. If not, you are not improving - in a
bifurcation, you may be choosing imergence, instead of emergenge, you may
be choosing digestive learning (digest some vague concepts with the help
of a "finished theory").
>We all need to learn, individually and
>collectively. Collective learning does not imply that some has the "first
>born right" (right to emergent learning) and others does not have it
>because they were born later. To patent concepts already conceived is the
>most destructive thing we can do to any learner.
No one patents concepts; but even when one doesn't intend so, theories
(and their underlying concepts) are, formally or informally, patented. You
would never try to prove that relativity or wholeness are wrong (or right)
without reading the authors that first used those concepts; so why acting
different with "tacit knowing"?
>We ought to be very careful when using the word impossible.
>
>For example, every non-spontaneous act it is impossible for a system which
>has to perform that act "self". (snip)
Impossible, in this context, means "something that can't be done by any
human being, as the real emergence occurs the other way around - from
explicit to tacit".
>Gobal warming is one of the outcomes on the physical world of making the
>impossible possible. Some people are worried about "physical global
>warming". I am too. But I seem to be the only one worried about the
>complementary "mental global warming" because of forcing people to make
>impossible mental changes possible. The more it increases, the more
>unpredictable human behaviour becomes and thus the more humans have to
>submit themselves to destrutive immergences in the spiritual world.
Strangely, or not, I agree with you, and one of the things that is
contributing to "mental global warming" is that "people are being forced
to make IMPOSSIBLE MENTAL CHANGES". Between many others, the ones to try
to make explicit tacit knowing, to try to learn (or do) in an explicit way
things that can only be understood (or done) in a tacit way.
If bicycling (or sex, by the way) would be thought at the Universities,
one would have to study a lot of theories before one could practice; after
studying all this "explicit knowledge", I am quite sure one would never be
able to acquire the tacit knowing that is needed...
Another example: if one would have to first explicate the tacit knowing
that is implied when one decides to choose a partner for life, one would
never have children (or grand children...). Some people would say that
love is a mystery; I think that tacit knowing is acting there. And
hopefully no one tries to oblige us to make it explicit. Until now, at
least. Maybe this is the forthcoming "emerge" of science and academia...
> >He thinks that when one explicates tacit knowledge,
> >or decomposes an aggregate in its parts and particulars,
> >one doesn't attain more knowledge; on the contrary, one
> >looses the knowing one previously had. He criticizes the
> >idea of modern science, namely in Academia, to think that
> >everything must be made explicit, as being self-defeating
> >and dangerous.
>
>Whatever "tacit knowledge" becomes articulated, cannot be "tacit
>knowledge" any more. Nothing in the universe can change irreversibly and
>yet remain the same. All emergences are irreversible changes. The
>articulation of any "tacit knowledge" is an emergence so that it cannot
>also stay "tacit knowledge".
Let's try to play a game again: let me change your paragraph to try to
make it compatible with Polanyi's thinking. Please make an effort to try
to understand the "new version" even if it makes no sense to you. It would
be something like that:
If it would be possible for "tacit knowledge" to become articulated, it
wouldn't be "tacit knowledge" any more (indeed it wouldn't be knowledge at
all). Nothing in the universe can change irreversibly and yet remain the
same. All emergences are irreversible changes. The change of any "explicit
knowledge" to "tacit knowledge" is an emergence so that it cannot also
stay "explicit knowledge".
Does this makes any sense for you, At? Can you make, even if only for a
while, the paradigm shift to change from your conception to this one? And
how do you feel with the new one? Prepared to "not see" the point of view
of some other and going back to your ideas and digest it a little further
or prepared to try to understand it within Polanyi's point of view?
I believe that you are an honest and intelligent man. I believe that you
have already understood that from Polanyi's perspective, everything is now
different. Perhaps not better, but different anyhow.
> >Being this one a list on learning, I believe that a fully
> >understanding of the "tacit dimension" is important;
> >from that understanding one can agree, or disagree,
> >as I said; without that understanding opinions or
> >preferences have little value.
>
>I agree with you. I want to say it even stronger. Anybody who wants to
>assist somebody else with learning and knows nothing of "tacit knowledge"
>will fail to do so.
>
> >All comments are welcome
>
>Thank you for bring "tacit knowledge" once again to our LO-dialogue.
And I thank you for giving me an opportunity to further clarify Polanyi's
ideas (or my own?). Please believe that I am not trying to "gain a
discussion". I truly think that if you read the book you will enter a new
period of "emergent learning". And all of us in this list will profit from
that.
Receive my friendly and warmest regards
Artur
--"Artur F. Silva" <artsilva@mail.eunet.pt>
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