Robert writes...
>To me it's clear the power lies with making the tacit knowledge explicit
>for one reason - it can then be shared. I don't dichotomize it since one
>can become the other and often does.
I am confident that tacit knowledge can be communicated or transferred or
shared and that it can be acquired -- both without making it explicit,
that is, without articulating it.
For example, using photographs of Person A, I can teach/train/equip Person
B to pick Person A out of a crowd. I can also assist a young person in
learning how to ride a bicycle by providing and then carefully withdrawing
support as riding skill develops in the young bicycle rider.
I am less confident that tacit knowledge can be articulated or made
explicit; indeed, by definition, tacit knowledge refers to the kind we
can't articulate (as in Polanyi's "We know more than we can tell").
I am also confident that there is much unarticulated knowledge that, with
assistance, can be articulated, as is the case with an analyst who works
closely with an expert performer -- but I don't view that activity as
making tacit knowledge explicit. I view it as articulating that which can
be articulated but hasn't. I tend to use "implicit" as the label for the
kind of knowledge that can be articulated but hasn't.
So, I agree that we can make implicit knowledge explicit but I have doubts
about our ability to make tacit knowledge explicit.
Perhaps, Robert, you can give us an example of tacit knowledge made
explicit -- keeping in mind, of course, that tacit knowledge is the kind
that can't be articulated.
--Fred Nickols The Distance Consulting Company "Assistance at A Distance" http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm nickols@worldnet.att.net (609) 490-0095
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