The Tacit Dimension (Polanyi, 1966, 2009)

The Tacit Dimension (Polanyi, 1966, 2009)

“I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell,” writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The Tacit Dimension argues that tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

“Polanyi’s work deserves serious attention. . . . [This is a] compact presentation of some of the essentials of his thought.” -Review of Metaphysics

“Polanyi’s work is still relevant today and a closer examination of this theory that all knowledge has personal and tacit elements . . . can be used to support and refute a variety of widely held approaches to knowledge management.” -Electronic Journal of Knowledge

"The reissuing of this remarkable book give us a new opportunity to see how far-reaching - and foundational - Michael Polanyi's ideas are, on some of the age-old questions in philosophy." -Amartya Sen, from the new Foreword

p.7 Perception... will be shown to form the bridge between the higher powers of man and the bodily processes which are prominent in the operations of perception.

p.50 Since all life is defined by its capacity for success and failure, all biology is necessarily critical [Dale Cannon suggests ‘critical’ in the sense here of being normatively governed and normatively assessed].

p.76 The true discoverer will be acclaimed for the daring feat of his imagination, which crossed uncharted seas of possible thought.

p.79 The surmises of a working scientist are born of the imagination seeking discovery. Such effort risks defeat but never seeks it; it is in fact his craving for success that makes the scientist take the risk of failure. There is no other way.

p.79-80 The scientist may regard his selected field as his "calling," which necessarily includes his submission to the vast area of information and belief surrounding his selected field of inquiry. Each scientist's calling has a different geography. Each must try to choose a problem that is not larger or more difficult than he can master. His faculties would not be fully utilized if he applied them to a lesser task, and would be altogether wasted on a larger one. The degree of originality any particular scientist trusts himself to possess should thus determine the range which he will venture to tackle and hence also the range of information which he will unquestioningly accept. Goethe wrote that the master proves himself by his restraint - and the same holds true for science.