Blueprints of Tacit Knowledge

July 9th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Within the discourse on tacit and explicit knowledge there are various interpretations of what ‘tacit’ knowledge might consist of. One of these interpretations holds that some kinds of knowledge are of such a type that they cannot be captured or communicated in any form other than in the implementation of that knowledge. Typically this interpretation is applied to the embodied knowledge of a physical skill such as riding a bike. Whilst it is theoretically possible to exhaustively describe the physical and cognitive processes involved in this activity it still feels as if some essential component of riding would be missing. Intuitively, we feel that the ‘knowing that’ type of information that such an exhaustive description would involve would not give us the ‘know how’ to actually get on a bike and ride it. If the description were written down, then clearly the learning of this text would not correspond to learning to ride. However, the text might be regarded not as somehow containing the knowledge, but as the basis for an instruction set for the learning of that activity. If this text contained such details as the neural arrangements which allowed for the motor controls corresponding to the skill, then the text becomes a kind of blueprint for the building of a skill, not a description of the skill itself.

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