Talk:Tacit knowledge

articulable

Tacit knowledge may be articulable or inarticulable.

Just like our experience of colour, sound, smell and numbers, knowledge is a continuum. Knowledge is infinite in its shades, tones, and in our sense of it. We cannot possibly make explicit the infinite supply of knowledge available to us. We are limited not just by our words of expression, but by our time on the planet in which to actually express our knowledge experience.

Hence taking articulable tacit knowledge and actually articulating it is like taking analog time and expressing it on a digital watch (Vazey, 2005).

Possible synonym

Tacit knowledge is also referred to as "implicit learning".

Actually, the synonym would be "implicit knowledge". Learning is a process, knowledge is not. The terms are certainly overlapping (definitions depend on who you ask anyway), and I'd agree that they are synonyms. What I don't know is in what context (scientific disciplines) each is common — that would be interesting. Rl 15:17, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the synonym is "implicit knowledge" or even "embodied knowledge". I don't really know the convention for writing synonyms, so someone please do it. The fact that the document makes no reference to the term "implicit knowledge" makes it somewhat difficult to google...--Ausairman (talk) 14:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well... There's 'Tacit knowledge' in the sense of Polanyi who was getting at cognitive processes / behaviours conducted by operations that are inaccessible to human consciousness and not codifiable as information. Then there was the 'implicit knowledge' that can refer to knowledge that is not normally codified as information, but could be if the person and situation allows it. then there is the other point that in a given situation what knowledge is implicit and what is explicit changes. This usually is taken to imply that there is knowledge that is codifable and not codifable as information. 'Tacit' from Polanyi originally was the latter, implicit and explicit are examples of the former. This isn't in disagrement with Nonaka’s work, because his points largely focused on making the implicit knowledge explcit. Other points cover codification as a process of creation of messages ('information'), creating, developing and using relevant models and languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.96.52.24 (talk) 20:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Hayek reference

I have removed a short paragraph which seems to have been more inserted out of interest in Hayek and should go there, rather than exemplifying tacit knowledge which is otherwise a good, clear, well written article. Jeffrey Newman 05:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Edit note

I have removed edits of 06:08, 23 January 2006 by 219.209.178.19 which appear to be poorly formatted or possibly some sort of defacement. I also removed code at the bottom of the page which read --

de:Implizites Wissen nl:Onbewuste kennis zh:隐性知识

-- but which only appeared in the edit page version and not in the properly displayed article, and which make no sense. Please revert if I am mistaken. Thank you. Marcopolo 12:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Figured out the "In other languages" links. Marcopolo 12:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

major changes

I'm making some major changes to this article. I'm going to add a section on geographic thought on the issue (I'm a geographer, so it's my god given duty to do this). I don't think that the last two sections are partially good, so I might remove them and put in something else. I'll also add more concentration on tacit knowledge's role in buissness, as much of the literature on the subject is about that. Any other suggestions if what to add?

Benspigel 05:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed! This article is a great start but there's actually quite a lot of room for improvement. I am starting a master's project on this topic and can see that there should be a philosophical section and a theoretical section. The philosophical section could give a quick summary of Polanyi's 1966 article - I think that some reference to Cartesian Dualism should go in there as well, since many aspects of the notion of tacit knowledge - including Nonaka's - are actually riddled with this problem. The theoretical section could give readers a sense of the difficulty in describing how to transfer explicit knowledge to and from tacit knowledge by acknowledging and citing multiple theorists (ie: Nonaka's really arguing from a theoretical perspective rather than offering insurmountable evidence of what really works) and comparing their arguments as to whether or not this is true - for example, Cook & Brown argue strongly (in an article called Bridging Epistemologies: The Generative Dance Between Organizational Knowledge and Organizational Knowing, 1999) that it can not be transferred and should not be thought of that way. These changes would probably change the definition of tacit knowledge, since the theories really show how slippery this term is to define. In fact, there are several articles by Stephen Gourlay that help to pinpoint some of the problems of defining tacit knowledge. Anyway, I'll try to help out as time allows Tmercier.ra (talk) 15:47, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I cant give you any references, but I would say that a large part of tacit knowledge is the world view that a specialist such as an engineer brings to a problem. they have unarticulated ways of lookoing at things that infrom their judgements, which then leads them to pick from their array of formal explicit knowledge. Many of the organisatina screw up we experience are due to a failure of tacit knowledge.

Conversion tacit to explicit

Removed from the article to here, pending supporting evidence (eg, citation of a reliable source):

Tacit knowledge cannot be transferred into explicit knowledge although in the past this has been a held belief. How can you codify a culture for example, you can only give clues. The recipient has to gain an understanding by blending these clues with his own life gained knowledge set.

--Una Smith 21:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge is seen in for example the bread making machine's case. In response to your question, culture is a broad term. I would like to narrow it down to organization culture. Research has proven, IT can help facilitate this transfer of tacit knowledge, enabling people to transcend distance and time barriers through the use of tools such as email, interactive chat and group support systems. However that alone isn't enough, a good working environment, communication and transactive knowledge transfer between employees needs to be implemented to motivate individuals or groups to convert tacit to explicit knowledge.

Supporting research article: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Desouza/publication/44268479_Facilitating_Tacit_Knowledge_Exchange/links/55c5f8d308aeb9756743958d/Facilitating-Tacit-Knowledge-Exchange.pdf

134.88.255.66 (talk) 20:50, 16 November 2017 (UTC)Ram Ravi

Garbage

I am a bit shocked to see the currnet state of this article which really convyes nothing useful. The idea of tacit knowledge as described in the orginal article was really a very useful one. This article has now completely lost that.Engineman (talk) 09:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

polanyi

seems to me that this article has become a paeon of praise to Michael Polanyi. I have created an article called "Michael Polanyi and tacit knowledge"

So I have re-written it to be about tacit knowledge.Engineman (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Where? I can't find it. Smartse (talk) 20:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Err thought I had saved it but apparenlty not.

Perhaps one of the Polanyi fans can copy it out of the history of this article and make it into one dedicated to his contribution}Engineman (talk) 17:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well you did create it but it is only a redirect to here: Tacit Knowledge and Michael Polanyi. If you removed it can't you make the effort to replace it? I think it would probably be best on the Michael Polanyi article however rather than a separate article. Smartse (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Gilbert Ryle and Auguste Compte

Gilbert Ryle discusses tacit knowledge in "The Concept of Mind" (1949) and Auguste Compte used the terminology in the mid 1800s. The history part needs a lot of work. Fatmarauder (talk) 14:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Dynamics of cycling

I am in doubt of the example involving cycling. Being a cyclist and a motorcycle rider I have never first turned left, then steered right to keep the bike from falling when making a right turn. Actually what happens, much like walking, we first move our center of gravity in the direction we wish to move, then steer to keep from falling. (In walking, we move our feet to keep from falling. Which is the only way to get a normal gait out of a robot.) When we have reached the end of our turn, we over steer or accelerate to right the bike as we transfer our center of gravity to the middle again. Watch the cycle races.

Now this is not central to the definition of Tacit knowledge, however being accurate improves confidence in the content. 99.22.71.182 (talk) 12:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

How one steers a bike

No disrespect but you are not aware of how you manoeuvre a cycle - that is why it is such a good example of tacit knowledge - people learn to do it without knowing what they are actually doing. You simply cannot move your centre of gravity at will as you say - newtons laws of motion ( a mass, ie a centre of gravity continues in a straight line at constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force - there is no external force you can apply unless you push on a passing wall etc) - what would you push on? you have to shift the bike by steering to cause the centre of gravity to overhang to one side or the other.

Your last sentence is correct - you steer into the turn to force the bike up - and so to initiate the turn you stear out of it.

Suggest you try cycling no hands and with one finger try moving the handlebars say to the right and see what happens - you will fall to the left.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics

How one steers a bike.

When you begin a sentence with "No disrespect to you but ..." you are being disrespectful. I do know how I steer a bike and if you go frame by frame of any bike race you will see that we do not turn left first when we turn right. We lean into the turn, to counter balance the dynamics of turning the handlebars. At the end of the turn we over steer a little to right the bike as we transfer our weight over the center. As you get better at riding you will see that you lean more and turn the handlebars less to turn the bike. If you ride enduro we'll teach to ride across a log. If you turn your handlebars at all, you will fall off. You maneuver right and left by leaning only. Citing a Wikipedia article to backup your claim is nonsense. Citing physics and the appropriate equations and doing the mathematical proof = truth. But this is a waste of my time. Just look at the video of Lance Armstrong in a race. I rest my case. Do what you want with this article 'cause I could careless about what nonsense you put here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.107.119.16 (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Matsushita bread-maker as example

I suggest to delete this example, since it is not a case of tacit knowledge. It feels like a piece of advertising for the Matsushita bread-maker. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be reduced to a precise description even after a person has acquired it. In this example the person simply noticed the dual action, and claims that this was the "secret". In other words, the knowledge was reduced in the end to a precise set of rules, contradicting the definition of tacit knowledge. AS48 (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC) AS48 (talk) 06:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Definition Section Readability

As of this writing, the initial "Definition" section has serious readability issues regarding grammar and sentence structure. It's so hard to understand that I can't even begin to come up with a correction without considering a complete re-write. Perhaps someone else is up to the task. Mmseng (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

tacit and implicit

@James343e: In this context tacit comes from Polyani's famous "we can always know more than we can say" it draws on the definition of tacit as unspoken and here as, in effect, unspeakable. Implicit means more that we all know this and we could articulate it down if we had the time or inclination. The fact that one reference may confuse the two (its not available on line by the way so you need to reproduce the quote here if you want to make the case so it can be checked) is not especially noteworthy. -----Snowded ^TALK 08:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

To add to this, one of the original main authors on knowledge management makes the point about the differences here and its easy to find others. A simple search throws up web sites such as this which demonstrate a difference in use. Here we see that implicit is more often paired with explicit. One rather obscure book based on interviews with people is not really authoritative enough - and I would like to see the actual quote anyway -----Snowded ^TALK 17:35, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

And then we have the Knowledge Management Year book (article by me in that as well by the way) which makes the distinction between tacit, explicit and implicit clear. Enough? -----Snowded ^TALK 17:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Snowded: Four reasons why tacit knowledge and implicit knowledge are synonyms, and should be refered as synonyms in the lead sentence with something like "Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge is":

First Reason. Tacit and implicit are synonyms according to dictionaries.

The Oxford Dictionary of English includes implicit as a synonym of tacit. Reference link:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/thesaurus/tacit

The Merriam Webster Dictionary includes implicit as a a synonym of tacit. Reference link:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tacit

The Collins Dictionary includes implicit as a synonym of tacit. Reference link:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/es/diccionario/ingles-tesauro/implicit

Second Reason: Implicit knowledge and tacit knowledge are used as synonyms by academic sources.

In the Encyclopedia of Learning, page 3259, it is clearly said that implicit knowledge is a synonym of tacit knowlege. Reference link:

https://books.google.es/books?id=xZuSxo4JxoAC&pg=PA3259&dq=tacit+knowledge+synonym+of+implicit+knowledge&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIyKiO5cXgAhUWDmMBHZ8_CDcQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=tacit%20knowledge%20synonym%20of%20implicit%20knowledge&f=false

Friso den Hertog, in his book The Knowledge Enterprise: Implementation of Intelligent Business, page 23, states that tacit and implicit knowledge ::are synonyms:

https://books.google.es/books?id=bs42DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23&dq=knowledge+enterprise+implicit+knowledge+and+tacit+knowledge&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG_cP-7MXgAhVQxxoKHcGoCHEQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=knowledge%20enterprise%20implicit%20knowledge%20and%20tacit%20knowledge&f=false::Edward Hi

Edward Hizenga, in his book The Knowledge Enterprise: Innovation Lessons from Industry, page 37, employs tacit and implicit knowledge as synonyms:

https://books.google.es/books?id=G-U7DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&dq=knowledge+enterprise+implicit+knowledge+and+tacit+knowledge&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmptXT68XgAhWiyoUKHWCHCGcQ6AEINTAB#v=onepage&q=knowledge%20enterprise%20implicit%20knowledge%20and%20tacit%20knowledge&f=false

Third reason: The Spanish Wikipedia page for tacit knowledge uses implicit and tacit knowledge as synonyms. The Spanish Wikipedia page states, in the lead sentence, that "Conocimiento tácito o implítico es". Link: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conocimiento_t%C3%A1cito

Fourth reason: Only because some authors invented an artificial distinction incompatible with dictionary definitions of tacit and implicit, it doesn't mean we should reproduce such an artifical distinction in a Wikipedia page. If some authors were to say that astrology is a science, should we put astrology is a science only because they said so? Wrong opinions shouldn't be included.

James343e (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

And I've given you a series of references from the literature on the field of knowledge management (which is what we are talking about) which say they are different. If I edited the Spanish Wikipedia page I would change it on that basis. The book you quote is more focused on case studies that a discussion of the field. Dictionary definitions of synonyms often mean substitution - for example complex and complicated are often used as synonyms in common language,but in the field of complexity theory they mean very different things. Overall I can't see what you are attempting to do here - it adds nothing to the article. Adding a section later which say that authors make the distinction between tacit, explicit and implicit (per the references) while some use tacit and implicit as synonyms might have utility but its not an alternative name. -----Snowded ^TALK 18:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Fourth reason: Only because some authors invented an artificial distinction incompatible with dictionary definitions of tacit and implicit, it doesn't mean we should reproduce such an artifical distinction in a Wikipedia page. Such an artificial distinction, incompatible with dictionary definitions and totally invented, only adds confussion to the article, since it makes it look like tacit knowledge and implicit knowledge are not the same, which is not the case. If some authors were to say that astrology is a science, should we put astrology is a science only because they said so? Wrong opinions shouldn't be included. James343e (talk) 18:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

It's what happens in most fields - language is important and in the field of knowledge management a three way distinction is the norm. Also its not an artificial distinction - if you read the OED definitions you will see they have subtly (but important) different meanings - yes in common speech they can be used as synonyms but that does not mean they are always the same thing. This is an article about a core concept within the field of knowledge management and we should reflect its use. I've offered a part compromise above to try and move forward. Oh and the Hertog reference is really a casual aside and a KM Yearbook outpoints something from a different if related field (Learning) -----Snowded ^TALK 18:24, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Snowded, thanks for the discussion. You have been very polite and I have tried to be polite. But it seems obvious that we can't continue this discussion alone, since we find it difficult to agree. I have asked for Wikipedia: Third Opinion. James343e (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Its normal to start a discussion and wait for other editors with the page on watch to join in, but if you want to jump straight to a third opinion cool but I quote from that page "Before making a request here, be sure that the issue has been thoroughly discussed on the article talk page. 3O is only for assistance in resolving disagreements that have come to a standstill". It would be better to engage in a discussion - you haven't even responded on the suggested compromise. No one is saying they are not used as synonyms at times - but its not a universal and several authorities in the field say they are not. Per WP:WEIGHT that is not enough to say they mean the same thing. -----Snowded ^TALK 18:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

In reference you your astrology point. Firstly please don't change your comments AFTER another editor has replied - its bad practice. Secondly if we had an article on astrology and within the field of astrology certain key language had evolved we would use it. Thirdly its not wrong to make the distinction, the OED supports a different. You seem to be assuming that something being a synonym means it always means the same thing and that simply is not the case. Oh and you still haven't responded on my suggestion for the main body by way of compromise. -----Snowded ^TALK 16:49, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

3O Response: I would leave it as is, meaning without introducing "implicit knowledge" as a synonym in the lead. Needless to say, what matters is what the sources say. In this article I see mention of the word "tacit" about 30 times and I don't see any mentioned of the word "implicit". That doesn't mean they aren't synonyms, but it's clear that this article uses that terminology. The question is whether the sources used in this article use the term "implicit knowledge". These are the sources for the article, and if they use the terms interchangeably then it's worth mentioning in the article that both terms are used. I would focus on these sources and not consult additional sources unless there is reason to use them for additional content in this article. If some of those sources use "implicit knowledge" synonymously and yet the editors of this article choose to use "tacit knowledge" just for consistency, then it would make sense to point out that these are synonyms as per the sources. I haven't consulted the sources specifically mentioned for this article, but I am inferring from the fact that the article uses "tacit" only and not "implicit" as indicating that the sources use that term. If that inference is not correct then I might argue otherwise. Coastside (talk) 05:19, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata definition

@Snowded: I saw that you removed the short description that was imported from Wikidata, so I removed that description from the Wikidata entry since I agree with your assessment. If you can think of a better short description, please add it to the Wikidata entry; and note that in the future if you delete a short description that has been imported from Wikidata then you will want to delete the description on Wikidata as well. Biogeographist (talk) 16:07, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Introduction

@Snowded: please explain why you did not like my version, which you reverted today. --- Combatentropy, 11 Jan 2020, 5:00 pm

Because it dumbed it down, removing keywords. It can be improved but pending agreement the long-standing version stands. To give you a quick list: within the field tacit knowledge is normally defined in contrast to explicit post Nonaka and SECI, transmitted by is too abstract and we need to contrast written with spoken - codified might be better, build is not the same as design and use and the distinction can be important, many kinds of knowledge is also inadequate -----Snowded ^TALK 10:15, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

My only goal was to clean up the wording. I think an opening paragraph shouldn't be hard to slog through. I'm looking back and forth between my version and the old, and I see no difference in overall meaning. The most drastic change was my removal of the parenthetical. Qualifications and comparisons can be deferred.

The introduction is wordier than it needs to be. For example, "difficult to transfer to another person." I removed "to another person," because that's understood. Or "by means of writing it down or verbalizing it." I changed that to "with words," because writing and speech are the two ways to send words. Come to think of it, even that can be understood from the verb "to transfer." Perhaps the whole sentence could be, "Tacit knowledge is the kind that is hard to share."

Tacit knowledge may be hard to explain, but the concept is not. Even a child understands that some things, like how to tie your shoe, are hard to describe. They don't try to. They instinctively know to try to show it instead, then perhaps let you practice it a few times.

I knew that "to build complex equipment" is not exactly the same as "design and use complex equipment". I was trying to fix the sentence's bumpiness. It got a bit awkward at the end, with the "or" and "and" so close to each other. It slows down the first-time reader a bit, to parse it. Anyway, that sentence was just a list of examples of tacit knowledge. If someone came in and replaced all of the examples with different ones, it could very well be fine: how to tie your shoe, drive a car, cook a steak, play basketball, or build a staircase. Combatentropy (talk) 00:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

The danger with this is that there is a real difference between being simple which is good and simplistic which is bad, and there is a wider context to the debate here which you would not be aware of. Will try and take a look at it later and propose something here -----Snowded ^TALK 11:38, 13 January 2020 (UTC)