M. Polanyi: the concept of tacit knowledge

Michael Polanyi(1891-1976) - British scientist and philosopher, originally from Hungary. Since 1923 He worked in Berlin at the Institute of Physical Chemistry. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, he emigrated to Great Britain, where from 1933. worked as a professor at the University of Manchester. In 1940 His work “Disrespect for Freedom” was published. He develops this theme in his works “Basic Academic Freedoms” (1947) and “The Logic of Freedom” (1951). In the 40s, Polanyi criticized the basic principles of logical positivism. His own concept lies in line with the idea of the relativity of norms of scientific and cognitive activity, which replaced the previous normative-rational issues in the philosophy of science.

Since the 50s, M. Polanyi has been developing his concept of personal knowledge, which caused sharp criticism from K. Popper, who accused the author of irrationalism. Nevertheless, the work of M. Polanyi “Personal knowledge. Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy" (1958) became a significant event in the history of post-positivist philosophy of science. M. Polanyi declared that he strives to constructively overcome the idea of the possibility of a depersonalized representation of scientific knowledge. It is necessary, according to Polanyi, to overcome this false ideal, which is wrongfully identified with objectivity. “The ideal of impersonal, impartial truth is subject to revision,” he writes, “taking into account the deeply personal nature of the act through which truth is proclaimed.”

Explaining the phrase “personal knowledge” in the title of his book, Polanyi notes: “These two words may seem to contradict each other, because true knowledge is considered impersonal, universal, objective. For me, knowledge is the active comprehension of knowable things, an action that requires special art.” According to Polanyi, the term “personal knowledge” well describes this peculiar fusion of the personal and the objective.

Since science is done by people, the knowledge obtained in the process of scientific activity, like this process itself, cannot be depersonalized. This is exactly what M. Polanyi wants to emphasize. Personal knowledge captures both the cognizable reality and the cognizing personality herself with her interested (and not indifferent) attitude towards knowledge, with her personal approach to its interpretation and use. Moreover, personal knowledge is not only explicit knowledge expressed in concepts, judgments, theories, but also tacit knowledge, unarticulated in language and embodied in some bodily skills, perception patterns, practical mastery.

Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge is one of the fruitful attempts to comprehend the integrity of everyday practical knowledge (including the experience of visual perception, bodily motor skills and instrumental activity), natural science, socio-humanitarian and artistic knowledge. At the same time, it deals a blow to previous ideas that separate (and contrast) subjectivity and objectivity in science.

“The most widespread concept of science now,” he writes, “based on the separation of subjectivity and objectivity, seeks ... to exclude from the picture of science this phenomenon of passionate, personal, purely human creation of theories or, in extreme cases, to minimize it, reducing it to a background that can be ignored into account. For modern man has chosen as the ideal of knowledge such a representation of natural science in which it looks like a set of statements, “objective” in the sense that their content is entirely determined by observation, and their form can be conventional. To eradicate this idea, which has deep roots in our culture, we must recognize intuition, inherent in the very nature of rationality, as a legitimate and essential part of scientific theory." Therefore, the researcher’s intuition is an important and irreducible component of the cognitive process.

In the epistemology of M. Polanyi, the anthropological orientation, which can be reduced to the following provisions:

– science is done by people who have a calling, experience, and skill;

– scientific and cognitive activity cannot be mastered from a textbook (since tacit knowledge does not allow for complete explication and presentation in educational literature); therefore, direct communication between the novice scientist and the master is required, which ensures the transfer of his experience “from hand to hand,” i.e. personal contacts of researchers are necessary;

– people doing science cannot be replaced by others and separated from the knowledge they produce;

– in scientific and educational activities, the motives of personal experience, experiences, inner faith in science, in its value, as well as the interest of the scientist and his personal responsibility are very important.

M. Polanyi emphasizes the enormous importance of the phenomenon of faith in the cognitive process. According to him, “faith has been discredited so much that, in addition to a limited number of situations related to the practice of religion, modern man has lost the ability to believe, to accept with conviction any statements, that the phenomenon of faith has received the status of a subjective manifestation that does not allow knowledge to achieve universality.” .

The time has come, Polanyi believes, to once again recognize that faith is the source of knowledge. It is on this that mutual trust in society is built. Consent (explicit and implicit), intellectual passion, inheritance of culture - all this is closely related to faith. The human mind relies on faith as its ultimate foundation, but is always capable of questioning it. The appearance and existence in science of sets of axioms, postulates, and principles also has its roots in our belief that the world is a perfect, harmonious whole that we can know.

Researchers of M. Polanyi’s creativity identify three areas (or options) in his concept of personal knowledge: the relationship between thinking and speech. The first area is tacit knowledge, the verbal expression of which is difficult or insufficiently adequate. It can be called the area of the “inexpressible”, because in it the component of tacit tacit knowledge dominates to such an extent that its articulated expression is essentially impossible. This area covers knowledge based on experiences and life experiences. This is deeply personal knowledge and it is very difficult to transmit and socialize.

The second area of knowledge contains information that is quite well conveyed through speech. Finally, in the third area of “difficulty understanding,” there is an inconsistency between the nonverbal content of thinking and verbal means, which makes it difficult to conceptualize the content of thought. This is an area in which tacit knowledge and formal knowledge are independent of each other.

The volume of personal, tacit knowledge also includes the mechanism of familiarization with an object, as a result of which the latter is included in the process of life activity. Skills and abilities to communicate with it are formed. Thus, acquaintance with an object as initial knowledge about it, turning into a skill, into the ability to handle a given object, becomes a person’s personal knowledge. At the same time, skills (for all their similarity in the pattern of activity) are different and individual. The task of copying someone else's skill generates its own layer of personal knowledge. “Written rules for skillful action,” M. Polanyi is sure, “can be useful, but in general they do not determine the success of activity; these are maxima that can serve as a guide only if they fit into a practical skill or mastery of an art. They cannot replace personal knowledge.”

Polanyi’s scientific experience is internally experienced, determined by the passionate desire of the researcher to achieve truly scientific truth, i.e. clearly personal. This is the main conclusion from Polanyi's concept.

The fundamental innovation of M. Polanyi’s concept also consists in indicating that the very meaning of scientific propositions depends on the implicit context of hidden knowledge. At the same time, Polanyi argues that meaning is inseparable from the personal confidence that is invested in the proclaimed scientific judgment. “Science is a system of beliefs to which we are initiated,” writes Polanyi. – Such a system cannot be explained either on the basis of experience (as something visible from another system), or on the basis of a mind alien to any experience. However, this does not mean that we are free to accept or not accept this system; it simply reflects the fact that science is a system of beliefs to which we are privy and which therefore cannot be represented in other terms.”

In conclusion, we note that M. Polanyi was the first to introduce the concept of “scientific community” into scientific circulation. In a number of works, he emphasized the need for certain sociocultural conditions to maintain free scientific communication and preserve scientific traditions.

EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE– categorical opposition that plays a significant role in the philosophical and methodological concept M. Polanyi . Cognitive interest can be focused on the integrity of an object or on its structural elements. In the first case, knowledge about the object and its functions acts as central (focal), or explicit, and knowledge about the elements as peripheral, or implicit, implied (tacit). In the second case, explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge switch roles. Depending on the predominance of one or another approach, the cognizing subject has to sacrifice either the meaning of the whole or the meaning of individual elements. Synthetic cognition acts as the unity or complementarity of both cognitive relations.

Explicit knowledge is expressed verbally and in logically explicit forms; it is impersonal in nature, i.e. does not bear any trace of subjectivity. Explicit knowledge is information that is perceived and understood equally by all subjects who know its semantics, rules of formation and transformation. The means of transmitting explicit knowledge are standard and reproducible channels of information: printed publications, tables, diagrams, computer programs, etc. Unlike explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge cannot be fully verbalized, does not allow complete exteriorization, and may be unconscious. However, it should not be identified with the unconscious: if implicit knowledge is used to understand what is currently in the center of attention of the knowing subject, it is to a certain extent conscious. Tacit knowledge is formed depending on a person’s personal characteristics and is transmitted outside standard channels of information through personal contact using ostensive definitions.

Implicit knowledge is used by a person not only in the practice of everyday life, where it appears in the form of skills, abilities, professional automatisms, but also in scientific research activities. If the content of scientific theories and programs can be presented to a large extent as explicit knowledge, then the premises of scientific research activity are essentially the beliefs of scientists and cannot be expressed in logically articulated terms. The processes of scientific research represent a special art, transmitted and inherited through direct communication between scientists within scientific schools, i.e. teams united by a common style of thinking, research paradigm, and system of “normative beliefs.”

The development of science, according to Polanyi, occurs primarily as an expansion of the area of tacit knowledge, only part of which falls into the focus of research attention and is transformed into explicit knowledge. Science, like the individual, always knows more than he can say about his knowledge; however, it is precisely this “excess” that is the basis of its productive development. Tacit knowledge is personal in nature and depends on the emotions, preferences, and preferences of the subject. It determines the specifics of understanding, understanding the meaning of scientific terms, their subject meaning. Therefore, the terms and judgments of science reveal their meaning only in context (social, cultural, socio-psychological). Tacit knowledge is contained even in logical deductions, which therefore cannot be fully formalized.

The presence of tacit knowledge and its determining role in the development of science is a counterargument against the idea of rational reconstruction of the history of science. According to Polanyi, the role of methodological research and programs for the justification of scientific knowledge in the philosophy of science is greatly exaggerated, since neither the acceptance of scientific theories nor their rejection can be explained by purely rational procedures, e.g. such as verification and falsification, but stem from the presence or absence of the scientist’s trust in the non-explicit prerequisites of scientific work and in the authority of leaders. This interpretation of knowledge and methods of assessing it in science caused criticism from “critical rationalists” (for example, I. Lakatos), but was supported by supporters of the “historical” trend in the philosophy of science (S. Toulmin, P. Feyerabend, T. Kuhn) who tried to expand the concept of “scientific rationality” by including philosophical, historical, scientific and sociocultural components.

Literature:

Polanyi M. Personal knowledge. On the way to post-critical philosophy. M., 1985;
Smirnova N.M. The epistemological concept of M. Polanyi. – “VF”, 1986, No. 2.

Kuhn's identification of the scientific tradition in developing knowledge became the starting point in the further movement of the philosophy of science. Another representative of the historical direction of philosophy of science was Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), a chemist by profession, known for his work in the philosophy of science. He comes from Hungary and worked from 1923 to 1933 at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin. In 1933 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he worked at the University of Manchester as a professor of chemistry and social sciences. He is one of the developers of quantum mechanical methods for calculating the rates of chemical reactions. On the philosophy and sociology of science, his book “Personal Knowledge” (Russian translation, 1985) is best known.

Polanyi's position differs from the views of Kuhn and Popper in that Polanyi rejects the depersonalized notion of scientific knowledge. It is precisely this approach that Popper and Kuhn mistakenly identified with objectivity. Pollani, on the contrary, states: “The ideal of impersonal, impartial truth is subject to revision in view of the deeply personal character of the act by which truth is proclaimed.” For this, Popper accused Polanyi of irrationalism. Polanyi's supporters called his position "post-critical rationalism" . What is its essence:

Firstly, in recognition of the obvious fact that science is done by people with a certain skill. The art of cognitive activity and its subtleties cannot be learned from a textbook; it is given only in direct communication with a master.

Secondly, people doing science cannot be mechanically and simply separated from the knowledge they produce and replaced by others who are introduced to this knowledge only with the help of books and textbooks.

Thirdly, Through his epistemology of “personal knowledge,” Polanyi tries to introduce into modern philosophy of science the motives of the scientist’s value orientation, his scientific experience as an internal experience, faith in science, and personal responsibility towards it.

Polanyi wrote: “The large amount of study time that students of chemistry, biology and medicine devote to practical exercises testifies to the important role that the transfer of practical knowledge and skills from teacher to student plays in these disciplines. From the above we can conclude that in the very heart of science there are areas of practical knowledge that cannot be conveyed through formulations.” Polanyi called this type of knowledge tacit knowledge. . For Polanyi, personal knowledge is intellectual dedication, the passionate contribution of the knower. The scientist is confident that the establishment of truth depends on a number of our own, implicit foundations and criteria that cannot be formally defined.

Polanyi re-evaluates the role of faith in the cognitive process, distinguishing this concept from the interpretation of faith in the narrow sense as religious. According to the scientist, we must again recognize that faith is the source of knowledge. Reason relies on faith as its ultimate foundation, but is always capable of questioning it. The use of axioms, postulates and principles in science is rooted in our conviction, that is, in a broad sense, in the belief that the world is a perfect harmonious whole, amenable to our knowledge. Consent, explicit and implicit, intellectual passion, inheritance of culture - all this presupposes a certain state of our consciousness, closely related to faith.

There are three main areas or three options for the relationship between thinking and speech in M. Polanyi’s concept of personal knowledge. First is an area of tacit knowledge, the verbal expression of which is not self-sufficient or not adequate enough. It is called the realm of the "inexpressible" . This is special knowledge based on experiences and life impressions. They are difficult to transmit and socialize. Art strives to convey this knowledge through its own means through the inner world and life of the hero of the work. Second the area of knowledge is well conveyed through speech and exists in the form of some information. Third area of knowledge is called area "difficult understanding" . It is located between the non-verbal content of thinking and speech means, which are not able to conceptualize the content of thought.

The fundamental innovations of M. Polanyi’s concept consist in indicating that the very meaning of scientific provisions depends on the implicit context of hidden knowledge, "knowledge how" , which has an instrumental character in its deepest foundations. The meaning of a scientific judgment is formed through internal reading of the text “for oneself” and efforts to articulate it “outside”, through the language system. Polanyi argues that meaning is inseparable from the personal confidence that is invested in the proclaimed scientific judgment. Researchers of Polanyi’s work believe that the philosopher came to revise the foundations of the traditional concept of knowledge and create his own concept under the influence of discoveries in Gestalt psychology.

Thus, the tradition in science that Kuhn pointed out, according to Polanyi, can be both verbalized, existing in the form of texts, and non-verbalized in the form of tacit knowledge. The latter is passed on from teacher to student or from generation to generation at the level of direct demonstration of patterns of activity or, as they sometimes say, at the level of social relay races. The concept of tacit knowledge introduced by M. Polanyi made it possible to significantly enrich and differentiate the overall picture of the formation of scientific judgments. He led to the need to think about a new model for the growth of scientific knowledge, which would take into account the existing personal-cognitive mechanisms of cognitive activity.

The concept of personal knowledge by M. Polanyi.

Peripheral (tacit) knowledge.

Three areas of the relationship between thinking and speech. - The area of the “inexpressible” and the area of “difficult to understand.”

The instrumental nature of “knowing how”

In the philosophy of science, the author's concepts of the development of science deserve special attention: M. Polanyi, St. Toulmina, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, J. Agassi, P. Feyerabend, J. Holton. The concept of tacit, personal knowledge is most unique. Polanyi. Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) - British scientist, originally from Hungary. He worked in Berlin at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he emigrated to the UK, where he held the position of professor of physical chemistry and social sciences at the University of Manchester.

M. Polanyi takes a step towards the sociology of science. His famous work by its very name “Personal Knowledge. On the way to post-critical philosophy” manifests new priorities. Of course, this concept was met with hostility by K. Popper, who accused it of irrationalism. According to Rorty, Quine also reproached Polanyi for wanting to get rid of the concept of observation. Although the main pathos of M. Polanyi’s concept was to overcome the false ideal of depersonalized scientific knowledge , mistakenly identified with objectivity. “The ideal of impersonal, impartial truth is subject to revision, taking into account the deeply personal nature of the act through which the truth is proclaimed,” the thinker argued. “I have abandoned the ideal of scientific impartiality,” he wrote, “and want to propose a different ideal of knowledge.” Discussing the title of his book, Personal Knowledge, the scientist noted: “These two positions may seem to contradict each other; after all, true knowledge is considered impersonal, universal, objective. For me, knowledge is the active comprehension of knowable things, an action that requires special art.”

In the epistemology of M. Polanyi, anthropological orientations are significantly strengthened. The main theses are the conclusions:

science is made by people with skill;

the art of cognitive activity cannot be learned from a textbook. It is transmitted only in direct communication with the master. (Thus, the traditional principle “Do as I do!” sounds with renewed vigor and is presented in a new paradigm);

people who make science cannot be replaced by others and separated from the knowledge they produce;

In cognitive and scientific activities, the motives of personal experience, feelings, inner faith in science, in its value, the scientist’s interest, and personal responsibility are extremely important 5 .

For Polanyi, personal knowledge is intellectual dedication, the passionate contribution of the knower. This is not evidence of imperfection, but an essential element of knowledge. He emphasizes that any attempt to exclude the human perspective from our picture of the world inevitably leads to nonsense. The scientist is confident that the establishment of truth becomes dependent on a number of our own, implicit foundations and criteria that cannot be formally defined. Corresponding limitations on the status of truth formalized in words are also inevitable.

Polanyi, re-evaluates the huge role of faith in the cognitive process, noting that “faith has been discredited so much that, in addition to a limited number of situations associated with the practice of religion, modern man has lost the ability to believe, to accept with conviction any statements that the phenomenon of faith received the status of a subjective manifestation that does not allow knowledge to achieve universality” 6 . Today, according to the author, we must again recognize that faith is the source of knowledge. A system of mutual public trust is built on it. Agreement, explicit and implicit, intellectual passion, inheritance of culture - all this presupposes impulses closely related to faith. Reason relies on faith as its ultimate foundation, but is always capable of questioning it. The appearance and existence in science of sets of axioms, postulates and principles also has its roots in our belief that the world is a perfect harmonious whole, amenable to our knowledge.

For M. Polanyi It is obvious that the mastery of knowledge cannot be described and expressed by means of language, no matter how developed and powerful it may be. This thesis, of course, contradicts the task of creating a unified language of science. Scientific knowledge presented in the texts of scientific articles and textbooks, according to the thinker, is just a certain part that is in the focus of consciousness. The other part is focused on half of the so-called peripheral (or implicit) knowledge that constantly accompanies the process of cognition. Implicit, peripheral knowledge can be interpreted by analogy with the “edge recognition of sensations” from a tool in the hand, without which the process of activity as a purposeful process is impossible. “The act of knowledge is carried out by arranging a number of objects, which are used as tools or guides, and shaping them into a skillful result, theoretical or practical. We can say that in this case our consciousness is “peripheral” in relation to the main “focus of consciousness” of the integrity that we achieve as a result.”

And

The second area of knowledge is quite well conveyed through speech. This is the area where the component of thinking exists in the form of information that can be entirely conveyed by well-understood speech, so that here the area of tacit knowledge coincides with the text, the bearer of meaning of which it is. In the third, area of “difficulty of understanding” - between the nonverbal content of thinking and speech means - there is an inconsistency that prevents the conceptualization of the content of thought 4. This is an area in which tacit knowledge and formal knowledge are independent of each other. The volume of personal, tacit knowledge also includes the mechanism of familiarization with an object, as a result of which the latter is included in the process of life activity and skills and abilities to communicate with it are formed. Thus, acquaintance with an object as initial knowledge about it, turning into a skill and ability to use and handle this object, becomes a person’s personal knowledge. Let us note, however, that skills, despite all their similarity in the pattern of activity, are different and individual. The task of copying someone else's skill generates its own layer of personal knowledge. (H.P. – Cicero’s experience).“Writing rules for skillful action,” M. Polanyi is sure, “can be useful, but in general they do not determine the success of activity; these are maxims that can serve as a guide only if they fit into practical skill or mastery of art. They cannot replace personal knowledge.”

It is determined by the entire bodily organization of a person and is inseparable from instrumental knowledge, which remains unarticulated. Operationally, the meaning is formed as if on the following plane - in the process of the experience of internal reading of the emerging text “for oneself” and efforts to articulate it “outside”, through the language system created by man. Polanyi argues that meaning is inseparable from the personal confidence that is invested in the proclaimed scientific judgment.

Researchers of the thinker’s creativity emphasize that he was pushed to revise the foundations of the traditional concept of knowledge by the discoveries of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt - as an image or a visually stable spatially perceived form of objects - presupposes the primacy of the whole over the parts. It is applied to mental formations to recreate a single holistic structure that unites and connects various elements and components. Indeed, the technology of operational skills, the processes of forming skills as knowledge, which, in addition to the objective result, is poured into new meanings, into personally colored content, eluded the field of view of methodologists and epistemologists. M. Polanyi brought up the need to think about a new model for the growth of scientific knowledge, which would take into account the current personal-cognitive mechanisms of cognitive activity.

Comments and clarifications:

Knowledge – selective, ordered, obtained in a certain way (method), in accordance with any criteria (norms), information that has social significance and is recognized as knowledge by certain social actors and society as a whole. Depending on the above criteria, knowledge can be divided into two types according to the level of its functioning: ordinary knowledge of everyday life and specialized knowledge (scientific, religious, philosophical, etc.). There are also structures of explicit, presented, rationally designed (expressed), and implicit (latent) knowledge, localized in the structures of accumulated sociocultural experience and in the subconscious of a person. In addition, in explicit knowledge one can distinguish “subject knowledge”, aimed at objects, processes, phenomena of knowledge and metaknowledge (knowledge about knowledge). In philosophy, the problem of knowledge is dealt with by the following sections: epistemology (“the study of knowledge”), epistemology (“the study of knowledge”). Methodology (“the doctrine of method”) claims a special status.

Now let's take a closer look at the relationship between explicit and tacit knowledge.

Explicit knowledge– this is knowledge that can be codified into information and stored on media (paper and electronic), and it will exist regardless of how a person perceives it. Explicit knowledge corresponds to today's, yesterday's and can be recorded on a medium.

Tacit knowledge - hidden, unarticulated and unreflective personal knowledge, an unarticulated and unreflective layer of human experience. Tacit knowledge is associated with the practical experience of the individual and cannot be codified without partial loss of information. Tacit knowledge includes skills, abilities, abilities, and feelings of a person. Tacit knowledge is a unique resource that is difficult to copy.

As shown above, M. Polanyi proceeds from the thesis that a person has two types of knowledge: explicit, articulated, expressed in concepts and judgments, and implicit, implicit, not articulated in language, but embodied in bodily skills, perception patterns, practical mastery . In his interpretation of tacit knowledge, Polanyi distinguishes between “focal” perception and recognition of things of “peripheral” or “instrumental” knowledge.

Polanyi's central idea consists in the fact that science is done by people who have mastered the appropriate skills and abilities of cognitive activity, the mastery of cognition, which cannot be exhaustively described and expressed by means of language. Therefore, articulated scientific knowledge, what is presented in the texts of textbooks and scientific articles, according to Polanyi, is only a small part of knowledge located in the focus of consciousness. Perception of meaning is impossible outside the context of peripheral, tacit knowledge. The meaning of scientific statements is determined by the implicit context of hidden (or tacit) knowledge, which has an instrumental nature: “knowledge-how-it-is-done”, “knowledge-skills”, given by the entire physical and mental organization of a person. The process of articulation, “reading” the meaning that is in the focus of consciousness, is impossible without a holistic, non-detailed context.

In scientific knowledge, explicit, articulated knowledge acts as interpersonal knowledge; it is presented in scientific theories, hypotheses, theoretical models, and experimental laws. However, according to Polanyi, articulation always remains incomplete in relation to knowledge. Therefore, the progress of science is impossible without tacit personal knowledge, which is latently contained in the individual experience of researchers - in their art of experimentation, diagnostics, mastery of theoretical models. This unarticulated, “tacit” knowledge is not presented in textbooks and manuals; it cannot be found in scientific monographs and journal articles. It is transmitted either through direct personal contacts between scientists or through joint experimental research. Polanyi’s concept was put forward as an alternative to “fundamentalist” theories of knowledge (logical empiricism, Marxism), which completely exclude the presence of innate, unconscious and unreflected forms of knowledge. Progress in scientific knowledge, according to Polanyi, depends on the dedication of the individual, in which contacts with reality are established. Self-confidence determines our readiness to fail our routine course of action. Our dedication to the search for something new is always imbued with passion.

We know our language in the sense that we know how to use it to convey one or another objective content. But this knowledge of language is implicit, because language for us is inseparable from the objects that we obtain with its help. We sometimes don’t even notice this language itself, its structure; it is in the “background”, on the “periphery” of consciousness. But through reflection, language can turn into explicit knowledge. When we speak, we do not reflect on “correctness,” compliance with speech norms, or literacy in writing. Norms and rules are followed intuitively and automatically. Through reflection we transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

I call Polanyi’s position “post-critical rationalism.” This means, firstly, recognition of the obvious fact that science is made by people, and people who have skill; the art of cognitive activity and its subtleties cannot be learned from a textbook; it is given only in direct communication with a master. It follows that, secondly, people who make science cannot be mechanically and simply separated from the knowledge they produce and replaced by other introductions to this knowledge only with the help of textbooks. And finally, thirdly, Polanyi introduces into modern philosophy of science the motive of scientific experience as an internal experience, internal faith in science, in its value, the scientist’s passionate interest in the search for objective scientific truth, and personal responsibility towards it.

Implicit knowledge is mastered by a person in practical actions, in modern scientific work, and serves as the basis for his purposeful activity. In science, explicit knowledge is represented in concepts, theories, and tacit knowledge is represented as personal knowledge woven into the art of experimentation and theoretical skills of scientists, into their passions and beliefs. From Polanyi's point of view, there are “two types of knowledge that always enter together into the process of knowing the comprehensive wholeness. This is: - cognition of an object by concentrating attention on it as a whole; - cognition of an object based on our ideas about what purpose it serves as part of this integrity, the part that it is. The latter can be called tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge, according to Polanyi, is not subject to full explication and is transmitted through direct training in the skill of scientific research and personal contacts of scientists. It is handed over from hand to hand. Polanyi's scientific experience is internally experienced, determined by the passionate desire of the researcher to achieve truly scientific truth, and is clearly personally colored.

“When I perceive some group of objects, I am at the same time aware of the difference between my consciousness and these objects, I am aware of the spatio-temporal position of my body. However, all these facts of consciousness are not in its “focus”, but, as it were, in the “background”, on its “periphery”. My consciousness is directly aimed at external objects, which are the subject of knowledge. My body, my consciousness, my cognitive process in this case are not included in the circle of objects of experience, objects of knowledge. Thus, the knowledge about oneself presupposed by any experience, expressed in the form of self-consciousness, is knowledge of a special kind. It could be somewhat loosely called “tacit knowledge” in contrast to the explicit knowledge with which we usually deal. The goal of the cognitive process is to obtain explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge acts as a means, a way of obtaining explicit knowledge” / Lektorsky V.A. Subject, object, cognition. - M,. 1980. P.255. When I touch an object with my hand, I feel the object itself, and not my hand. Tactile perception speaks about an external object, and not about itself. And only in the “background” of consciousness do I experience the act of my own touch and localize the impact of the object on me at the tips of my fingers. In this case, if I touch an object not with my hand, but with a stick, the tactile perception again relates to the object itself, and not to the means I use - the plaque. The latter no longer falls into the “focus” of consciousness, but appears on its “periphery” and is experienced as a direct continuation of my body. In this case, the feeling of the impact of an object - we have already pointed out that this is not the same as a tangible image of objects! – is experienced by me as localized no longer in the tips of the fingers, but at the end of the stick / Lektorsky V.A. Subject, object, cognition. - M,. 1980. P.255.

M. Polanyi, re-evaluates the huge role of faith in the cognitive process, noting that “faith has been discredited so much that, in addition to a limited number of situations related to the practice of religion, modern man has lost the ability to believe, to accept with conviction any statements that the phenomenon of faith has received the status of a subjective manifestation, which does not allow knowledge to achieve universality.” Today, according to the author, we must again recognize that faith is the source of knowledge. A system of mutual public trust is built on it. Agreement, explicit and implicit, intellectual passion, inheritance of culture - all this presupposes impulses closely related to faith. Reason relies on faith as its ultimate foundation, but is always capable of questioning it. The appearance and existence in science of sets of axioms, postulates and principles also has its roots in our belief that the world is a perfect harmonious whole, amenable to our knowledge.

Polanyi demonstrates his rich knowledge of the course and development of the philosophy of science. He states (not without regret) that the ideal of knowledge has been chosen to represent natural science in which it looks like a set of statements, “objective in the sense that their content is entirely determined by observation, and their form can be conventional.” Thus, he indirectly points to all three stages that the philosophy of science has gone through, reducing it to an economical description of facts, to a conventional language for recording conclusions, and to the formulation in the language of protocol sentences of observational data. However, intuition, in his opinion, cannot be eliminated from the cognitive process.

Interpreters identify three main areas or three options for the relationship of thinking in M. Polanyi’s concept of personal knowledge And speech. The first is characterized by the area of tacit knowledge, the verbal expression of which is not self-sufficient or not adequate enough. This is an area in which the tacit tacit knowledge component dominates to such an extent that its articulated expression is essentially impossible. It can be called the region of the “inexpressible.” It covers knowledge based on experiences and life impressions. This is deeply personal knowledge, and it is very, very difficult to transmit and socialize. Art has always tried to solve this problem with its own means. The act of co-creation and empathy reflected the ability to look at the world and life through the eyes of the hero of a life drama.

The second area of knowledge is quite well conveyed through speech. This is the area where the component of thinking exists in the form of information that can be entirely conveyed by well-understood speech, so that here the area of tacit knowledge coincides with the text, the bearer of meaning of which it is. In the third, area of “difficulty of understanding” - between the nonverbal content of thinking and speech means - there is an inconsistency that prevents the conceptualization of the content of thought 4. This is an area in which tacit knowledge and formal knowledge are independent of each other. The volume of personal, tacit knowledge also includes the mechanism of familiarization with an object, as a result of which the latter is included in the process of life activity and skills and abilities to communicate with it are formed. Thus, acquaintance with an object as initial knowledge about it, turning into a skill and ability to use and handle this object, becomes a person’s personal knowledge. Let us note, however, that skills, despite all their similarity in the pattern of activity, are different and individual. The task of copying someone else's skill generates its own layer of personal knowledge. “Writing rules for skillful action,” M. Polanyi is sure, “can be useful, but in general they do not determine the success of activity; these are maxims that can serve as a guide only if they fit into practical skill or mastery of art. They cannot replace personal knowledge.”

The fundamental innovations of M. Polanyi’s concept consist in pointing out that the very meaning of scientific propositions depends on the implicit context of hidden knowledge, “knowledge how,” which has an instrumental character in its deepest foundations. It is determined by the entire bodily organization of a person and is inseparable from the instrumental knowledge that remains unarticulated. Operationally, the meaning is formed as if in a secant plane - in the process of the experience of internal reading of the emerging text “for oneself” and efforts to articulate it “outside”, through the language system created by man. Polanyi argues that meaning is inseparable from the personal confidence that is invested in the proclaimed scientific judgment.

A modern scientist must be prepared to record and analyze results generated outside and in addition to his conscious goal setting, including the fact that the latter may turn out to be much richer than the native goal. Unplanned by goal-setting, meaningful and semantic contexts that unintentionally invade the result reveal the world in a universally uninterested way. A fragment of existence isolated as a subject of study is in fact not an isolated abstraction. Through a network of interactions, currents of multidirectional tendencies and forces, it is connected with the endless dynamics of the world, the knowledge of which science is obsessed with. Main and side, central and peripheral, main and dead-end directions, having their own niches, coexist in constant nonequilibrium interaction. Situations are possible when the developing process does not contain ready-made forms of future states. They arise as by-products of interactions that occur outside the framework of the phenomenon itself, or at least on the periphery of these frameworks. And if earlier science could afford to cut off side branches - peripheral spheres that seemed unimportant - now this is an unaffordable luxury. It turns out that it is generally not easy to define what “not important” or “not interesting” means in science. Emerging on the periphery of connections and relationships, against the backdrop of the intersection of diverse chains of causation in a network of universal interaction (including under the influence of factors that manifested themselves in an insignificant way in the past), a by-product can act as a source of new formation and be even more significant than originally set goal. It testifies to the ineradicable desire of existence to realize all its potential. Here there is a kind of equalization of opportunities, when everything that takes place declares itself and demands recognized existence.

Knowledge can be divided into explicit, for example, codified, and implicit, that is, personal, which cannot be codified. In general, tacit knowledge is a curious substance. It cannot be seen, touched and 100% adopted, therefore, it is very difficult to control. But it is tacit knowledge that is often most important. Philosopher of science Michael Polanyi, who introduced the very concept of “tacit knowledge” into culture, cites the following case as an illustration of the role of “tacit knowledge.” One English laboratory bought equipment from American colleagues. Before starting work, the British carefully studied many operating instructions. However, the equipment never worked. The specialists wondered what was the matter until they decided to go to the manufacturer and see with their own eyes how to use the machines correctly. Upon returning, the team was able to start up the equipment. When asked what new things the specialists learned during the trip, they answered that they could not formulate anything new compared to what was contained in the instructions. Here is a clear example of detecting the presence of tacit knowledge. Or another example: it is known that the elder Kapitsa worked for a long time in the UK, heading a laboratory (research institute). When the Soviet government offered to buy this (research institute) in connection with the end of Kapitsa’s protracted business trip, Heisenberg helped in this, saying the following: the laboratory (research institute) was created specifically for Kapitsa, and no one else could work there, so the laboratory must be sold to the Soviets.

Thus, it turns out that people are the carriers of this important type of knowledge, and this knowledge is transmitted through communication, such as internships, conferences, and joint work. Another example: In ancient Rome there was such a practice of training future statesmen. A young man was brought into the house of some well-known senator, and by observing how the senator prepared political speeches, helping him in this, he acquired skills and learned norms of behavior. See about Cicero.

Through reflection, we transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. §. Reflection as a tool for transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE is a categorical opposition that plays a significant role in the philosophical and methodological concept of M. Polanyi. Cognitive interest can be focused on the integrity of an object or on its structural elements. In the first case, knowledge about the object and its functions acts as central (focal), or explicit, and knowledge about the elements as peripheral, or implicit, implied (tacit). In the second case, explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge switch roles. Depending on the predominance of one or another approach, the cognizing subject has to sacrifice either the meaning of the whole or the meaning of individual elements. Synthetic cognition acts as the unity or complementarity of both cognitive relations.

V. N. Porus

New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol.IV, p. 504-505.

Literature:

Polanyi M. Personal knowledge. On the way to post-critical philosophy. M., 1985; Smirnova N. M. The epistemological concept of M. Polanyi. - “VF”, 1986, No. 2.