Tacit Knowledge and Why it Matters
“While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.” — Michael Polanyi
Tacit knowledge can be best described as experiential learning. It comes from the interactions we have with the world around us as we cope with existence. Explicit knowledge is easily articulated and shared (Alexander.)
Polanyi was a chemist, and philosopher who believed Truth is not something which can be found in a purely mechanical way, because we cannot separate knowledge claims from personal judgement (Michael Polanyi Philosopher: On Knowledge). A man who wears glasses may be able to see clearly; however, his frames, the glare off the glass, nose, and any impurities in glass will always be interrupting his view. Thus, every subject approached is approached with an underlying tacit knowledge gained through experience. There is no clean slate, but a framework used to shape ideas. As Lee Sulima explained, “For Polanyi, we cannot separate our thoughts, commitments, and personal judgements from the world that we examine. So, we examine the world in a biased way. To know is Participate and to participate is to bring tacit knowledge to the table.” In a world of logical dead ends where the very premise of existence was in question, Polanyi championed intuition, hunches, hypothesis, and most importantly Tacit knowledge.
If a car breaks down most people will take it to the mechanic to get it fixed. This is explicit knowledge, we have learned from school, parents, or teachers that if a car is broken take it to a mechanic (Importance of Tacit Knowledge in Education.) But would a person know what exactly is wrong with the car until the mechanic diagnosis it? If yes, then that person is likely using tacit knowledge, if no, then they don’t have tacit knowledge on that subject.
During my high school experience I was able to witness tacit vs explicit almost every day, without knowing about it at the time. Once, I tutored a high school AP History student. He was a diligent and focused person, he memorized the vocabulary and facts but was still struggling in his history class, especially in essay writing. This is because writing history essays require an understanding of cause and effect, change over time, and evidence-based thinking. My student had a lot of explicit knowledge but lacked the skills to look at unfamiliar question about a familiar topic and build evidence-based arguments. Ultimately, I trained him to become adept at recognizing what type of question was being asked and then use a pre-designed template we worked on to use for his essay. Since AP graders only look for certain points and skim through the essay this technique worked. However, this was nothing more than explicit knowledge about a specific part of a specific exam. In contrast to high school academia is the ancient sport of wrestling. Wrestling is the art of brain and body working symbiotically, to be a good wrestler one has to have a complete understanding of how one’s own body and the opposing body works in different situations with a variety of factors. Therefore, almost every match is a battle of mentality, thinking, technique, and strategy. Thus, wrestlers develop immense tacit knowledge on the effects of biology, chemistry, physics, probability, and neuroplasticity. This knowledge is built though hours and hours of year-round practice on mentality, technique, body, and wrestling live situations. People love to debate on which fighting style is the best, they look at stats, championships won in MMA, who beat who; however, rarely do they talk about the almost instinctual knowledge of these fighters. If someone has only ever used their fists to fight, their entire tacit knowledge base revolves around how to deliver strong and fast punches. If someone has only have used their kicks to fight, then they only fully grasp the kicking game. However, if someone has used their entire body to impose their will on the entire body of an opponent, that person has tacit knowledge on combat using the whole body.
When athletes from various disciplines enter the world of wrestling, it becomes clear how difficult it is to wrap a man up like a python and glue them to the ground. To have complete control on another human body which is trying to have complete control over you, is extremely difficult. The unexperienced athletes suffer greatly, they are broken down to their most basic, humbled, crushed, and the ones who break mentally are the ones who walk out. The ones who keep on fighting no matter what, experience the greatest bliss a human can receive. All it takes is one win, one win and an athlete becomes addicted to the sport. The rush of dominance causes them to practice every aspect of their self, because it takes the perfect human being to win Gold in wrestling. In the process of training for that Gold, the wrestlers develop their vast tacit knowledge spanning many fields. There is a reason why 8 U.S. presidents were wrestlers, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln (Wrestling Hall of Famer), and Teddy Roosevelt. Wrestlers must understand how to interact with their teammates, coaches, support staff, and be leaders when needed. They have to develop an innate sense of the body, nutrition, weight management, strength, speed, agility, injury management, recovery, flexibility, and what parts of the body have leverage in certain situations and which ones do not. This is where knowledge of physics and psychology comes in handy since wrestling technique are built around creating and destroying leverage, whether it is pushing someone around until they push you back, or simply taking someone down and staying on your toes to effectively control their entire body. Additionally, neuroplasticity, the game is a battle with yourself as much as your opponent. Nurturing the right mindset is the difference between wrestlers and the ones who quit wrestling. All this tacit knowledge, comprised with tacit knowledge in numerous other fields (i.e. problem solving, risk management) builds great warriors and great people. Knowing the momentum formula is not going to help you win a wrestling match but knowing how to make your opponent have a certain momentum so you may take them down using gravity will win you many matches.
To conclude, explicit knowledge is useful- it can serve as a basis by which to understand the world. However, it is the hard to acquire tacit knowledge which makes the difference between the average and the great.
Bibliography
“Importance of Tacit Knowledge in Education | Richard Brock | TEDxCambridgeUniversity.” YouTube, Tedx Talks, 15 Oct. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkd-1zc_Gn4.
Sulima, Lee, director. Michael Polanyi Philosopher: On Knowledge. YouTube, Lee Sulima, 28 Oct. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJxoeETx6IE.
Alexander, Rachel. “Tacit, Explicit, and Implicit Knowledge: Definitions and Examples.” Bloomfire, Bloomfire, 17 June 2019, https://bloomfire.com/blog/implicit-tacit-explicit-knowledge/.
