The purpose of this article is to discuss the problem of tacit knowledge, or to review the conditions whose satisfation makes it possible to ask a well formulated question about existence of such knowledge. The author has assumed that to approach this problem he must begin from expilcating the term 'tacit knowledge' in order to expound the consequences of the meaning so explicated. The article is made of four parts. In the first part the function of tacit knowledge is presented, and especially the validity of opinions which cannot be defined as justified true beliefs is subjected to scrutiny. In the second part the author discusses the concept of tacit knowledge as it is used by Michael Polanyi, and he pays special attention to the problem of the subject who possesses such knowledge. The third part deals with the relationship between tacit knowledge and the traditional conception of reliable knowledge. The fourth part returns to methodological issues connected with attempts to define tacit knowledge.
The idea of 'tacit knowledge' is treated here as the most general descriptive notion defining processes taking place out of the human consciousness but having impact on human behaviour. Up to 1970s, this notion can be traced solely in Polanyi's writings. He argued that 'tacit knowledge' has a decisive role in a scholar's competence affecting, among other things, process of seeking and solving scientific problems . The role of non-verbal processes (although without mentioning them) in the development of scientific knowledge has been also addressed by Kuhn and Fleck. The paper deals with what is actual in cognitive and social psychology and is connected with the relationship between the open and the hidden in processes of information processing and social cognition. It is possible that in the near future the transfer of psychological knowledge on hidden processes into the realm of problems dealt with by Kuhn and Polanyi will occur.
In the first step, the authoress describes shortly Michael Polanyi's sophisticated theory of science and cognition; his conception of tacit knowledge is a part of this theory. Further, she reconstructs Polanyi's views on tacit knowledge and its role in science. She also attempts to precise the notion of tacit knowledge by referring to subject literature.
The aim of the studies was to assess the role of perceptual and introspective consciousness in implicit learning process measured by the artificial grammar learning task. Two experiments using artificial grammar learning paradigm were conducted. The presentation time during acquisition phase was manipulated. First experiment showed that perceptual consciousness of stimuli is the necessary condition for acquiring tacit knowledge about letter strings. It also suggests that introspective consciousness could be necessary for the implicit knowledge acquisition. Second experiment showed that participants acquired different kind of knowledge depending on presentation time of letter strings confirming that both perceptual and introspective consciousness influence the results of artificial grammar learning. The results of the studies indicate that perceptual and introspective consciousness are necessary conditions for forming implicit and abstract knowledge in artificial grammar learning task. The results are incoherent with the assumptions of evolutionary theory of implicit knowledge acquisition suggesting necessity of its modification.
Knowledge appears as resource more and more often in current conceptions of regional development. Formation of the knowledge based society and economy has greatly contributed to the economic revision of the concept and characteristics of knowledge. Knowledge plays a more and more important role in the investigations of regional science: regional inequalities are explained with different knowledge stock and with the related social resources. For the regional economic development the economic and local characteristics of knowledge creation and -transfer have essential importance, they need to be taken into consideration while planning development programs, and especially when working out innovation strategies. The scientific literature of knowledge deals emphatically with the local factors of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer that are related to the concept of tacit knowledge. The study surveys models based on tacit knowledge from the international literature of organizational knowledge creation, and enlarges upon the models' interpretability. The so called knowledge spiral (SECI) model of local knowledge creation and -transfer is extended with the adaptation of the latest results of organizational models. The applicability of the principles of knowledge creation is highlighted with the help of a practical example from Finland (Tampere).
The paper aims to systemize the operations involved in the interpretation of the research results and scientific explanation. It draws attention to the complex issues of the scientific laws, deals with the relation between an action and its cause, emphasizes the difference between knowledge and cognition, and considers the conditions of a good argumentation and the impossibility to separate the interpretation from the explorative analysis. It also draws attention to a 'sociological turn' in the philosophy of science. It reviews several types of the explanations including hypothetical, genetic and teleological. Article concludes by highlighting the so-called tacit knowledge, which can not be formulated explicitly and in some cases it can not be even explained. Author regards this as a source of inspiration for the social sciences, which produce new knowledge under the conscious recognition of inherent limits of their own reality perceptions.
The aim of the article is to explicate Polanyi's idea of science in aspect of its origins, i.e. criticism of Marxist policy of planning in science followed by defence of scientific freedom in initiating and conducting research independently of any extraneous pressure. The first part of the article contains reconstruction of Polanyi's interpretation of Marxist idea of science that denies a key distinction between pure and applied science, reconstructed in the second part. Further two parts describe Polanyi's criticism of planning in science and expound his idea of scientific freedom. Part five consists in synthetic reconstruction of his notion of science in its four dimensions - objective (verbal and non-verbal), personal, habitual and social.
Definitions of organizational culture usually focus on shared symbols, rituals, behavioral patterns, or even propositional assumptions concerning reality. Such phenomena represent heterogeneous collection of objects, events, and processes. Instead, the paradigm of integrated humanities defines organizational culture in terms of beliefs which provide both practical instructions for agents and shared interpretative schemes which guide the understanding of the environment. In this context, the process of “sensemaking” is understood as a knowledge-based act of cultural sense-giving or of culturally mediated construction of organizational reality. Since the meaning-creation process seems to be both culturally mediated and knowledge-based, the perspective presented in the paper is defined as an “epistemic model of organizational culture”.
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