The Tacit Dimension

"Polanyi's work deserves serious attention.... This is a compact presentation of some of the essentials of his thought." - Review of Metaphysics "Polanyi's work is still relevant today and a closer examination of this theory that all knowledge has personal and tacit elements... can be used to support and refute a variety of widely held approaches to knowledge management." - Electronic Journal of Knowledge "Polanyi's account is one of the best we have of how science operates as both a cultural system and a reality-seeking empirical enterprise. The Tacit Dimension is a brilliant defense of both the autonomy of science and its reliance on inherited, unspoken background assumptions that make it possible for scientists to see or make out a vision of reality." - Richard Shweder, University of Chicago"

“I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell,” writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The Tacit Dimension argues that tacit knowledge—tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments—is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

“Polanyi’s work deserves serious attention. . . . [This is a] compact presentation of some of the essentials of his thought.”—Review of Metaphysics

“Polanyi’s work is still relevant today and a closer examination of this theory that all knowledge has personal and tacit elements . . . can be used to support and refute a variety of widely held approaches to knowledge management.”—Electronic Journal of Knowledge

"The reissuing of this remarkable book give us a new opportunity to see how far-reaching—and foundational—Michael Polanyi's ideas are, on some of the age-old questions in philosophy."—Amartya Sen, from the new Foreword