Abstract
Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised ‘the tacit component’ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented ‘tacit knowledge’—albeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyi’s insights and ignore his faith in ‘spiritual reality’. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a ‘perfect language’, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced ‘external reality’. Faith alone saved Polanyi’s model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism provides scope to rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to ‘other people’ and the intersubjectively viable construction of ‘experiential reality’. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyi’s metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, it is possible to conceptualise ‘imagined institutions’ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Revised Edition). London: Verso.
Blackburn, Simon. 2005. Truth: A guide for the perplexed. London: Penguin.
Einstein, Albert. 1982. Physics and reality. In Ideas and opinions, Albert Einstein, 290–322. New York, NY: Three Rivers.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 1982. An interpretation of Piaget’s constructivism. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 36(4): 612–635.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 2002. Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 2006. You have to be two to start: Rational thoughts about love. Constructivist Foundations 2(1): 1–5.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 2007a. Learning as a constructive activity. In Key works in radical constructivism: Ernst von Glasersfeld, ed. Marie Larochelle, 3–19. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 2007b. Aspects of constructivism: Vico, Berkeley and Piaget. In Key works in radical constructivism: Ernst von Glasersfeld, ed. Marie Larochelle, 91–99. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Glasersfeld, Ernst von. 2007c. Farewell to objectivity. In Key works in radical constructivism: Ernst von Glasersfeld, ed. Marie Larochelle, 135–142. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Hall, Ronald. 1979. Wittgenstein and Polanyi: The problem of privileged self-knowledge. Philosophy Today 23(3): 267–278.
Langford, Thomas, and William Poteat. 1968. Upon first sitting down to read Personal Knowledge: An introduction. In Intellect and hope: Essays in the thought of Michael Polanyi, ed. Poteat Langford, 3–18. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Maasen, Sabine, Wolfgang Prinz, and Gerhard Roth. 2003. Voluntary action: Brains, minds and sociality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maasen, Sabine, and Barbara Sutter. 2007. On willing selves: Neoliberal politics vis-à-vis the neuroscientific challenge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mitchell, Mark. 2006. Michael Polanyi: The art of knowing. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.
Najder, Zdzislaw. 1968. “Moral inversion”—or moral revaluation?’. In Intellect, hope: Essays in the thought of Michael Polanyi, ed. Langford, and Poteat, 364–385. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Nonaka, Ikujiro. 1991. The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review 69: 96–104.
Nonaka, Ikujiro, and Hirotaka Takeuchi. 1995. The knowledge-creating company: How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nonaka, Ikujiro, Ryoko Toyama, and Noboru Konno. 2000. SECI, Ba and leadership: A unified model of dynamic knowledge creation. Long Range Planning 33: 5–34.
Nonaka, Ikujiro, Ryoko Toyama, and Toru Hirata. 2008. Managing flow: A process theory of the knowledge-based firm. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nørretranders, Tor. 1999. The user illusion: Cutting consciousness down to size. London: Penguin Books.
North, Douglass. 1990. Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
North, Douglass. 1991. Institutions. Journal of economic perspectives 5(1): 97–112.
North, Douglass. 2005. Understanding the process of economic change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Oakeshott, Michael. 1958. The human coefficient. Encounter 11(3): 77–80.
Prinz, Wolfgang. 2003. How do we know about our own actions? In Voluntary action: Brains, minds and sociality, ed. Sabine Maasen, Wolfgang Prinz, and Gerhard Roth, 21–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1959. The study of man. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1962. The republic of science: Its political and economic theory. Minerva 1(1): 54–73.
Polanyi, Michael. 1964. Science, faith and society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1967. The growth of science in society. Minerva 5(4): 533–545.
Polanyi, Michael. 1969a. Knowing and being. In Knowing and being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, ed. Marjorie Grene, 123–137. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1969b. Sense-giving and sense-reading. In Knowing and being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, ed. Marjorie Grene, 181–207. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1969c. Life’s irreducible structure. In Knowing and being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, ed. Marjorie Grene, 225–239. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1974. Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael. 1983. The tacit dimension. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.
Polanyi, Michael. 1998. The logic of liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Polanyi, Michael, and Harry Prosch. 1977. Meaning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Prosch, Harry. 1986. Michael Polanyi: A critical exposition. Albany, NY: SUNY.
Ray, Tim. 2008. Japanese management. In International encyclopedia of organization studies, ed. Stewart Clegg, and James Bailey, 731–735. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ray, Tim. 2009. What does knowledge work do? In The Sage handbook of organizational behaviour, Vol. 2: Macro approaches, ed. Stewart Clegg, and Cary Cooper, 53–67. London: Sage.
Ray, Tim, and Stewart Clegg. 2007. Can we make sense of knowledge management’s tangible rainbow? A radical constructivist alternative. Prometheus 25(2): 161–185.
Ryle, Gilbert. 2000. The concept of mind. London: Penguin.
Scott, William Taussig, and Martin Moleski. 2005. Michael Polanyi: Scientist and philosopher. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Teece, David. 2008. Foreword. In Managing flow: A process theory of the knowledge-based firm, ed. Ikujiro Nonaka, Ryoko Toyama and Toru Hirata, ix–xix. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tsoukas, Haridimos. 2003. Do we really understand tacit knowledge? In The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management, ed. Easterby-Smith Mark, and Lyles Marjorie, 410–427. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Takeuchi, Hirotaka, and Ikujiro Nonaka. 2004. Hitotsubashi on knowledge management. Singapore: Wiley.
Ritzer, George. 2004a. The McDonaldization of society, Revised New Century Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Ritzer, George. 2004b. The globalization of nothing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Wigner, E.P., and R.A. Hodgkin. 1977. Michael Polanyi: 12 March 1891–22 February 1976, elected F.R.S. 1944. Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society 23(Nov): 413–448.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ray, T. Rethinking Polanyi’s Concept of Tacit Knowledge: From Personal Knowing to Imagined Institutions. Minerva 47, 75–92 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9119-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9119-1