"I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell"
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Michael Polanyi’s statement explores the foundational role of tacit knowledge in communication and the understanding of mental processes. He challenges the common assumption that effective communication is achieved solely through the explicit transmission of information, arguing instead that much of what we communicate and understand depends upon tacit knowledge, knowledge that we possess but cannot easily articulate in words.
When individuals communicate, they do not merely exchange explicit statements or factual information. Rather, successful communication often involves shared assumptions, unstated understandings, and intuitions that both parties tacitly recognize without consciously expressing. Language, gestures, tone, and context all evoke layers of meaning derived from a reservoir of past experiences, cultural background, and learned behaviors that defy full articulation. For example, people often comprehend irony, humor, or subtle emotional states not because these are spelled out, but because they resonate with a body of unspoken knowledge that both communicator and recipient share. Therefore, communication is anchored as much in what is left unsaid as in what is openly stated.
Polanyi extends this idea to our understanding of mental processes themselves, such as feelings and intellectual activities. While individuals may attempt to analyze and describe their inner experiences, the very acts of feeling or thinking are based on a substratum of tacit knowing, background awareness, habits of mind, and embodied responses that operate beneath the threshold of explicit self-report. Our self-knowledge, therefore, is always mediated by this inarticulable foundation. The process of contemplation, for instance, is supported by years of accumulated, implicit know-how about focusing attention, making associations, and interpreting emotions, none of which can be fully recounted or systematized.
Polanyi’s insight reveals an essential quality of human knowing: the most vital aspects of how we communicate and understand ourselves are grounded in a form of knowledge that resists direct exposition, but is indispensable for meaning and comprehension. This interplay between the tacit and the explicit is a defining feature of human cognition and society.
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