Tacit Knowledge

Knowledge that is personal, context-specific, and hard to formalize or communicate. It is deeply rooted in action, commitment, and involvement in a specific context.

Michael Polanyi’s formulation: “We can know more than we can tell.”

Tacit knowledge has two dimensions:

Cognitive dimension: Mental models, beliefs, and perspectives so ingrained they are taken for granted. These shape how we perceive and define our world.

Technical dimension: Concrete know-how, crafts, and skills that apply to specific contexts. The kind of knowledge a master craftsman has in their fingertips.

Tacit knowledge is acquired primarily through experience, not instruction. Apprentices learn from masters not through language but through observation, imitation, and practice. The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is shared experience (without it, people cannot share each other’s thinking processes.

Related: 06-atom—explicit-knowledge-definition, 06-molecule—seci-framework, 06-atom—socialization-mode