Tacit Konwledge

Since the concept of Tacit Knowledge(TK) was first advanced in 1958 by M. Polyni, the famous British physicist, chemist and thinker, people have never ceased researches into it. However, owing to various reasons, these researches were just not comprehensive and thorough. In this paper, the author tries to illustrate TK in an extensive and systematic way to enable people have an all-round understanding of it.To begin with, based on the concept of TK, the author compares it with Academic Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge, and accordingly makes it much clearer. Then, along the tracks of epistemology, the author traces back to the history of human being' s research on TK, from Democritean' s Equivocal (Ambiguous) knowledge and Truth Knowledge to M. Polyni' s formal advancing of the concept of TK. The history of TK, seen from this angle, is long. However, it is not until the mid-1900s did people begin to attach importance and make research on TK under the promotion of development of irrational ism, positivism, intellectual theory, intelligence test and cognitive psychology. Examined from this angle, its history can be said , short.As to the nature of TK, the author deems that it is a kind of individual knowledge or personal knowledge , technological knowledge, inarticulated and in relation to experiences instead of IQ. Observed from structure, TK is a solid tri-dimensional structure; if from another angle, TK can also be considered as a plane tri-dimensional structure. In term of types, TK can be classified according to different standards. For instance, it can be classified according to individual developments, professions and domains, subjects, function as well as contents. Different standards can bring about different classifying results of classfication.The author pays great attention to illustration of the emergence and development of TK. First of all, he lists several theories concerning with the emergence and development of TK, and furthermore advances the mature theory from strips, the continuous terrain from individual development, the conversion theory from meta-development, and the spiral theory from synthetic development. Secondly, the authoradvances several theories on acquisition of TK----insight theory, apprentice theory,implicit learning theory, informal learning theory and constructive theory. Thirdly, the author analyses the stages when TK can be acquired, and points out the factors which influence the acquisition. Lastly, the author considers that production system, prototypes and rules are the representations of TK, and TK is kept in minds by means of a series of production systems, prototypes and rules.In addition, the author makes researches on measures of TK, such as, critical incidents measure, assessment centered measure, expertise-and-riovice measure, and so on. In this way, these researches break down the barrier of inarticulateness of TK,and enable people to further research from both qualitative and quantitative aspeets.At the end of this paper, the author points out the significance of the research on TK. As regards to theory, TK is a kind of knowledge mixed with science and humanities, and is characterized by post-modern. As regards to practice, TK can be used in scientific research, business management and teaching and education.The author not only approaches TK from all the various aspects, but also makes two tests in order to corroborate the conclusions made in theory research.