Research On Polanyi's Tacit Knowledge Theory

"Tacit knowledge theory" was put forward by the British philosopher,physical chemist Michael Polanyi.He wanted to criticize the absolute objectivist tendencies in traditional epistemology.Polanyi established the epistemological and scientific view based on the tacit knowledge theory,and emphasized the importance of personality in cognition.His commitment ontology and tacit knowledge theory gave his scientific view the rich humanistic meaning,and did a new explanation to the relationship between science and humanities.Polanyi believes that there are the ingredients of tacit which is unspeakable to a large extent in our understanding.In this way,knowledge is personal.This article begins with the origin of the tacit knowledge theory,and combs the basic content of the Polanyi theory.The aim is to have the whole understanding of Polanyi's personal knowledge and to elaborate the delineation of science and technology and science development model.Polanyi distinguished the acquirement ways by using the content of economic relations and analyzed the similarities and differences on the purpose and the object of the both.Secondly,this article puts forward some of the problems in the Polanyi theory,and tries to make the evaluation.Thirdly,the author analyzes the commonality between Polanyi's tacit knowledge theory and "the distinction between language and meaning" of Chuang Tzu,and explains the connections and differences on the"language" problem between the East and the West.In the last chapter,the author intends to summarize the value of the Polanyi's tacit theory.Polanyi's tacit theory's emphasis on "the role of Cognizant's in the formation of knowledge" is a major change in epistemology.Polanyi started from the tacit knowledge theory and made a new and more convincing explanation to some of the issues which were discussed by a long time on the philosophy.I think that Polanyi did not refine and distinguish"unspeakable" and "not yet spoken",and he put things that could be expressed in other ways into "could not be said",so that he had exaggerated the subjectivity of knowledge.This confusion let him insist on the existence and importance of tacit knowledge.In addition,Polanyi equated knowledge and belief,and this error made his epistemological go farther in the direction of subjectivism.He tried to retain the objectivity of knowledge,so he put forward the "commitment".But Polanyi's over-emphasis on personal factors made him a same mistake in the elaboration of his interpretation framework.This led him ignore the public elements of the scientific community.