The Tacit Dimension

Three lectures given by Michael Polanyi at Yale in 1962 and published in 1966, condensing the argument of his much longer Personal Knowledge. Polanyi’s premise is a single sentence: we can know more than we can tell. We recognise a face without being able to specify how, a swimmer cannot state the rule that keeps him afloat, and a scientist’s judgement about which problem is worth attacking is not derivable from any method. From this he builds a case that all knowing rests on a tacit foundation that cannot be fully made explicit, which means knowledge is transmitted by apprenticeship and trust rather than by specification alone — and that a research community governed by central direction rather than mutual authority will fail, because the thing being directed is not statable.

Why it’s on the list: Assigned in the University of Austin’s Philosophy of Social Science course. Polanyi is the direct challenge to the idea that social inquiry can be put on a fully explicit, rule-following footing: if the knowledge that guides an expert cannot be written down, then what a social science can hope to be, and how it can be taught, both change.

Where I saw it: On the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list, “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, November 13 2025, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 65-text curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
• Michael Polanyi — the author.
• Personal Knowledge — Polanyi’s longer book, which these lectures compress.
• The Republic of Science — Polanyi’s 1962 essay on self-governing research, the political half of the same argument.
• Scientific Progress — what the tacit account implies about how discovery actually happens.