Tacit Knowledge and Intuition

Tacit knowledge without intuition, precisely speaking

In our natural way of speaking, we usually do not usually call actions intuitions. Consider this dictionary definition:

Intuition is:
1a. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.
1b. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.
2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.

Notice that it’s all about knowing or sensing, not about action.

Yet TK clearly figures in many actions. When it does, we have TK operating without an intuition in the precise sense.

Suppose in a sport I've found a groove and settle into it and play well. Clearly this reflects TK. Yet it foregrounds action, the smooth engaged execution of the sports activity, rather than an insight or even an impression. It seems odd to speak of an intuition in such cases.

Or suppose, familiar with the feel of a rocking boat, having my “sea legs,” I stand on the deck and automatically shift my legs to keep balance. This reflects tacit knowledge accumulated from experience. It’s certainly tacit. I cannot explain to you what I do in order to keep my balance. I just do it.

But my actions don’t take the form of ideas or insights or judgments. My actions are bodily motions, not mental states. I'm not having intuitions, although one might say that I'm behaving intuitively or displaying intuitive actions.

Intuition without tacit knowledge, precisely speaking
TK precisely speaking involves knowledge. Perhaps the nonconscious reasons behind some intuitions aren’t properly knowledge. Then you could have an intuition without TK in the precise sense.

But what could the nonconscious reasons be if not knowledge? Well, our sense of logic or logical fit for example, when we arrive at conclusions that reflect less the content and more the form of something. Consider the classic syllogism:

Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Consider the feeling that the last line follows inevitably from the first two. Where does that feeling of inevitability come from?

Some philosophers speak of our logical intuitions. But is this knowledge? We do have knowledge of the meanings of “is” and “all.” But the feeling of inevitability doesn’t follow from either of those meanings alone. It follows from the way the syllogism puts the two together. That’s more like logic than knowledge—again, “logical intuition” might be a better term.

So, there you have it: intuition without TK, precisely speaking. Instead, it’s a “logical intuition.”

But wait a minute. In a loose sense, the feeling of inevitability comes from our knowledge of the meaning of “is” and “all” and how they fit together in the syllogism. So again, it’s pretty picky to say that TK isn’t involved. As in the previous section, it depends on how far one wants to stretch.

To repeat the warning ventured earlier, these quirks of usage should not mask the basic and robust relationship between TK and intuition. The two are partners in the same fundamental story, TK the resource and intuition the outcome, a story that holds up wonderfully well for prototypical examples and well enough along the edges, if we are willing to stretch usage a little bit.
D. Perkins, Monday, March 19, 2001

Extraído de How Tacit Knowledge and Intuition Relate to One Another

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