The Many Meanings of Tacit Knowledge

Not one thing

TK is more like collegiate sports or flowering plants than suspension bridges. It’s a bundle concept.

Collegiate sports bundle under one label different kinds of things that have something in common—football, basketball, rowing, and so on. Flowering plants bundle under one label Elm trees, water lilies, and pitcher plants, although they all have share the fundamental process of capturing energy from sunlight.

Suspension bridges, on the other hand, are pretty much alike. Some are bigger, some smaller, some longer, some shorter, some with different materials, but they all look pretty much alike.

TK is a bundle concept for a simple reason. There are several different sense of “tacit,” for example tacit in the sense of entirely unconscious or in the sense of a tacit understanding (agreed upon in subtle ways without speaking) or in the sense of taken for granted without examination (we tacitly presumed that…).

Also, there are several different senses of “knowledge,” for instance knowledge in the sense of knowing facts about something, or know-how, or the knowledge embodied in habits. No wonder, then, that there are a number of different varieties of TK where what we’re examining is knowledge in one or another sense that is tacit in one or another sense.

Extraído de The many Meanings of Tacit Knowledge
D. Perkins, May, 2002