Os componentes P e D da dimensão tácita

Polanyi claims from his research that tacit knowledge has two distinct properties, which he names its proximal and distal terms [17]. The proximal term is the part that is closer to us, while the distal part is further away.

Polanyi exemplifies by describing how the police help a witness who is unable to describe a perpetrator to create a phantom picture by selecting pictures from a large selection of human features such as eyes, noses, and hair. By attending from the first, closer image that resides within, to the second, more distant picture collection, the witness is able to communicate her awareness of the face.

Similarly, Polanyi refers to an experiment where a person was presented with a large number of nonsense syllables and after certain syllables, the person was given an electric shock. The person was able to anticipate the shock at the sight of the shock syllables but on questioning remained unable to identify them. Again, by attending to the distal term - the shock - the test person became aware of the proximal term - the shock association.

Tacit knowledge is, argues Polanyi, the understanding of the unity that this proximal/distal pair together constitutes. We become aware of the proximal term only in the presence of the distal term - the tactile cue - but remain unable to communicate the former. Should we indeed focus our attention on the proximal term we may become temporarily paralysed and unable to perform the task at hand. For instance, a pianist may know a complicated musical piece by heart and be able to play it without concentrating on where to put his hands. However, should he start to think about where each finger should go - i.e. should he attend to the proximal term - he would soon find himself unable to continue playing.

Hence, we should not attend to the particulars in themselves but be aware of them as the entity they constitute. Only by dwelling in them, we can understand their joint meaning, according to Polanyi. Despite not being easily expressible in words, tacit knowledge may be both shared and taught. Choo [5] explains that through rich modes of discourse including analogies, stories, and metaphors, tacit knowledge may be revealed. Hansson [12] agrees and claims that tacit knowledge is not at all “tacit” - it just expresses itself in another form than spoken language.

Applying Polanyi’s theories here, we see that when attending from our interests - the proximal term - and attending to the document - the distal term - we are able to recognise and express our interests. Through documents, the tacit knowledge of our interests may thus be communicated. All we need now is a mechanism that allows us to both identify documents and share this insight with others. I suggest that a web-based recommender system provides such a mechanism.

Extraído de "Turning Tacit Knowledge Tangible" Dick Stenmark