Claim · Seed idea · last reconsidered September 8, 2026
We know more than we can tell
Polanyi's claim that skilled recognition outruns the criteria anyone can state for it.
We can know more than we can tell. A competent practitioner recognizes a face, a flaw, a promising line of attack without being able to give the criteria — and the missing articulation is not laziness but a structural feature of how skill works.
Michael PolanyiPost-critical epistemology1966
Connected ideas
derived from
- The Tacit DimensionSource
The book's opening sentence and its whole argument.
is referenced by
- When the Answer Becomes Cheaper Than the QuestionWriting
The outline's account of what a prompt leaves out is Polanyi's claim, applied to prompts.
related to
- Tacit knowledgeConcept
This is the concept's origin.
responds to
- What did the prompt leave out?Question
What a prompt leaves out is, systematically, what its author could not have stated.
is supported by
- Knowing-in-actionClaim
Schön's fieldwork is the practitioner-level evidence for Polanyi's claim.
- Legibility costs local knowledgeClaim
The knowledge a scheme cannot capture is tacit knowledge, at the scale of a village.