Abstract

Harry Collins’ book Tacit and Explicit Knowledge seeks to clarify the concept of tacit knowledge made famous by Michael Polanyi. Collins’ tripartite taxonomy of tacit knowledge is explained using illustrative examples from clinical medicine. Collins focuses on distinguishing the kinds of tacit knowledge that can (in principle) be made wholly explicit from the kinds of tacit knowledge that are inescapably tacit. Polanyi’s writings, on the other hand, emphasize the process of tacit knowing. Collins’ investigation of tacit knowledge makes an important scholarly contribution that is distinct from and complementary to investigations that focus on tacit knowing.