The Great Depressio N
...MGT 641
May 8, 2007
"We can see now how an unbridled lucidity can destroy our understanding of
complex matters. Scrutinize closely the particulars of a comprehensive
entity and their meaning is effaced, our conception of the entity is
destroyed."
"The damage done by the specification of particulars may be irremediable.
Meticulous detailing may obscure beyond recall a subject like history,
literature or philosophy. Speaking more generally, the belief that, since
particulars are more tangible, their knowledge offers a true conception of
things is fundamentally mistaken".
"My examples show clearly that, in general, an explicit integration cannot
replace its tacit counterpart. The skill of a driver cannot be replaced by
a thorough schooling in the theory of the motorcar; the knowledge I have
of my own body differs altogether from the knowledge of its physiology;
and the rules of rhytming and prosody do not tell me what a poem told me,
without any knowledge of its rules.
We are approaching here a crucial question. The declared aim of modern
science is to establish a strictly detached, objective knowledge. Any
failing short of this ideal is accepted only as a temporary imperfection,
which we must aim at eliminating. But suppose that the tacit thought
forms an indispensable part of all knowledge, then the ideal of eliminating
all personal elements of knowledge would, in effect, aim at the destruction
of all knowledge. The ideal of exact science would turn out to be
fundamentally
misleading and possibly a source of DEVASTATING FALACIES.
I think I can show that the process of formalizing all knowledge to the
exclusion of any tacit knowing is self-defeating..."
"The first emergence by which life comes into existence is the prototype of
all subsequent stages of evolution, by which rising forms of life,...
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