The myth of other people.
Polanyi, purveyor of the idea of tacit knowledge, said that "we can know more than we can tell."
A critic reading a novel brings with him a lifetime of experiences and beliefs that he applies in his efforts to understand what he reads. This tacit knowledge which informs him is a backlight that simultaneously clarifies and casts shadows over the text.
On the one hand, without the tacit knowledge, the critic would have no context by which to learn new knowledge. Like it or not, all knowledge is molded by the shape of the brain into which it is shoved. And without the mold of the brain, knowledge has no home.
On the other hand, there is no way for the critic to share his understanding with another in a way that is completely unqualified. Even if he managed to explicitly annotate every nuance of the novel, his explication would be at the mercy of another critic with another realm of tacit knowledge that is entirely unique. To know is simple enough, if we can put aside prejudices about absolute knowledge and define knowledge as something understood by a subjective mind, but to share knowledge is impossible.
I have friends who, I feel sure, must know me. And then I take a step away and wonder how they know me. What am I to them? I'm an interpretation from a unique field of knowledge. I represent something. I'm theoretical, what Polanyi would call focal knowledge, if memory serves me. I'm not concrete. I'm not even myself. I'm symbolic of a set of ideas. To one person, I might represent an idea of a mother. To someone else, I will always be bound up with the idea of a karoake-singing, bourbon-swilling audacity. If I'm lucky, I may represent a romantic ideal to someone out there. If I'm unlucky, I may represent trouble and trash. And, knowing me as I do, which is tacitly, I could never tell you what I am. Not really.
A critic reading a novel brings with him a lifetime of experiences and beliefs that he applies in his efforts to understand what he reads. This tacit knowledge which informs him is a backlight that simultaneously clarifies and casts shadows over the text.
On the one hand, without the tacit knowledge, the critic would have no context by which to learn new knowledge. Like it or not, all knowledge is molded by the shape of the brain into which it is shoved. And without the mold of the brain, knowledge has no home.
On the other hand, there is no way for the critic to share his understanding with another in a way that is completely unqualified. Even if he managed to explicitly annotate every nuance of the novel, his explication would be at the mercy of another critic with another realm of tacit knowledge that is entirely unique. To know is simple enough, if we can put aside prejudices about absolute knowledge and define knowledge as something understood by a subjective mind, but to share knowledge is impossible.
I have friends who, I feel sure, must know me. And then I take a step away and wonder how they know me. What am I to them? I'm an interpretation from a unique field of knowledge. I represent something. I'm theoretical, what Polanyi would call focal knowledge, if memory serves me. I'm not concrete. I'm not even myself. I'm symbolic of a set of ideas. To one person, I might represent an idea of a mother. To someone else, I will always be bound up with the idea of a karoake-singing, bourbon-swilling audacity. If I'm lucky, I may represent a romantic ideal to someone out there. If I'm unlucky, I may represent trouble and trash. And, knowing me as I do, which is tacitly, I could never tell you what I am. Not really.
posted by Autumn at 10:02 AM
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