Rule-Following, Intransitive Understanding and Tacit Knowledge. An Investigation of the Wittgensteinian Concept of Practice as Regards Tacit Knowing

Abstract

If a scientist is incapable of articulating the precise nature of an important discovery in chemistry, how can we consider the legitimacy of his/her claim? Traditionally, we demand that knowledge be capable of formulation in some form of language and that it be supported by experience or proven by formal means. We should also, however, examine the ways we use the terms of knowledge in different contexts, such as those informed by moral, aesthetic, legal and religious values. The concept of an exact language, in which all scientific knowledge can be articulated in an unambiguous way, is thus limited. From the tradition of propositional knowledge emerges the possibility of tacit knowledge, a form of knowledge which for logical reasons cannot be adequately articulated by linguistic means. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s ideas of practice and intransitive understanding in Philosophical Investigations, the chapter explores the concept of rule-following as a practice and, by extension, the roles of analogy and performance in our linguistic grasp of reality.