Understanding the Tacit

<p>This book outlines a new account of the tacit meaning tacit knowledge presuppositions practices traditions and so forth. It includes essays on topics such as underdetermination and mutual understanding and critical discussions of the major alternative approaches to the tacit including Bourdieu’s habitus and various practice theories Oakeshott’s account of tradition Quentin Skinner’s theory of historical meaning Harry Collins’s idea of collective tacit knowledge as well as discussions of relevant cognitive science concepts such as non-conceptual content connectionism and mirror neurons. The new account of tacit knowledge focuses on the fact that in making the tacit explicit a person is not as many past accounts have supposed reading off the content of some sort of shared and fixed tacit scheme of presuppositions but rather responding to the needs of the Other for understanding.</p>