Wittgenstein
One argument that has been taken to support the importance of tacit knowledge in underpinning the conceptual order is Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule following in his Philosophical Investigations. The connection, in a nutshell, runs like this. Grasping a concept, or understanding a word, is a matter of following a rule for a word’s correct use. But any attempt to explain a rule by making it explicit in words or symbols seems to presuppose a particular interpretation of them. Specifying the correct interpretation in more words or symbols begins vicious regress. And thus, the thought goes, since it cannot be made fully explicit, there must be a tacit element to understanding a word or grasping a concept. This regress is emphasised in an early passage in which Wittgenstein compares a rule with a signpost.
A rule stands there like a sign-post. – Does the sign-post leave no doubt open about the way I have to go? Does it shew which direction I am to take when I have passed it; whether along the road or the footpath or cross-country? But where is it said which way I am to follow it; whether in the direction of its finger or (e.g.) in the opposite one? – And if there were, not a single sign-post, but a chain of adjacent ones or of chalk marks on the ground – is there only one way of interpreting them?... [Wittgenstein 1953 §85]
But is the nutshell argument linking this to tacit knowledge a coherent line of thought? Does Wittgenstein’s own discussion suggest that understanding a rule must be a tacit matter and cannot be made explicit? What does the regress argument show? What is the role for a tacit dimension in following a rule?
Reading
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell §§85-6, 139-239
Further Reading
Kripke, S. (1982) Wittgenstein on rules and private language, Oxford: Blackwell pp7-22
McDowell, J. (2009) ‘How Not to Read Philosophical Investigations: Brandom’s Wittgenstein’ in his The Engaged Intellect Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Thornton, T. (1998) Wittgenstein on Language and Thought, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press pp69-79.
Johannessen, K.S. (2006) 'Rule following, intransitive understanding and tacit knowledge' in Goranzon, B., Hammaren, M. and Ennals, R. (eds) Dialogue, Skill and Tacit Knowledge, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Reflections on Wittgenstein
