Tacit Knowledge of Theories of Meaning

Dr. Tim Thornton, Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health at the University of Central Lancashire, has written an article titled Tacit Knowledge of Theories of Meaning.

The first two paragraphs of this article:

The conception of tacit knowledge I defend is that of context-dependent, conceptually-structured, practical knowledge. It stands opposed to knowledge which can be made explicit in situation-independent general terms. Thus, in general, tacit knowledge cannot be conveyed by situation-independent linguistic instruction. Such language and tacit knowledge stand opposed.

But there has, historically, been an appeal to tacit knowledge precisely in connection with language and in a way which is rather more straight forward than Harry Collins’ suggestion that tacit knowledge can reside in the patterns and frequencies of word use of linguistic communication. This is the idea that a speaker’s understanding of a language consists in tacit knowledge of a theory of meaning, or a grammar, for that language.