Gagdad Bob and I are fans of the chemist and polymath Michael Polanyi, which I guess means that we are fans of epistemology.
Bob comments, in Probing the Vertical Unknown:
Polanyi compared scientific theories to the cane of a blind man. Imagine if you suddenly lost your sight and had to explore your surroundings with a cane. At first you would be very aware of the sensations of the cane in your hand. In a sense, your world would be very "cramped" and up close. But with time, the cane would begin to be an extension of your hand, so that you could "feel" things beyond your hand by essentially ignoring it.
In other words, if you focus on the hand, you specifically lose "sight" of what the cane is touching. Eventually the hand's "touch" would extend as far as the cane. Polanyi called the "hand knowledge" tacit and the "cane knowledge" focal. He also called it from ---> to knowledge; however, he felt that all meaningful knowledge shared this from ---> to structure. It doesn't mean that the knowledge isn't "real." But there is no way to conceptualize it in the absence of an active subject who evolves by converting more and more focal (to) knowledge into tacit (from) knowledge, thereby expanding the space in which he lives. For example, various scientific canes have allowed us to "see" all the way back to the origins of the cosmos, just as psychoanalytic canes allow us to peer into the unconscious.
Clear, or not? Epistemology slides into metaphysics, and metaphysics mercifully slides into "Where are my sneakers?" and "What's for supper?"
Polanyi viewed "knowing" as an art, and believed in objective truth but respected its elusiveness. Most of his philosophy of science is in Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
Image: A star "nursery" from the Hubble telescope
