{"id":676,"date":"2025-10-29T07:52:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/?p=676"},"modified":"2025-10-29T07:54:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:54:57","slug":"ingold-and-michael-polanyi-on-telling-and-the-personal-knowledge-iceberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/archives\/676","title":{"rendered":"Ingold and Michael Polanyi on ‘telling’ and the ‘personal knowledge’ iceberg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the second-to-last chapter of Tim Ingold\u2019s Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture, <\/em>Ingold centres around the idea of \u2018the hand\u2019 and brings up philosopher Michael Polanyi in his opening statements to highlight ideas of \u2018telling\u2019, \u2018articulating\u2019, and \u2018knowing\u2019. Ingold believes that while everything can be told, not everything can be articulated, and to strengthen his argument he uses one of Polanyi\u2019s notable pieces of work, the book The Tacit Dimension<\/em>, as a framework for what Ingold believes about knowledge and how it is communicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background on Michael Polanyi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Polanyi was a physicist, chemist, and philosopher who was born in 1891 and passed away in 1976. He lived through both world wars, even migrating from Germany when Nazis took power, and his philosophical work that he developed later in life was heavily influenced by living through those global events, as well as the rise of totalitarianism as a whole (The Polanyi Society). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book that Ingold refers to, The Tacit Dimension<\/em>, was published in 1967 and introduces Polanyi\u2019s idea of \u201cwe know more than we can tell\u201d (Ingold 109). I was not able to access Polanyi\u2019s full book via the UBC Library or the internet, so I am citing its mention in Ingold\u2019s Making.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formal vs. Personal Knowledge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polanyi\u2019s view on thinking and knowledge was that \u2018we know more than we can tell\u2019 (Ingold 109), and he classified knowledge into two camps: personal and formal. Formal knowledge is knowledge that can be specifically articulated and explained clearly to someone else, whereas personal knowledge cannot. Personal knowledge, to Polanyi, is the type of \u2018know-how\u2019 that only comes from the experience and practice that an individual goes through, whether it be perfecting a craft or learning how to hunt. It is not able to be articulated and thus, it cannot be taught. It is also important to note that Polanyi defines \u2018telling\u2019 as requiring \u201cspecification and articulation\u201d (Ingold 109), and Ingold bases his views on that definition. Ingold very much disagrees with Polanyi\u2019s sentiment about personal knowledge being \u2018untellable\u2019 and argues, for example, that the idea that the age-old example of a craftsman being suddenly unable to explain how they do what they do when asked, is unfounded (Ingold 109). Ingold argues that people are absolutely able to communicate and \u201ctell\u201d others what they do, no matter how innate or personal it may seem. However the telling is not necessarily verbal, but it can be shown and demonstrated. This ties into Ingold\u2019s belief that people correspond with the world and think through making. Polanyi\u2019s perspective doesn\u2019t make sense through Ingold\u2019s lens, because if unspoken stuff or lessons couldn\u2019t be taught since they were \u2018personal\u2019, then no one could learn through making, and learning through doing is a well-established fact of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ways of Telling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To further help prove his point, Ingold in this chapter highlights the different forms of \u2018telling\u2019 to both debunk Polanyi\u2019s ideas, and set up Ingold\u2019s overall argument, which is that everything can be \u2018told\u2019. Ingold talks about storytelling, which is a form of telling where a narrative is told that includes lessons and patterns, and then there is \u2018telling\u2019, which is the more discernible approach where people search for \u2018tells\u2019 in others. For example, studying someone\u2019s face while playing poker is a \u2018tell\u2019, since you are using environmental clues such as the furrowing of their brow and the tapping of their fingers on the table to make a judgement for yourself about what is really going on. Ingold brings up an example of being able to tell the tone in which a handwritten note was meant (or not meant) to be received, based on the inflection marks on the letters (Ingold 110). These two methods of telling come together in storytelling as well, but if Polanyi\u2019s method of thinking on \u2018tells\u2019 were accurate, Ingold states that that would mean all stories would have the same exact meanings or lessons because of how rigid Polanyi\u2019s \u2018formal\u2019 and \u2018personal\u2019 knowledge perspective functions. Stories do not work that way though, as they are purposely told with a degree of open-endedness so that the audience can bring about their own meaning and takeaways from it. As an example, Little Red Riding Hood <\/em>is a classic tale that, in effect, teaches children about stranger danger. The story does not set out to literally warn children of actual wolves that can eat one\u2019s grandparent, but it is close enough to a real example of a wolf being a shady stranger that readers can figure out the lessons behind the words. For Ingold, the lessons that stories give are less of an \u2018answer\u2019 and more of a path or trail that one can follow (Ingold 110), and from there everyone gets something unique out of it. It should be noted that Ingold does cite Polanyi\u2019s work during this chapter, so while I did not access the direct text that Ingold did, using the information gathered from the Polanyi Society website helped fill in gaps that I think are useful, which I will get into shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ways of Thinking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n


To close out his argument regarding Polanyi\u2019s words specifically, Ingold refers back to Polanyi\u2019s definition of what is required for telling, which are specification and articulation. Ingold talks about \u2018articulate thinking\u2019, which is the process of thinking about one\u2019s words before speaking them, organizing them in the brain all in advance before sharing the thoughts with anyone else. He argues that if every time people thought it were \u2018articulated\u2019, no thinking or \u2018making\u2019 would happen because everything would have to be thought of in advance, which goes against the learning-through-doing that Ingold has mentioned in the past. While Polanyi sees the ideas of formal and personal thinking as an iceberg nearly completely submerged in water, with only the formal tip of the ice peeking out of the water (Ingold 109), Ingold sees it as a series of islands that water flows freely around, knowledge being a mix of the two (Ingold 111), instead of a cut-and-dry one or the other. Ingold highlights the fact that in Chapter 1 of Making<\/em>, he also talks about the idea of \u2018knowing\u2019 and \u2018telling\u2019 being the same thing, and he argues now that Polanyi is wrong because to know is to tell (Ingold 111), and so to suggest that people possess knowledge that cannot be conveyed is preposterous. Once again, this is not to say that everything \u2018told\u2019 will be in a neat verbal package, but rather that everything a person does is telling something in some way. So while not every scholar can articulate their knowledge, they can all tell it (Ingold 111). In short, Ingold uses Polanyi\u2019s ideas on \u2018telling\u2019 and \u2018personal knowledge\u2019 to highlight how his own perspective is correct, because to know is to tell, and even if it\u2019s something as simple as a mechanic tuning up a car or a person knitting a sweater, even without step-by-step instructions they are wholly able to tell what they are doing to others. While I agree with Ingold’s perspective, I can also see how Polanyi growing up and experiencing the enormous world events that he did could lead someone to think more rigidly about the human experience, as the idea of ‘always telling’ is a bit daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

(apologies for the formatting, was difficult to figure out on wordpress)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingold, Tim. Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture<\/em>. 1st ed., Routledge, 2013, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4324\/9780203559055. Accessed 27 October 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polanyi Society. \u201cMichael Polanyi.\u201d The Polanyi Society<\/em>, https:\/\/polanyisociety.org\/michael-polanyi\/. Accessed 28 October 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second-to-last chapter of Tim Ingold\u2019s Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture, Ingold centres around the idea of \u2018the hand\u2019 and brings up philosopher Michael Polanyi in his opening statements to highlight ideas of \u2018telling\u2019, \u2018articulating\u2019, and \u2018knowing\u2019. Ingold believes that while everything can be told, not everything can be articulated, and to strengthen … Continue reading Ingold and Michael Polanyi on ‘telling’ and the ‘personal knowledge’ iceberg<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103704,"featured_media":677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,122,120,121],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-ingold","tag-knowledge","tag-polanyi","tag-telling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}