Cognitive Aspects of Tacit Knowledge and Cultural Diversity

Abstract

Summary. Tacit knowledge is pervasive in many aspects of human life. In the past it was analyzed mainly as behavioral skill and know-how in practical knowledge such as craftsmanship. Afterwhile it was also applied to more intellectual skills such as piano playing and science. But this interpretation of tacit knowledge lacks to include fundamental cognitive dimensions such as background knowledge and implicit cognitive rules. The first deals with cultural values and principles that drive our interpretation of the reality. The second deals with the inferential rules that drive our reasoning and decision making processes. In the last ten years Cognitive Anthropology has collected a great amount of data showing deep differences between westerner (mainly American) and easterner (mainly Chinese) way of thinking. In our opinion these differences are based on a different tacit background knowledge that causes different implicit cognitive rules.