The human ecological significance of different types of knowledge

Abstract

In this paper the widespread belief that the right answer to the ecological crisis consists in the exclusive fostering of explicit (in particular: scientific) forms of knowledge is questioned. The commonly postulated tripartition of the human psyche into three levels of consciousness, namely unconscious, practical consciousness and discursive consciousness, serves as a starting point. It is then shown that these levels can be associated with different types of knowledge: The first two with implicit or tacit, the latter with explicit or propositional knowledge. Reference is made to Michael Polanyi’s notion of the indispensability of implicit knowledge and the incompleteness of explicit formulations. The three levels of consciousness can also be paralleled with the evolutionary sequence of instinct, tradition and reason, and the example of agriculture is employed to discuss the significance of traditional practices in a human ecological context. It is argued that only with a suitable combination of scientific with other types of knowledge can we hope to overcome the crisis.