The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Religion :: Theology Religion Philosphy Research

The Role of Tacit Knowledge in ReligionABSTRACT lucidness concerning what kind of cognition a religious person possesses is of the utmost importance. For unitary thing, J. Whittaker remarks that believers must have some knowledge that enables them to make the distinction amid literal and non-literal descriptions of God. (1) In the believers perception God is a rock, but not unfeignedly a rock. God however really is love. Whittaker suggests that making this distinction requires knowledge that dirty dognot be metaphysical or experiential, but a more ele kind form which he terms practical knowledge. Without going into his discussion of the metaphysical and experiential view, I would like to elaborate on this notion of knowledge in three steps. Firstly, I want to consider a short qualifying in Kants Critique of Pure Reason (A 132-3 / B 171-2) on judgment. This musical passage points out that we necessarily know more than we can say or state. Secondly, Michael Polanyis account of still knowledge will be introduced to see what religious tacit knowledge could mean to be. Thirdly, analysis of a text from Meister Eckharts Reden der Unterweisung will aim to disposition the relevance of this notion of practical (or tacit) knowledge in religious contexts. 1. Kant on judgment in the Critique of Pure ReasonWith the expression practical knowledge no reduction of all forms of knowledge to the world of the tactile is intended. It does, however, commit us to the view that knowledge can never be purely notional. in that respect is in the acquisition of knowledge an element which Gilbert Ryle has termed knowing how. Calculating can be a merely mental operation (as in mental arithmetic), but that doesnt take away the fact that one has to know how to calculate. It is in this sense of art that the word practical has to be understood.Western philosophy seems to be pronounced - from its early beginning - by a certain intellectualism. Intellectualism is the conviction that w ants to instal a strong distinction between knowledge and abilities, between surmisal and practice. The theoretical knowledge-act is characterised as a purely mental event, as a kind of contemplation, while any form of practice or capacity is seen as an application of previously acquired theoretical knowledge. The distinction values guess over practice because, in this view, practice depends on theory and not the other way round.In his Critique of Pure Reason Kant dedicates a text to judgment entitled Of the transcendental faculty of judgment in general (Von der Transzendentalen Urteilskraft berhaupt A 132-3 / B 171-2).