An Epistemological Perspective on Knowledge Transfers: From Tacitness to Capability and Reliability

Abstract

One of the main difficulties in the social sharing of knowledge is attributed to the tacit quality of knowledge while the conditions for a successful transfer of propositional knowledge are overlooked. These require that the sender is capable, i.e. has sufficient incentives for acquiring true beliefs, and reliable, i.e. has sufficient incentives for truthfully communicating her beliefs. Focusing on the incentives in knowledge transfer reveals why some knowledge is more easily shared and what factors facilitate the transfer. Similarly, the reason for why some knowledge resists to be disseminated can in many cases be attributed to the lack of incentives rather than to tacitness.

Keywords:

• Knowledge transfer
• tacit knowledge
• codified knowledge
• capability
• reliability

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was included in Leppälä, Samuli (2011) Essays in the Economics of Knowledge (Publications of the Turku School of Economics A-8: 2011. Doctoral thesis at the Department of Economics, University of Turku). The author wishes to thank Suzanne Scotchmer, Panu Kalmi, Tuomas Takalo and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. The usual caveat applies. Financial support from OP-Pohjola Group Research Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

¹ Though social epistemology comes in many forms, the approach proposed here is Goldman's (1999) veristic social epistemology. The reason for this is that other approaches in social epistemology dismiss the relevance of truth for beliefs (because it is socially constructed, unattainable or for some other reason).

² Faulkner and Runde (2004, p. 424) argue that,

If we set the standard for what counts as knowledge too high, we will exclude many of the beliefs that serve us very well. By the same token, if we set the standard too low we run the risk of including beliefs that verge on the plain false.

³ Propositional knowledge may also be learned indirectly through observation. Indeed, observational learning (Bandura, 1977) greatly facilitates the learning of skills and other procedural or properly tacit knowledge. For propositional knowledge, however, this mechanism is secondary and usually relevant only when communication fails, prompting us to consider why that would be.

⁴ According to Potts (2000) such correspondence is inbuilt in all neowalrasian economic theory, whereas evolutionary microeconomics studies the connections between them.

⁵ This is to distinguish it from negative coherentism, as elaborated on later.

⁶ Note that reliability in Goldman's terminology has a wider meaning than in ours as it also seems to include capability.

⁷ A similar classification is made by Audi (1998, p. 136), who argues that the justification of testimonial beliefs depends on the speaker's credibility, which consists of two dimensions: sincerity and competence.

⁸ Perraton and Tarrant (2007) give some examples of such strong positions.