The Social Context of Knowledge

So far we have considered the acquisition of knowledge as very much a personal thing. We have been concerned with the individual, and his ability to learn and eventually become an innovator. Yet clearly the individual is working within a social framework, and the claims he makes to knowledge are claims that the knowledge he possesses is a form of public knowledge: that it is objective knowledge and that other people should accept it as such. Michael Polanyi has made a study of these claims and their acceptance or rejection by the scientific community. In this chapter I will therefore analyse these arguments in order to illustrate how knowledge is accredited in the paradigm example of a professional and intellectual community. The analysis also points to the fact that the skills necessary for an effective functioning in such a community are far wider than at first appears. I will return to this point in the later chapter ‘Argument and Persuasion’.