Modification:Sciento-2018-0011

Accept the three-fold distinction between explicit, explicable-implicit, and inexplicable.

The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Hakob Barseghyan and Maxim Mirkin on 28 December 2018.1 The modification was accepted on 1 September 2019.

Preamble

The traditional distinction between explicit and implicit (or tacit) doesn't do justice to the body of knowledge that hasn't yet been explicitly stated but can - in principle - be openly formulated. Thus, traditionally, tacit knowledge would denote both the knowledge that has not yet been explicated by an epistemic agent as well as knowledge that is in principle inexplicable. To avoid conflation, we need to switch to a three-fold distinction that clearly separates explicable-implicit knowledge from inexplicable knowledge.

Modification

Accept the following three-fold distinction between explicit, explicable-implicit, and inexplicable:

Theories To Accept

• Explicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Propositional knowledge that has been openly formulated by the agent.
• Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Not explicit.
• Explicable-Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Propositional knowledge that hasn’t been openly formulated by the agent.
• Inexplicable (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Non-propositional knowledge, i.e. knowledge that cannot, even in principle, be formulated as a set of propositions.
• Inexplicable Is a Subtype of Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Inexplicable is a subtype of Implicit, i.e. implicit is a supertype of inexplicable.
• Explicable-Implicit Is a Subtype of Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018): Explicable-Implicit is a subtype of Implicit, i.e. implicit is a supertype of explicable-implicit.

Questions Answered

This modification attempts to answer the following question(s):

• Explicit: What is explicit knowledge? How should it be defined?
• Implicit: What is implicit knowledge? How should it be defined?
• Explicable-Implicit: What is explicable-implicit knowledge? How should it be defined?
• Inexplicable: What is inexplicable knowledge? How should it be defined?
• Subtypes of Implicit: What are the subtypes of implicit?
• Supertypes of Inexplicable: What are the supertypes of inexplicable?

Verdict

The modification was accepted on 1 September 2019. The consensus on this modification emerged primarily off-line. It was agreed that "the modification should be accepted".^c1 It was also agreed "that the three-fold distinction is to be accepted as it introduces a distinction between explicable-implicit and inexplicable and thus contributes to the clarity of discussions concerning implicit and explicit."^c2

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