title: "Tacit Knowledge and the Testing Checklist"
date: 2026-04-20
topics: [philosophy, craft, epistemology]
related: []
abstract: >
Polanyi's claim that "we know more than we can tell" is the best available account of why experienced testers catch what juniors and certifications miss. Phronesis cannot be handed to a new hire via checklist, and certainly cannot be handed to a language model.
Tacit Knowledge and the Testing Checklist. Polanyi's The Tacit Dimension[^1] — "we know more than we can tell" — is the best available account of why experienced testers catch things that junior ones (and ISTQB certifications) miss. This dovetails neatly with your Competent Tester / Spolsky post and gives you ammunition against the Claude-first mandate you've worried about elsewhere: phronesis cannot be handed to a new hire via checklist, and certainly cannot be handed to an LLM.
