Dreyfus, Taylor, and Polanyi’s Prescience

Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue explicit conceptual knowledge has an essential pre-conceptual “background” fully embedding the knower in the world. This refutes the Cartesian view that knowledge of the outside world is mediated through the mind of the observer. This “mediational” view is undermined by Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, and Todes, and the “contact theory” they make possible. I add Polanyi to the list, as tacit knowing accomplishes similar things in better fashion.