Abstract
The exploration of what lies beyond the explicitly expressed is a challenge for qualitative research. It involves studying something that is not directly given. This paper presents different methodological solutions and focuses on implicit knowledge in professional contexts and theorizing accounts. I will discuss conceptualizations of tacit knowledge and implicit learning, and then focus on specific aspects of the Documentary Method. The Documentary Method is a research strategy that attempts to explicate implicit collective orientations through group discussions. It is based on Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge and aims to uncover the taken-for-granted mutual understanding that results from shared or similar experiences. Based on Mannheim’s critique of rationalism, this understanding is assumed to be found in the narrative and descriptive parts of group discussions. However, this article examines whether it can also be found in theorizing accounts. It draws on Hans Blumenberg’s insight that metaphors are often contained in technical language and can obscure an underlying system of orientation. In this case, implicit mutual understanding is based on shared or similar experiences that are difficult to fully understand and articulate. An illustrative interpretation of data from a team specializing in sexuality education demonstrates the practical application of these methodological considerations. In essence, the article addresses the question of how implicit knowledge emerges in language and provides a new lens for analyzing theorizing accounts.
Introduction
Analyzing qualitative data to delve into the deeper meanings and understandings that lie beneath the surface of explicit expressions is a challenging endeavor. This article addresses this issue by looking at how work teams talk with each other, theorize, and use technical language. Various theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches have been developed to study tacit knowledge and implicit learning (Collins, 2010; Eraut, 2000; Evans, 2019; Polanyi, 1966b; Reber, 1993). However, certain aspects remain outside the scope of empirical analysis in these methodologies, particularly implicit knowledge in specific milieus. A research tradition anchored in Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge (1936, 1952, 1982) provides a detailed framework for exploring this facet of what lies beyond the explicitly expressed. Therefore, I will introduce and critically evaluate aspects of the Documentary Method as developed by Ralf Bohnsack (2014a, 2018b, 2022). Although applicable to a wide range of data types, including narrative interviews, observation protocols, and visual materials such as photographs and videos, this text will focus on its application to group discussions. While this article focuses on the Documentary Method, it is important to note that other qualitative methodologies, such as Ethnography and Grounded Theory, also explore the implicit socio-cultural dimensions of their research objects. These methodologies have been excluded from this discussion solely due to prioritization.
The Documentary Method belongs to the field of practice theories, which understand action and social order as the result of ‘a socially shared way of ascribing meaning to the world’ (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 246). This collective process of understanding is seen as deeply embedded in practices or the way people do things. It operates implicitly as a form of knowledge and varies with cultural and historical context (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 253). In terms of group discussions, the Documentary Method aims to uncover this knowledge by going beyond the literal signification of words to explore the contextual meanings tied to the specific milieu in which they arise. Mannheim’s (1952, 1982) distinction between objective (immanent) and documentary meaning provides the foundation for this approach. Bohnsack (2014a, 2018b) has further developed the Documentary Method into an empirical research framework.
The innovation of the Documentary Method lies in the change of perspective in the analysis of collective talk or other cultural phenomena. Instead of asking what they are about, the focus is on how they are produced. This means shifting attention from content to form (Bohnsack, 2008). This approach involves suspending judgments about the veracity of what participants say. Instead, the focus is on explicating what these accounts reveal about them and about the situation in which they find themselves. In other words, rather than taking participants’ statements at face value, they are analyzed as pointing to milieu-specific ways of understanding (Bohnsack, 2018b, p. 205).
There is a refined procedure for using group discussions to make milieu-specific ways of understanding explicit. It involves studying groups of people who share similar experiences (e.g., based on gender) or who form a natural unit (e.g., a family or work team). The researchers simply initiate and maintain the discussion, allowing the participants to talk as they normally do. Any questions that seem relevant to the researchers can be asked towards the end. The analysis then focuses on those parts of the discussion in which the participants speak in descriptive or narrative terms. Theorizing accounts are seen as representations that have been reshaped by reflection and do not refer to a shared understanding based on experience (Bohnsack, 2014a, 2018b, 2022). However, this focus on narrative and description has been expanded as well as challenged. To contribute to these ongoing developments, I will explore whether theorizing accounts can also point to milieu-specific, implicit knowledge. This can be particularly useful for the analysis of professional milieus characterized by reflection and theorizing. But it is also important for the analysis of non-professional milieus because it addresses the fundamental question of how implicit knowledge manifests itself in language.
Tacit Knowledge and Implicit Learning in the Wake of Polanyi
Research on the tacit or implicit dimensions of knowledge in professional settings often invokes Polanyi’s foundational concept of tacit knowing. This review focuses on two distinct strands of research and how they relate to Polanyi. The first strand concerns the person-bound notion of implicit learning, a concept developed through experiments by Arthur Reber and later adapted for qualitative research by Michael Eraut and Linda Evans. The second strand examines the collective aspect of tacit knowledge, as explored by Harry Collins, who studied how scientists tacitly transfer knowledge within their community. This review is selective; it does not aim to provide a comprehensive catalog of approaches to what lies beyond the explicitly expressed, but rather to highlight key conceptual and methodological challenges in studying these dimensions. The idea is to situate the Documentary Method within these ongoing discussions.
Polanyi (1966b, p. 4) introduced the principle of tacit knowing with the assertion that ‘we can know more than we can tell.’ This concept is based on the premise that people actively shape their experiences into something meaningful without being able to articulate exactly how. Tacit knowing refers to the process of integrating experience in the pursuit of knowledge, and Polanyi (1966b, pp. 6–7) suggests that it serves as the basis for exceptional achievement in scientific and artistic fields. Its importance, however, extends beyond these domains and underlies the very nature of the acquisition and application of knowledge, whether practical or theoretical. Rather than viewing tacit and explicit knowledge as dichotomous, Polanyi (1966a, p. 7) emphasized that they are interconnected and that it is impossible for explicit knowledge to be entirely separate from the tacit dimension.
The concept of tacit knowledge was further developed by Reber (1967, 1976, 1993), known for his artificial grammar learning experiments in cognitive psychology. Polanyi originally described tacit knowledge as something that cannot be articulated. In contrast, Reber’s work focuses on implicit learning, which he views as a largely unconscious process. Reber (1993, pp. 23–24) further argues that implicit and explicit learning should not be seen as having a sharp boundary between them, but rather as existing on a continuum and complementing each other. In defining implicit learning and the relationship between the implicit and the explicit, he provided an important conceptual foundation for qualitative approaches.
In his reflections on tacit knowledge, Eraut (2000, 2004) builds on Reber’s idea of implicit learning—learning that occurs largely without the learner’s conscious awareness—and applies it to the context of professional work. In addition, Eraut (2000, p. 119) emphasizes the consequence of understanding knowledge acquired through learning as something that exists along a continuum from explicit to tacit: ‘The problem for researchers is to reach as far as they can down the continuum from explicit to tacit knowledge.’ He also points out the challenge for respondents in trying to share tacit knowledge, such as creating awareness of it, representing it, and distinguishing it from other types of knowledge. He therefore tends towards a research approach that helps them to articulate tacit knowledge (Eraut, 2000, p. 119). To this end, he uses interviews supported by participant observation to learn about the specifics of their work, the types of knowledge it requires, and how these are acquired (Eraut, 2004, p. 249).
Building on Eraut’s conceptualization, Evans (2019) focuses on informal, implicit learning in professional development. She introduces a temporal dimension to implicit learning, suggesting that it encompasses learning experiences that individuals may not be aware of initially, but can recognize and reflect upon later. Through her research, which includes interviews with school teachers and university academics, Evans presents reflections on their learning journeys and demonstrates that informal or implicit learning can be identified through their accounts. This is consistent with Eraut’s approach of enabling research participants to reveal their previously hidden knowledge. Evans thus underscores the value of capturing learning or knowledge that has moved from the implicit or tacit to the explicit through participants’ own recollections.
The above authors agree with Polanyi’s perspective, conceptualizing tacit knowledge and implicit learning as inherently linked to persons and human cognition. However, Collins (2010, 2011) shifts the focus to its social nature. Unlike Polanyi, who emphasized the role of tacit knowing in fostering personal creativity and insight, Collins explores its characteristics and how it is shared among people. In essence, Collins’ work invites us to think more critically about what we think of as tacit or inarticulable knowledge. He adds nuance to Polanyi’s idea of tacit knowing by distinguishing between types that can be articulated in theory and those that remain elusive.
The types that can be articulated in theory include somatic and relational tacit knowledge. Collins explains somatic tacit knowledge using a specific example from Polanyi. This reads as follows: ‘… tacit knowing contains also an actual knowledge that is indeterminate, in the sense that its content cannot be explicitly stated. We can see this best in the way we possess a skill. If I know how to ride a bicycle or how to swim, this does not mean that I can tell how I manage to keep my balance on a bicycle, or keep afloat when swimming. I may not have the slightest idea of how I do this, or even an entirely wrong or grossly imperfect idea of it, and yet go on cycling or swimming merrily.’ (Polanyi, 1966a, p. 4)
Collins (2010, 2013) re-evaluates the well-known example of riding a bicycle, claiming that it lacks any deep philosophical meaning. He points out that such knowledge is practical and can theoretically be broken down into explainable steps. The effectiveness of following instructions to maintain balance on a bicycle is limited only by the need for immediate action. Moreover, the act of balancing on a bicycle can be dissected by scientific principles or even replicated by machines designed to mimic that balance. While somatic tacit knowledge is tied to physical conditions, relational tacit knowledge emerges from social interactions and logistical conditions. It includes knowledge that remains unspoken because it is either assumed to be common knowledge, deliberately hidden, or unknowingly possessed. Despite the complexity of social dynamics, Collins suggests that this knowledge is not deeply enigmatic, but can be theoretically understood and explicated.
Only the collective tacit knowledge we pick up as part of social contexts resists articulation, Collins argues. He uses the example of riding a bicycle in traffic to illustrate this concept: ‘Negotiating traffic is a problem that is different in kind to balancing a bike, because it includes understanding social conventions of traffic management and personal interaction. For example, it involves knowing how to make eye contact with drivers at busy junctions in just the way necessary to assure a safe passage and not to invite an unwanted response. And it involves understanding how differently these conventions will be executed in different locations. For example, bike riding in Amsterdam is a different matter than bike riding in London, or Rome, or New York, or Delhi, or Beijing.’ (Collins, 2010, p. 121)
Collective tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in the social practices of different communities. This means that what works in one place may not work in another because each community has its own way of doing things. Collins suggests that this cannot be written down and expected to be learned; instead, people need to experience and absorb it by being part of the community. In addition, Collins (2001, p. 125) introduces a shift in perspective: Instead of viewing society as a collection of individuals, he suggests that we should understand individuals as reflections of the larger social groups to which they belong.
The main challenge is to determine how to scientifically assess collective tacit knowledge when, by its very nature, it cannot be explicitly articulated. According to Collins (2010, p. 11), people acquire this kind of knowledge through both practices and language. However, he suggests that collective tacit knowledge is ‘to a large extent, located in the language of the collectivity rather than its practices’ (Collins, 2010, p. 135). Collins (2020) and Collins and Evans (2014) argue that practices can be talked about and understood by people through immersion in the discourse, even if they have not directly experienced the practices. This means that ‘it may not be necessary for, say, […] anthropologists actually to ‘eat the eye of the sheep’, or criminologists to commit murders in order for the relevant other groups to be understood. Instead, deep and extended immersion in the linguistic discourse can be enough’ (Collins & Evans, 2014, p. 5). However, there is little consideration of how collective tacit knowledge can not only be understood, but can itself become an object of analysis. Instead, Collins and Evans (2014) are concerned with the extent to which members of different social groups can understand each other. This requires not an explication, but an application of collective tacit knowledge by research participants, who are used as proxy researchers. Collins and Evans have found ways to study the phenomenon indirectly.
The various conceptualizations of tacit knowledge and implicit learning show that explicability is central to their exploration. Conceptualizing a continuum and transferability from tacit or implicit to explicit allows respondents to tell what is less or no longer tacit or implicit. By focusing on collective tacit knowledge and defining it as inherently inarticulable but embedded in practices and language, the phenomenon can only be analyzed indirectly in terms of its effects.
Implicit Knowledge in the Documentary Method
The Documentary Method as developed by Bohnsack posits an idea of implicit knowledge that overlaps with Collin’s notion of collective tacit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is assumed to be embedded in the practices and language of different social milieus. However, the focus here is that ‘the actors themselves do not really know exactly what they know about’ (Bohnsack, 2018b, p. 211). It is therefore up to the researcher to decipher their implicit knowledge through interpretation. Collins and Evans argue for the possibility of understanding the practices of a milieu through direct engagement with its discourse. In contrast, the Documentary Method aims to clarify the milieu-specific meaning of these practices through a theoretical and reflexive approach. This suggests that it is possible for an outsider to the milieu to articulate its implicit knowledge. The Documentary Method has traditionally relied on group discussions to explore implicit knowledge. It has its roots in the methodological innovations of the 1950s at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (led by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno). There, group discussions were used in an attempt to analyze group opinion as a social phenomenon in its own right, rather than merely as ‘the aggregate of all individual opinions’ (Pollock et al., 2011, p. 23). This approach was further developed by Werner Mangold (1960, p. 50), who showed that group opinions are produced collaboratively and can only be derived from the totality of statements. Bohnsack (2021, pp. 109–112) provided additional empirical evidence for these findings and linked them to Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge and the study of implicit knowledge.
Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Approach to Implicit Knowledge
Adopting Mannheim’s terminology (1982, pp. 182–270), Bohnsack distinguishes between two layers of knowledge to reconstruct milieu-specific implicit knowledge through group discussions. The main distinction is between communicative and conjunctive knowledge, which largely corresponds to the explicit-implicit distinction. Communicative knowledge is categorized as explicit or explicable in principle and assigned to social interaction based on impersonal roles and formal values (Bohnsack, 2017, pp. 54–55). It includes generalized knowledge about something that is not strongly influenced by milieu-specific everyday life. People use this knowledge when they do not understand each other directly based on shared or similar experiences. Rather, they interact by making assumptions about each other’s motives and intentions and by setting expectations about behavior and identity. More specifically, what they say to each other reflects norms (e.g., role expectations, laws, professional standards) (Bohnsack, 2014a, 2017, 2018b). As far as norms only rationalize and legitimize actions, they have no bearing on the actual performance of those actions (Bohnsack, 2017, p. 51). In referring to communicative knowledge, Bohnsack (2017, 2020, 2022) more frequently uses ‘propositional logic,’ indicating a shift in terminology. Propositional logic denotes a rationalistic way of thinking (purpose-oriented, causal, and deductive-hierarchical). It appears in argumentation and in discussions where actions are theoretically and reflectively transformed.
Conjunctive knowledge, on the other hand, is assumed to be implicit and categorized as belonging to the realm of milieu-specific interaction. Mannheim suggests that conjunctive knowledge involves an existential relationship. This relationship is characterized by ‘the total immediacy of the reception of something qualitative, which is unique’ (Mannheim, 1982, p. 188). It involves a direct connection with people and/or things, which gives rise to an insider’s perspective that enables people to understand each other directly. However, this insider’s perspective does not depend on face-to-face interaction. People can also be connected in this way based on the structural similarities in their experiences that result from factors such as generation, gender, or education and profession (Bohnsack, 2014a, 2018b). Bohnsack (2010, p. 103) points out that conjunctive knowledge ‘is so much taken for granted by the participants that it must not and often cannot be made explicit by themselves’. Specifically, it is based on a structure of performative logic. When conjunctively connected people interact, they (re)produce a referential context in terms of practices and conceptualizations. Single practices and conceptualizations gain their meaning through their actual use within this referential context (Bohnsack, 2020, p. 57). Performative logic therefore refers to a dynamic, practical, and constructive process that constitutes a shared pattern of understanding and is tied to specific milieus.
Group discussions can reveal this ‘mutual implicit or intuitive understanding’ (Bohnsack, 2010, p. 104) because it structures what participants talk about and how they talk about it (propositional level) as well as how they talk with each other (performance level). In terms of the propositional level, narrative and descriptive discussion passages are favored and analyzed in depth because these text types are more likely to convey practices or milieu-specific ways of doing things (propositional performance). These discussion passages should contain little theorizing and reflection, as this would indicate a kind of communicative reframing (Bohnsack, 2017, p. 143). The analysis of the performance level refers to the way participants relate to each other and co-produce their discourse (performative performance) (Bohnsack, 2014a, p. 225; Bohnsack & Przyborski, 2010). Bohnsack (2018a, 2021) notes that conjunctive knowledge can be extracted particularly well at thick points in a group discussion. Thickness pertains to detailed, vivid descriptions and narratives and a shared rhythm of interaction.
The development of the Documentary Method has been an ongoing process, marked by efforts to further refine how conjunctive knowledge relates to communicative knowledge (Bohnsack, 2014b, 2017, 2022). These refinements are grounded in Mannheim’s reflections on the duality of conjunctive and communicative layers of knowledge, which allow individuals to adopt not only an insider perspective but also a detached outsider perspective (Mannheim, 1982, p. 256). Bohnsack (2017, p. 49, author’s translation) suggests that this duality constitutes a fundamental tension or discrepancy, given the ‘difference between the rules of (theoretical) communication about a practice and the regularities of the practice itself’. As noted above, rationalization does not affect the way people do things. However, Bohnsack (2017, p. 51) argues that conjunctive knowledge embedded in practice is contoured by engagement with normative expectations. Consequently, milieu-specific, implicit knowledge emerges not only from the shared experience of practice, but also from the shared experience of the discrepancy between that practice and normative expectations (Bohnsack, 2017, p. 104). Experiencing and dealing with this discrepancy occurs in a conjunctive mode. That is, they are dealt with or reflected in practice (Bohnsack, 2018b, 2022). The empirical reconstruction of the milieu-specific handling of normative expectations requires that it be captured in narratives and descriptions (Bohnsack, 2014b, p. 43, 2020, pp. 61–62). These conceptual refinements have already been used in studies (Hericks et al., 2018; Sturm, 2022). At the core of Bohnsack’s Documentary Method is the idea that conjunctive and communicative knowledge are fundamentally different. This research approach targets conjunctive knowledge, including its (trans)formation through its tension with communicative knowledge. Narratives and descriptions are seen as the primary means by which research participants represent conjunctive knowledge in group discussions, and are essential for researchers to explicate it. Bohnsack (2017, p. 98) explains the importance of these types of texts and, indirectly, the assumption of a fundamental discrepancy between conjunctive and communicative knowledge with reference to Mannheim’s critique of rationalism: Mannheim (1952, p. 38) dismisses the notion of defining a worldview through a synthesis of philosophical propositions, considering ‘the theoretical’ to be ‘one of the most remote manifestations of this fundamental entity.’ Instead, Mannheim (1952, p. 45) also sees ‘everyday life’ as meaningfully organized and indicative of a worldview. Moreover, Bohnsack (2018b) interprets this as a praxeological claim, aligning the Documentary Method with the tradition that, in Bloor’s (2001, p. 103) words, ‘accords priority to practice over theory’.
Critiques and Alternative Approaches to Implicit Knowledge
Several scholars have challenged or extended the conceptualization of communicative and conjunctive knowledge. A key argument is that the distinction between the implicit and the explicit should not be a priori assigned to the realm of the conjunctive and the communicative, but that their relationship should be explored (Jansen et al., 2015; Nohl, 2016; Vogd, 2021). For example, Nohl (2019, p. 89, author’s translation) shows that ‘the implicit structure of milieu-spanning, public communication’ can be reconstructed by analyzing newspaper articles, which means that the communicative sphere and the implicit are not mutually exclusive. Another important consideration, as Geimer and Amling (2019) argue, is that the relationship between communicative and conjunctive knowledge should not be inherently viewed as one of tension or discrepancy. They use empirical material to demonstrate that practice can also align with normative expectations, or that normative expectations can be adopted in practice. In this regard, they highlight the ‘nesting of implicit and explicit knowledge’ (Geimer & Amling, 2019, p. 32, author’s translation). Taken together, these critiques and extensions point to an approach that is versatile and adaptable in handling the distinctions between ‘communicative’, ‘conjunctive’, ‘explicit’, and ‘implicit’.
In the Documentary Method, the process of distinguishing between conjunctive and communicative knowledge aligns with the differentiation of narratives and descriptions from theorizing accounts (Bohnsack, 2014a, p. 225). It is important to distinguish these types of texts not only to select passages from the group discussion for thorough analysis, but also to examine these passages in detail (Przyborski & Wohlrab-Sahr, 2021, pp. 374–375). However, this focus on narratives and descriptions does not preclude the possibility that theorizing accounts may refer to conjunctive knowledge. Bohnsack (2017, p. 101) himself notes that what can be considered practice depends on the research object and the researcher’s interest. In line with this, Nohl (2017, pp. 34–35) and Maxelon et al. (2018) argue that the mode of theorizing represents a practice and can therefore contain conjunctive knowledge. This implies that communicative knowledge, along with its propositional logic, has a performative dimension. Furthermore, case studies provide alternative perspectives to the established idea that the representation of the performative in our everyday communication is significantly tied to the pictorial quality of narratives and descriptions (Bohnsack, 2017, p. 92). They show that theorizing can also refer to modes of experience or social contexts, for example, of people in fields characterized by reflection and justification (Bartmann & Kunze, 2008; Carlson et al., 2018). The idea is that the mode of experience or social context is related to the mode of representation. In addition, Franz and Griese (2010) highlight how different modes of representation in speech can be interrelated, with each adding meaning to the other. They argue for a reconsideration of the clear division between communicative and conjunctive knowledge, emphasizing that narratives and descriptions do not simply reflect or mirror practice directly, but rather contribute to the construction of meaning. Consequently, there are also tendencies towards more adaptable and versatile conceptualizations of the meaning of modes of representation.
Revisiting Mannheim
An adaptive approach can also be derived from Mannheim’s (1936, 1952, 1982) writings, which underpin Bohnsack’s Documentary Method. Three aspects are particularly relevant regarding theorizing accounts. First, drawing on Mannheim, Bohnsack (2017, p. 98) argues that theorizing accounts provide less access to practice than narratives and descriptions. Thereby, he takes up Mannheim’s idea that the theoretical, like other cultural phenomena, is structured by an a-theoretical, non-rational way of attributing meaning to the world. Mannheim (1952, p. 57) asserts that the documentary meaning of theorizing, reflective accounts can be inferred by not taking them literally. He compares it to a doctor who takes a patient’s self-diagnosis as a symptom rather than a correct identification of their illness. Second, Mannheim (1982, p. 81) suggests that both ‘the most general forms of thought (such as abstraction, analysis, synthesis, etc.) as well as the concrete contents of thought (such as the idea of freedom, universality, etc.) are conceived as results of extra-theoretical constellations.’ This suggests that there is a connection between the circumstances in which people live and which they experience as meaningfully organized and theorizing accounts. Finally, Mannheim (1985, p. 239, author’s translation) emphasizes that such an extra-theoretical constellation or state of being ‘extends constitutively into the thought-result and somehow emerges in its content and form.’ This last aspect seems particularly valuable for interpreting the implicit meaning of theorizing accounts. However, Mannheim (1936, pp. 244–250) provides only formal criteria (the concepts used, the absence of certain concepts, the level of abstraction, etc.) for elaborating a particular perspective and then assigning it to a socio-historical context and milieu. But this does not clarify the mechanics of extension itself. To fill this conceptual gap, I will use Blumenberg’s theory of absolute metaphor.
Exploring Implicit Knowledge in Theorizing Accounts and Technical Language Using Blumenberg’s Metaphorology
Blumenberg, like Mannheim, is concerned with explicating ways of understanding the world. However, he focuses on philosophical language and conceptualization, while Mannheim turns to fields somewhat detached from theory. In various analyses, Blumenberg reveals the critical role of ‘absolute metaphors’ in philosophy (e.g., Blumenberg, 1997 [1979], 2022 [1981]); they point to its foundations in the life-world or, in Mannheim’s words, to its atheoretical underpinnings. That is, to pre-reflective, immediate experience. The analysis of absolute metaphors is therefore a way of exploring the relationship between the life-world and conceptualization: ‘metaphorology opens up the possibility of tracing back the constructive instruments to the constitution of the life-world, from which they do not actually stem, but back to which they often refer. The life-world provides the material that is to be processed but also possesses a complex structure of resistance to such processing’ (Blumenberg, 2020a [1971], pp. 212–213).
That is, Blumenberg assumes a complex relationship between our pre-reflective, immediate experiences and the tools and mechanisms we use to construct our understanding of the world. He emphasizes the mixed role of everyday experience in enabling and resisting conceptual development and suggests that metaphorology is about understanding how our concepts and ways of thinking are connected to it. Blumenberg has applied metaphorology not only to the field of philosophy, but also to the analysis of professional social contexts. His findings show that technical language in these contexts can contain absolute metaphors, thus providing a justification for using his metaphorology in qualitative research. These absolute metaphors may seem natural to their users, but can conceal an underlying pattern of meaning. This is illustrated by the following case study of speaker-audience interaction at a scientific conference: ‘in August 1957, during a conference at the Fondation Hardt on the Sources de Plotin, Richard Harder […] picked up on the use philologists make of the expression “source” and pointed out that they were dealing with a metaphor—a fact that of course everybody who was present knew, but had not been made aware of as long as anyone can remember. “Were classical studies ever to begin,” said Harder, “to think about their own concepts, such metaphors would surely be in need of examination”’ (Blumenberg, 2020a [1971], pp. 222–223).
Blumenberg proceeds by describing the disconcerting effect of this metaphorical redirection: ‘The editor of Plotinus, Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer […] indeed acknowledges that “source” is a mythological expression, but remarks that this does not make it an impermissible concept: “one has only to agree on what one means by it.” Yet there lies the rub: the plausibility of the metaphor, its pictorial self-evidence, skips the need for agreement and suggests that everyone already knows what is meant by it. […] [Willy] Theiler continues that which of the “mythological modes of expression” one happens to be using may be relatively insignificant: “The key point is to work together on the issue.” But what is the issue here without the imaginative system of orientation through which its contexts are registered?’ (Blumenberg, 2020a [1971], pp. 223–224)
The metaphor of ‘sources’ used by historians and philologists exemplifies how technical language can provide an imaginative system of orientation connected to the life-world. In German, the term ‘Quelle’ is more directly tied to the concept of a physical source. That is, water that emerges from the earth as a source of a stream or river. When philologists use the term, they combine its implied purity with the question of ‘how events (in the broadest sense) can relate to one another’ (Blumenberg, 2020a [1971], p. 224). This combination is taken for granted or considered secondary, but it still affects the handling and valuation of historical data.
While Blumenberg’s writings provide insights into the study of absolute metaphors, there are no systematic instructions (Hawkins, 2019). Nevertheless, some basic principles for interpreting linguistic data can be derived from Blumenberg’s ‘Paradigms for a Metaphorology’ (2010 [1960]), ‘Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality’ (2020b [1979]), and ‚Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit’ [Theory of Nonconceptuality] (2007). Blumenberg suggests that absolute metaphors are the result of a process of translating pre-reflective, immediate experience into language. The meaning of an absolute metaphor cannot be explicated. Blumenberg (2010 [1960], p. 3) defines them as ‘“translations” that resist being converted back into authenticity and logicality’. They can be seen as a form of implicit knowledge in that they cannot be articulated in logical or straightforward terms without losing essential meaning. However, absolute metaphors are an attempt to articulate something that is difficult to fully understand: ‘Absolute metaphors “answer” the supposedly naïve, in principle unanswerable questions whose relevance lies quite simply in the fact that they cannot be brushed aside, since we do not pose them ourselves but find them already posed in the ground of our existence.’ (Blumenberg, 2010 [1960], p. 14)
These fundamental problems to which absolute metaphors refer can be explicated as such. In this sense, absolute metaphors are apparent solutions to these problems and function in an organizing way. They create a horizon of meaning that collapses without them, and they mark the limits of the meaningful. For example, Blumenberg argues that the metaphor of ‘source’ refers precisely to the limits of the object that historians can capture: ‘The historian no longer has anything to do with such a drainage basin that feeds his sources beyond their methodical conceivability’ (Blumenberg, 2020a [1971], p. 227). Another challenge is that absolute metaphors do not necessarily have to be figurative expressions. They can also serve as a metaphorical background for purely abstract representations (Blumenberg, 2010 [1960], p. 10). An essential criterion for recognizing them is that they disrupt the surrounding context. This means that absolute metaphors typically appear in loosely defined contexts. There they can take the place of ‘what would satisfy the expectation implicit in the context’ (Blumenberg, 2007, p. 61, author’s translation). For example, abstract concepts create a loosely defined context. In this loose context, the absolute metaphor represents a ‘heterogeneous element’ (Blumenberg, 2020b [1979], p. 241) that refers to another context. This means that different contexts are combined, and this is exactly what needs to be analyzed to identify absolute metaphors. Identifying absolute metaphors in theorizing and technical language means, in Blumenberg’s sense, making a connection between the disruptions in experience and the disruptions in language.
By identifying absolute metaphors and explicating the fundamental problem they ‘solve,’ Blumenberg offers a way to work out a connection between experience and theorizing. He sees absolute metaphors as time-bound phenomena that are subject to cultural change and mask the uncertainties in experience (Blumenberg, 2010 [1960], p. 14). That is, he is interested in the implicit mutual understanding of experiences that are difficult to fully comprehend and the milieu-specific attempts at articulation.
Implicit Knowledge in a Professional Context – An Exploratory Interpretation
Transcription Conventions.
As the discussion among the sexuality educators (two of whom identified as male and one as female) progressed, it turned to the issue of dealing with their own sexuality in interactions with students. They discussed being asked if they are a couple when they teach as a male-female duo. The female participant also said that she has been flirted with or asked about her relationship status and sexual experiences. They suggested keeping a playful or temporary distance as a way of dealing with personal, sex-related questions or approaches. However, they also presented a constellation that seemed to lead to the opposite: Af: … Or sometimes, when you have the feeling that they somehow NEED/ Bm: Something else, mm-hmm (affirmative). Af: └also like a sign, there isn’t just somehow some teacher up front who sits there and talks about all of that so theoretically, and in reality, she doesn’t do any of it anyway, so that you do tell them something sometimes or (.) (unintelligible) Bm: └Mm-hmm (affirmative). Cm: └There’s just a need behind that, right? It doesn’t always have to be provocation or this excitement, but just, ah okay, now I’m hearing from someone, uh/ Bm: What it’s really like. Cm: what it’s/ what it’s/ really like. Af: └Exactly. Not just this pedagogical stuff all the time. Cm: Exactly. Bm: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Af: └(Ha?), everything’s great. (laughs) (S-2, 1:08:54-01:09:25)
The excerpt marks the final phase of the group’s engagement with the issue and suggests that they consider it professional, rather than personal, to talk to students about one’s own sexuality. At first glance, this could be seen as a contradiction to their previous handling of personal, sex-related issues. However, the group framed their students’ need for information about authentic sexuality as a legitimate need. Accordingly, when they talk about their own sexuality or their own sexual experiences, it is not about their sexuality but about sexuality as such. They serve as living proof, so to speak. This means that talking about one’s sexuality or based on one’s sexual experiences is not inconsistent with keeping sexual matters private. They even present it as their professional trait to reveal themselves as sexual beings instead of resorting to theoretical lectures about sexuality.
To be clear, in the context of the Documentary Method, to interpret means explicating the message within representations and interactions theoretically. Accordingly, the result of my interpretation is that the implicit, mutual understanding of the group can be reduced to the formula: they exclude their own sexuality and at the same time conceptualize it as substantiating their professionalism. We can see from the quote above how description and argumentation can be interrelated in speech. The conjunctive knowledge of the group is found in the shared perception of a certain need of the students and how to deal with it. In this respect, they understand each other immediately, which is also evident in their interactions (they finish each other’s sentences when the other one stumbles; they speak overlapping without anyone taking offense; they confirm or expand on what has been said). They use argumentation to define the student’s need and make it feasible. These are rationalizations: They reinterpret the normative expectation that sexuality should be taught and communicated authentically as a need of the students. Formally, they do this in the same way: they take the perspective of a student. Although they argue and rationalize, what they say also refers to their conjunctive knowledge. The motives they ascribe to their students and how they do so is again a shared and probably also profession-specific way of attributing meaning. In this sense, argumentation functions as a rationalization that has no influence on practice. But it also has a performative dimension and contains conjunctive knowledge. We must not take it literally, as Mannheim suggested.
Next, I turn to the question of how implicit knowledge can be studied through Blumenberg’s metaphorology. As noted above, theorizing and technical language tend to contain absolute metaphors that point to a shared mutual understanding in response to fundamental problems. I will use an excerpt from the transcript that precedes the group’s conclusion quoted above. It is the first time that Af mentions revealing something about her sexuality, in response to the students’ personal questions about her sexuality. Her colleague Bm then introduces the notion of the ‘professional or pedagogical I’: Af: … And uh, sometimes, for example, uh this question about, how is it with you, do you have a boyfriend, or, have you had sex yet, (.) is also a bit of checking competencies somehow, like, who am I really talking to here? Like that. So, you have to look again and again, how much do I actually reveal about myself, and where do I say, (unintelligible) okay, stop? (.) That is, I believe, also very important. (.) Bm: Exactly, and at this moment, when we come to this point, I can actually say it again. In the area of professionalism, I’ve decided for myself that I have a profess/ uh a/ a/ um a professional or a pedagogical I, which gets into contact with the counterpart, always in reflection of what the person NEEDS. So I mi/ it might be that I present MYSELF as very provocative, Af: └Mm-hmm (affirmative). Bm: in other classes I would NOT do it like that. Or when/ I always ask myself, what do they want from me right now? And I try to kind of play around with it, to stay authentic of course, not to play a ROLE now. But it’s actually not important what I’m like as a private person, right? It should be authentic of course, sure, but not/ sometimes it can be that I claim something different at another point. Cm: Yes. Af: Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly, that (unintelligible) Bm: └Out of protection, or because it’s helpful. Af: └That’s exactly what I mea/ meant. Cm: Exactly. (S-2, 01:07:23-01:08:41)
As we can see, the pattern identified in the conclusion already appears here. Af classifies the students’ personal, sex-related questions as legitimate, frames the disclosure of personal information as an opportunity to present herself as competent, and thus functionalizes her own sexuality for professional purposes. But it is also treated as a sensitive issue. The formula that one’s sexuality is excluded and at the same time constitutes one’s professionalism is not fully developed at this point.
I would like to draw special attention to Bm’s representations. This is because he manages the complete reinterpretation of the personal into the professional, or rather their fusion. Bm theoretically frames and defines acting and asserting differently with the idea of the ‘professional or pedagogical I’. The expression reconciles two opposing tendencies or connects two contexts: the professional and the personal. This means Bm goes one step further than Af: By doubling the ‘I’ and defining it as ‘professional’ or ‘pedagogical,’ there is no longer anything personal in professional contexts, not even one’s own sexuality. The contradiction between Af, who speaks of revealing something of oneself, and Bm, who declares the personal irrelevant, does not lead to irritation. Like Blumenberg’s example of the ‘source’ above, the ‘professional or pedagogical I’ seems to function as an absolute metaphor that works for everyone involved and suggests agreement. Here it appears only as a ‘disruption’ to me as the interpreter. For how can I explicate this pedagogical or professional I? It oscillates between functional self-presentation and authenticity. With this short-circuit between the personal and the professional, the group masks the problem of revealing oneself as a sexual being in a professional context while understanding sexuality as something personal.
Conclusion
I began by discussing two different strands of research that explore dimensions of what lies beyond the explicitly expressed. Both strands face the problem of studying something that, by definition, is not directly given. Otherwise, it would not be tacit or implicit. Some researchers solve the problem by having research participants tell tacit knowledge or implicit learning. Other researchers suggest that there are types of tacit knowledge that, in principle, cannot be explicated, but can be acquired by researchers through immersion in linguistic discourse and analyzed indirectly by developing research frameworks that capitalize on participants’ tacit knowledge. In contrast, I pointed out that the Documentary Method aims to explicate implicit knowledge by interpreting cultural objectivations in terms of their laws of form. Applied to group discussions or conversations, this means explicating the message contained in participants’ representations and interactions.
The different understandings of the implicit or tacit constitute basic axiomatic assumptions. As Geimer (2015, p. 21) notes: ‘These assumptions defy empirical verification. Rather, they are what make the research process possible in the first place.’ Therefore, it is important to understand and define them as clearly as possible. Central to this effort and to linking different conceptualizations was the criterion of explicability.
The Documentary Method I have outlined in this article assumes that there is an original, implicit layer of knowledge that allows for immediate understanding among those who share experiences. In group discussions, this phenomenon can be observed and explicated in terms of a collective pattern of understanding. The implicit layer of knowledge is the target of empirical analysis and has been primarily sought in narratives and descriptions. However, this focus has been debated and extended both theoretically and empirically. My contribution to this debate has been to return to Mannheim’s reflections on theorizing accounts and abstract thinking. According to these reflections, the distinction between communicative and conjunctive knowledge based on text types is adaptable. Moreover, the interpretation of the empirical data indicated that theorizing can refer to shared experiences and an insider’s perspective.
Mannheim suggests that the circumstances in which people live extend into the form and content of their thinking. Since he does not specify the process by which this occurs, I have introduced Blumenberg’s metaphorology. Blumenberg specifies the connection between everyday experience and language by assuming that pre-theoretical experience can be translated into absolute metaphors. These are found in theorizing as well as technical language. He suggests that these metaphors refer to experiences that cannot be fully understood. They are significant because they represent milieu-specific efforts to solve fundamental problems.
Bajohr et al. (2020) classify Blumenberg’s analyses in ‘Observations Drawn from Metaphors’ as an effort to modernize his metaphorological project and apply it to contemporary contexts and speech. This text follows up on this effort by drawing on Blumenberg’s explorations of absolute metaphors to interpret an excerpt from a group discussion. Further research is needed to translate his insights into methodological considerations and to link them to current qualitative methodologies. The concept of ‘thickness’ is especially helpful in that regard. In the documentary method, for example, ‘thickness’ refers to the vivid, detailed sections of a group discussion that help uncover the underlying patterns of meaning specific to the milieu in which they arise. Bohnsack (2021, p. 128, 142) advises focusing on these thick passages, as they reflect collective experience, which may be less obvious in other parts of the discussion. Blumenberg’s absolute metaphors, by merging two contexts, add another layer of ‘thickness’ that points to collective yet disruptive experiences. Milan Kundera (1996) touches on a similar idea in his reflections on literature, where he discusses the technique of combining diverse elements. However, these methodological ideas need further development and empirical support, particularly to show that absolute metaphors deserve extra weight in the analysis and comparison of group discussions.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Jasmin Stehr for her independent analysis of the data, which was invaluable in cross-referencing my own interpretations. I am also grateful to Tom Wörndl for reviewing and discussing the translations of the quotations with me. In addition, I would like to thank all the members of the interpretation group at the Institute for Sex Research, Sexual Medicine, and Forensic Psychiatry. Their ideas and critical questions enriched the analysis.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany [grant number 01SR1710B].
Ethical Statement
Data Availability Statement
All relevant data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.