Tim Bray exhibits the error of rationalism in this piece. Knowledge can be split into two types. The first one is what's usually called knowledge: what you can

Tim Bray exhibits the error of rationalism in this piece. Knowledge can be split into two types. The first one is what's usually called knowledge: what you can learn from a book, get graded on, formalize, prove, explain etc. This is academic knowledge, the know what, the episteme. The second type is more ambiguous. It's more of a way of doing things -- easier to show than to explain in words, something that one can do well without being able to put it on paper. This type of knowledge is implicit, it's the know how, it comes from practice and experience, it's the techne. The error of rationalism is overestimating the importance of the first type of knowledge. To someone unaware of the distinction - someone who reads too much - it will seem that all knowledge is of the first type, because it is all they see in their books.