Mullins - On Polanyi

7/24/2019 Mullins - On Polanyi

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158 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

On Reading Polanyi and Reading About Polanyis PhilosophicalPerspective: Notes on SecondarySources

Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing by Mark T. Mitchell(Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2006).

Thinkers of Our Time: Polanyi by Richard Allen (London: ClaridgePress, 1990).

Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi by Drusilla Scott (Lewes, Sussex: Book Guild Limited, 1985;Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

The Way of Discovery: An Introduction to the Thought of MichaelPolanyi by Richard Gelwick (New York: OUP, 1977; Eugene,OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004).

The Tacit Mode: Michael Polanyis Postmodern Philosophy by Jerry H. Gill (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000).

Michael Polanyi: A Critical Exposition by Harry Prosch (Albany,NY: SUNY Press, 1986).

On Reading Polanyi: The ProblemsThe spring of 2008 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publi-cation of Michael PolanyisPersonal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.1 Every scholar that I know who is seriously interested in Polanyi identifies Personal Knowledge as Polanyis magnum opus. However many well-educated and interested people who try to read the book find it enormously difficult and lay itaside long before they grasp what Polanyi could be up to in callingfor and trying to craft what he terms in his subtitle a post-criticalphilosophy.2 With a few exceptions such as that of the physicist


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On Reading Polanyi 159

Bill Scott who later went on to become one of Polanyis biogra-phers, many of the early reviews ofPersonal Knowledge weresharply critical.3 Even in a relatively favorable review, the phi-losopher Michael Oakeshott had this to say aboutPersonalKnowledge:

. . . Professor Polanyis ambition to let nothing go by default, tosurround his argument with embroidery, not of qualification butof elaboration, and to follow his theme into every variation that

suggests itself, makes the book like a jungle through which thereader must hack his way.4

It is easy to see whyPersonal Knowledge is a daunting andperplexing book. As Oakeshotts comment implies, it is longsome 403 pages long; most of the thirteen chapters, broken intodense subsections, require very serious concentration and Polanyiincludes detailed comments on an array of subjects. The thirteenchapters are grouped into four parts, and each part makes anargument, and these arguments build on each other.5 Althoughnot as daunting as Personal Knowledge, many of Polanyis otherbooks and essays are also difficult and frequently leave readersexasperated and quite unclear about the coherence of Polanyislarger philosophical perspective. Although Polanyis prose isoften lucid, many texts have an illusive quality; their largerimplications are not clear, at least to those just beginning to study Polanyi.6 Many make a case in ways that seem quite odd. Perhapsespecially seasoned philosophers find Polanyi strange. Polanyi was not a professional philosopher and he did not write primarily with philosophers as his imagined audience, but given the extraor-dinary interdisciplinarity of his discussions, it seems unlikely thatspecialists in any one discipline would be comfortable.7

Personal Knowledge as a whole, as well as most of Polanyisother writing, weaves inseparably together three elements: broad-

based critical philosophizing, broad-based constructive philoso-phizing, and articulation of a Lebensphilosophie. While it is helpfulto bear in mind these interwoven elements, simply identifying


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them does not make Polanyis writing any easier. That is, to focusfor a moment only on Personal Knowledge, Polanyi mounts anattack (part of his critical philosophizing) upon what he dubsobjectivism, although this is hardly a transparent term, espe-cially since Polanyis real agenda was not only to criticize some of the popular philosophical approaches of the mid-twentieth cen-tury but to attack some of the assumptions of the modern turn inphilosophy beginning in the seventeenth century. Polanyi attackssome Enlightenment values, but he affirms other Enlightenment values. Therefore, grasping the contours of his constructivephilosophical alternative to objectivism inPersonal Knowledgeis not easy.

In a general way, it is apparent that he re-evaluates theimportance of skills and especially language, that he insists upondistinguishing subsidiary and focal awareness and emphasizingthe persons integration of subsidiaries, and that he wants toreclaim what he dubs conviviality and intellectual passion.8

But it is not altogether clear (1) how such matters constitute whathe calls in his books preface a fiduciary program that fulfills thetask of justifying the holding of unproven traditional beliefs9and (2) that his book is thus providing an alternative ideal of knowledge.10 And, for most readers, it is altogether confusing what Polanyis alternative account of knowing, which is epito-mized in scientific discovery, could have to do with evolutionary emergence, the topic treated in the concluding section (threechapters) of the book.11 Finally, the Lebensphilosophie that isembedded in Polanyis constructive philosophizing is certainly also an unsettling element for many readers ofPersonal Knowl-edge. His overt affirmation of personal beliefs, his emphasis onpersonal commitment, his sympathy for some of the views of SaintPaul and Saint Augustine, and his effort to reflect in his accountof knowing a certain awe before the majesty of the unknown butintriguing universe are likely to make waryif not alienate

readers who have absorbed many Enlightenment values.In sum, the difficulties of Personal Knowledge, if not other

Polanyi texts, have often understandably dimmed the enthusiasm


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of many who genuinely hoped to digest Polanyis thought. Thereis, however, an array of secondary literature that anyone initially put off by Polanyis texts should know is available. An overview as well as some detail about Polanyis ideas can be helpful toprospective Polanyi readers. My purpose here is to review someof the best of this secondary literature, which puts Polanyis ideasin a context and shows their scope and coherence. The first partof what follows focuses on four books written by Mark Mitchell,Richard Allen, Drusilla Scott and Richard Gelwick. These are allbooks clearly designed as introductions to Polanyis thought,although they dont all seem to imagine exactly the same introduc-tory Polanyi reader. Also the writers themselves have somewhatdifferent interests in Polanyi and have produced introductory texts under somewhat different constraints, and these factors arereflected in their respective discussions. My review of eachintroduction attempts to set forth rather directly the approachtaken and the interests of the author. But I also try to provideenough detail about the authors treatment of Polanyi so thatanyone reading this essay can form a judgment about the depth of the account of Polanyis philosophy. My treatment of theseintroductions moves from the newest to the oldest book and, insome of the notes, I alert the reader to a few other matters in thePolanyi literature that may be helpful or interesting. The finalsections of this essay, following the treatment of the true intro-ductions to Polanyi, discuss two other books by Jerry Gill andHarry Prosch. These books have some peculiarities and are notstraightforwardly and simply introductions to Polanyi. But forsome readers with particular backgrounds and/or interests, atleast parts of these books can be used as introductions. I somewhat expand my discussion of Harry ProschsMichael Polanyi, ACritical Exposition not only because it is an interesting and valuable book, but because its author was co-author with MichaelPolanyi of Polanyis final book,Meaning.


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The Newest Introduction to Polanyi:Mark Mitchells Michael Polanyi

A very competent new introduction to Polanyis thought is MarkMitchellsMichael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing(2006), a readablebook of less than 200 pages.12 In his preface, Mitchell provides aclear and succinct summary of the themes he develops. He offersa balanced discussion of Polanyi as a broad-visioned thinker whose career as a scientist led him into the planned sciencecontroversy of the early twentieth century as well as into econom-

ics. Polanyi develops an account of the necessary foundations of a free society,13 but is drawn toward study of how the modernconception of knowledge contributes to the political and moralproblems of the twentieth century. Polanyi works out a new post-critical conception of knowledge that allows contemporaries toacknowledge the reality of moral and spiritual ideals. Mitchellsuggests that Polanyis many philosophical pursuits can all belinked to his effort to re-establish a legitimate grounding for

liberty and thus that Polanyi is a political philosopher whorightly grasped that liberty depends on resources beyond poli-tics.14

Mitchells strikingly good opening chapter provides a bio-graphical discussion that nicely contextualizes Polanyis life and work. He shows that Polanyis move from medicine to physicalchemistry, to economics and political philosophy, to epistemol-ogy and cosmology, has plausibility. He emphasizes that Polanyi

was an outsider and that both the creativity of his contributionsand the reactions to his work have been colored by this. Mitchellmakes good use of the new Polanyi biography 15 as well as othersources, including some of the Polanyi archival material at theUniversity of Chicago. The only quibble I have with Mitchellsbiographical account is that he likely misreads Polanyis 1919Roman Catholic baptism as an attraction toward an institutionthat could provide the resources for comprehending the moral

and spiritual vacuum of Europe.16

More likely, the baptism waslargely the pragmatism of a young scientist fleeing Hungary forGermany, the scientific capital of the world. Polanyi, like many


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other secular Jews, took the precaution of getting baptized.17 ButMitchell does appropriately emphasize Polanyis stress upontradition and authority and his interest and sympathy for religion.Mitchell comments on Polanyis earliest non-scientific writing inthe period of World War I and on Polanyis rise within thescientific community. At the end of his opening chapter, Mitchellsums up how he understands Polanyis philosophical perspective:Confronted with the alternative of Enlightenment rationalism(which has clearly failed to live up to its promises) and what hascome to be called postmodernism, Polanyis theory of knowledgeneither succumbs to rationalist hubris nor retreats into the hovelof postmodern despair.18

In his seminal second chapter, Economics, Science, andPolitics, Mitchell outlines and links Polanyis contributions inthese three important areas. There is a review of Polanyiscriticisms of movements for centralized planning from the thirtiesforward. In a nutshell, here is Polanyis objection to centraliza-tion: A centralized system . . . is predicated on the belief that thecentral authority is capable of gathering and assimilating allavailable information about every aspect of the economic systemand then making decisions based upon that information.19 Polanyissolution to the problem was to recognize and supportpolycentricity which is a system that operates according to themutually adjusting actions of independent participants.20 Mitchellnotes that Hayek later borrowed Polanyis term spontaneousorder. All in all, Mitchell does a solid job of showing how Polanyiapplies his thinking about polycentricity to economics. He showshow Polanyis empirical study of the Soviet economy made clearthat it did not abolish the market mechanism but merely modifiedit. He makes clear that Polanyi is not merely a laissez-fairesupporter: Polanyi was a fierce opponent of collectivism, but he was not a laissez-faire libertarian. On the contrary, he accusedboth libertarians and collectivists of being wrongly suspicious of

government intervention in economic matters.21 Polanyis posi-tion is that [c]apitalism is the only viable option, but this does notimply that the state has no role beyond enforcing contracts and


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preventing fraud. On the contrary, the state can work (albeit at themargins) to ensure that the market operates as effectively aspossible.22 Mitchell nicely summarizes Polanyis ideas about how the government might influence the money supply to affect theemployment rate. This is a synthesis of Keynesian and monetaristeconomics that went largely unrecognized by economists of histime.

One of the most interesting discussions in this chapter isMitchells account of the differences between Michaels andbrother Karl Polanyis views. Mitchell concisely outlines Karlsaccount of modern society and the market system and thencompares this with his younger brothers views. The main differ-ence, as Mitchell summarizes it,

lies in their respective accounts of the cause of the current crisis.. . . Karl suggestedand here we can identify Marxs influenceon his thoughtthat the woes of the twentieth century resulted

from a faulty economic structure. These obstacles could beovercome if the right institutions were altered better to reflecthuman nature. . . . Michael . . . ultimately located the problemin the spiritual and moral vacuum that resulted from a deficientconception of knowingone that denied the very possibility of spiritual and moral reality. This denial was the product of a view of reality that was both skeptical and materialistic. MichaelPolanyi called this union objectivism.23

All in all, Mitchell, in a very few lucidly written pages, bringstogether in this chapter, under the rubric of economics, someof the most important ideas that Polanyi developed in the thirties,forties, and fifties. I would supplement Mitchells account in thissection in only one modest respect, and Mitchell in fact does latermake clear that he appreciates this point: I think it might behelpful for those unfamiliar with Polanyi to see in this early

discussion the nuances in Polanyis discussions about liberty. Toooften Polanyis ideas about liberty are taken to be largely the by-product of his study of economics. Certainly Polanyis visits to the


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Soviet Union, his attunement to Soviet oppression (particularly of scientists), and his strong intellectual commitment to liberty motivated his long struggle against totalitarianism.24 But Polanyissupport of liberty is also of a particular kind. Polanyi supports what he sometimes termed public liberty, as opposed to privatefreedom.25 That is, Polanyi offers a sophisticated argumentabout complex social organization that Mitchell has in fact welllaid out; but, as a consequence of his support of polycentrism,Polanyi is not a garden-variety libertarian opposing totalitarian-ism. His early writing provides a liberal vision of an evolving,pluralistic society in which human beings take on responsibility within the many specialized communities of interest like scienceand the law, and the work of such sub-cultural groups benefitssociety as a whole. This vision is an application of Polanyissupport of polycentricity as it pertains to moral and intellectualrather than primarily economic matters. His most importantinsights about and commitments to liberty do not focus on privateliberty or personal freedom, but emphasize the rights personshave to serve ideals and purposes preserved in specialized circleslike that of science and the law in a society. The health of adynamic society depends on the freedom that persons have to actindependently on convictions that further the work of such circlesof skilled persons. In fact, Polanyis understanding of a totalitar-ian society is bound up with his recognition of the importance of public liberty. A totalitarian society contends that it completely represents all the collective interests of the community and, eventhough it may allow private freedoms, it rejects the claims of individuals to act independently for the benefit of society.26

Mitchell does make these more subtle points (that flesh outPolanyis notions of liberty) somewhat clearer in a later section of his second chapter that is devoted to showing how Polanyis ideasabout polycentrism yield a certain vision of science:

The kind of society Polanyi describes is not one in whichindividuals are at liberty to do anything they please so long as they do not infringe upon any other individuals freedom to do the


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same. This is an inadequate foundation to support the supervi-sory structure required for the continuation of either science ora free society.27

In science, Polanyi argues that individual freedom is re-strained by an authority that is created by the practionersthemselves but it is ultimately rooted in a common commitmentto transcendent ideals . . . .28 In Mitchells general portrayal of Polanyis account of science, he emphasizes how and why Polanyiresisted the pervasive centralizing ideology of the mid-twentiethcentury. This ideology was rooted in a materialist vision of the world, a world conceived completely in terms of cause-and-effectrelationships29 that Polanyi did not accept. Polanyi saw throughthe movements aimed at reducing science to applied science,recognizing that this would be the end of science as we know it30and effectively the end of the cultivation of knowledge. Mitchellstresses Polanyis appreciation for tradition and authority inscience, and it is the rejection of these that gave rise to the idealof explicit, objective knowledge31 which came to be revered in thescience and philosophy of science of Polanyis day. Polanyisaccount of science and society is one that emphasizes how important are the commitments of participants to transcendentideals such as truth and justice. Mitchell makes clear that Polanyiportrays the scientist as a person of conscience and as one not somuch who applied a method as one who can see and solveproblems. Polanyi links such skilful discernment with perception.In sum, Mitchells seventeen-page discussion of science incisively covers Polanyis major themes. He makes much use of some of Polanyis essays written from the mid-thirties until the publica-tion of The Logic of Liberty in 1951. This is important material,and it is true that Polanyis ideas about the organization of scienceand the delicate relation of the scientific community to the largerpolitical culture did not change much after World War II.

The final section of Mitchells important second chapter istitled Politics; discussion here turns from Polanyis account of science per se to Polanyis broader criticism of the development


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of modern ideas and the political fallout these ideas have yieldedin the twentieth century. Mitchell clearly sets forth Polanyisaccount of the moral and political implications of objectivism,showing how the turn to modern philosophical suppositionsultimately leads to what Polanyi calls moral inversion, which isa combination of skeptical rationalism and moral perfection-ism.32 Moral inversion succors nihilism; according to Polanyi, itsimpact has been devastating in modern life. Unlike Europe,Britain and America to some degree escaped the frenzied passionproduced by moral inversion33 because political life muddledalong in practice following established traditions and ignoring theconsequences of theoretical views that took root in modernity.Polanyis philosophy, in Mitchells words, calls for and providesthe philosophical ground for a recovery of balance betweenmans moral demands and his critical powers.34 The philosophi-cal grounding for such a recovery required hammering out a new vision of the nature of knowing. In sum, in the final component of his second chapter, Mitchell nicely complements his earlierdiscussion of Polanyis ideas about economics and science. Hedeftly summarizes Polanyis critical philosophical conclusionsabout the development of modern ideas and their violent conse-quences.

Mitchell next turns to Polanyis epistemology as the heart of his constructive philosophizing. The discussion here is brokeninto ten sections. Polanyi recognized that belief was the founda-tion of knowledge and that a proper understanding of liberty alsorequired understanding how foundational belief was. His GiffordLectures and the book that grew out of these lectures, PersonalKnowledge, make his case for the priority and importance of belief; this is what Polanyi called the fiduciary programme,35and it is woven seamlessly with the philosophy of commitmentthat he articulates. Out of his interest in belief and commitmentgrows a richer understanding of what Polanyi later called the

structure of tacit knowing.36 The sections in Mitchells chapterare meant to mirror this development in Polanyis ideas. Firstthere is a discussion of what Polanyi draws from Augustine, the


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recognition of the indispensable role belief plays in all know-ing.37 But according to Mitchell, while Polanyi embraces anAugustinian approach to epistemology, he is decidedly non-Augustinian in his view of social progress.38 Next Mitchell turnsagain to tradition and authority, matters that he has already emphasized in earlier chapters. But in this epistemological discus-sion, he wants to make clear that tradition for Polanyi is not static;there is an orthodoxy that enforces a kind of discipline on thosesubject to the tradition; but the orthodoxy is a dynamic one in thatit implicitly grants the right to opposition in the name of truth.39This well-turned phrase that incorporates one of Polanyis mosteloquent comments shows that Mitchell has an eye for Polanyismost concise and clear statements; he puts them to excellent usehere and throughout his book to summarize major themes.Mitchell emphasizes how tradition is always linked to a commu-nity that embraces and passes forward valued practices andideals: . . . knowing requires the existence of a society committedto a particular tradition and engaged in passing it on.40 Hecarefully lays out Polanyis integrative model of tacit knowing,showing its roots in Gestalt ideas.41 Knowers dwell in subsidiary particulars in order to attend to a more comprehensive focaltarget; Polanyi regards the comprehensive entity as an achieve-ment that is an integration of tacitly known particulars or subsid-iaries. Mitchell sets forth a classification of six kinds of examplesof tacit knowing that Polanyi gives in his writing, and he explainsthe four aspects of tacit knowing that Polanyi discusses inTheTacit Dimension. He carefully reviews Polanyis claims aboutindwelling and extending the body and participation in knowing.In sum, the nine-page discussion in the subsection titled TacitKnowing is a good concise summary of the central elements of Polanyis theory of knowledge.

In the sections at the end of his third chapter, Mitchell roundsout his account of Polanyis epistemologically grounded perspec-

tive by briefly discussing some topics and themes that, unfortu-nately, are sometimes overlooked. He tries briefly to explainPolanyis particular brand of philosophical realism, which does


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not fit comfortably with most modern discussions of philosophi-cal realism.42 Mitchell notes that Polanyis realism has been anelement of his thought much discussed by scholars. His discus-sion is sensibly organized around four points about which there will likely be general agreement. Mitchell does a particularly good job of conveying Polanyis sense of

the infinite richness of reality. The richness of the real producesunexpected manifestations. Because we are finite, we will never

reach the core of reality, a reality that presents us with infinitepossibilities. The process of knowing presents us with continualsurprises.43

In his subsection titled On Embeddedness, Mitchell makesclear Polanyis conviction that to be human is to be grounded ina particular language used in a particular culture in a particularhistorical context. Human knowers have no access to Archimedeanpoints of view.44 While our finite embedded nature marks ourlimitedness, it also marks the opportunity for our achievement. Inthe final two sections of his third chapter, Mitchell shows how,from a Polanyian perspective, the subjective-objective and fact- value dichotomies that so readily spring to mind for most modernsare not tenable. He discusses briefly the importance of intellec-tual passions and what Polanyi called universal intent.45 Mitchellshows how Polanyis model re-conceives the nature of knowingand shifts the discussion of the nature of truth and meaning:

By eliminating the distinction between facts and values, Polanyisought to reestablish the possibilities for humans to embrace withconfidence such values as truth, beauty, and justice. These arenot merely subjective preferences; they are ideals to which wemay personally commit ourselves in the belief that they are truly meaningful, for they bear on intangible reality.46

In Meaning, Morality, and Religion, Mitchell moves fromPolanyis fundamental claims about knowing to a broader discus-


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sion of the implications of these claims. Clearly Polanyi is not amaterialist, but a figure whose goal in formulating a new accountof knowing was to reintroduce the possibility of making meaning-ful truth claims, about nonphysical reality.47 Polanyi reopens thedoor for conversations about moral ideas, aesthetics, and reli-gion. Mitchell does a nice job of summarizing Polanyis criticismsof modern reductionism and of sketching out Polanyis multi-level conception of reality. He sorts carefully through some of Polanyis confusing terminology (dual control, boundary condi-tions, etc.) and Polanyis ideas about the hierarchical structure of comprehensive entities. In one of his subsections, he makes aninteresting attempt to sketch out a moral theory, somethingPolanyi did not do but something Mitchell argues is implicit inPolanyis writing. Moral ideas and practices are like other ideasand practices: we come to accept moral teaching, like any otherbody of skillful knowing, by entrusting ourselves to a moraltradition or teacher in a process that is often referred to asinteriorization.48 Moral ideas are products of a persons tacitintegrations; while they are not arbitrary, they are tied to atradition and a community. They are intangibles more real thanmost tangibles. Moral ideas function as largely unspecifiablesubsidiaries that inform human judgment and they have indeter-minate future manifestations. New values in both science andculture do emerge when human beings struggle to understandreality more deeply and their moral ideas subtly shift.

There is a lengthy discussion in this chapter of Polanyis ideasabout religion. Mitchell is a fair-minded scholar (an important virtue, according to Polanyi) who acknowledges that this isterrain on which there has been much conflict in Polanyi schol-arship. His book is an introduction and he intends primarily toreference rather than explore some of the debated questions.Perhaps because Polanyis philosophical ideas seem early to haveattracted the attention of Christian theologians (a group more

open to criticism of the modern philosophical tradition), writingabout Polanyis religious ideas and his religious affiliations (orlack thereof) became a virtual cottage industry. Mitchell is aware


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of much of this discussion, which I treat below in discussions of other books. It is certainly the case, as Mitchell stresses, thatPolanyis ideas about religion as well as other topics were impor-tantly shaped by his friend J. H. Oldham and Oldhams circle of friends, who had great interest in Christianity and Christianitysrole in the world emerging after World War II. Polanyis post-critical ideas were in part shaped through his participation forabout twenty years in Oldhams discussion groups. As RichardGelwick has pointed out, Polanyi credited his participation inOldhams groups as second only to his experience as a scientist inshaping his thought.49 It is also certainly true, as Mitchell empha-sizes, that Polanyis post-critical philosophical perspective isopen to, and interested in, religious realities and religious truth ina way that most modern philosophy is not. One only has to lookat the end of Personal Knowledge, The Tacit Dimension, some latePolanyi essays, or the late bookMeaning, written with Harry Prosch, to see that Polanyi seems to have anticipated a religiousrenaissance. It is often, however, not clear precisely what Polanyiis saying about religion in many texts (and opinions of interpretingscholars have varied), and it is not clear that there is consistency among the different texts; it seems that Polanyi often preferred tohint at rather than thoroughly expound his ideas about religion inthe way he did on some other topics.50 While Mitchells generalcomments on Polanyis ideas and religion are balanced, in my view he relies too much on what the Christian theologian ThomasTorrance had to say about Polanyis religious commitments andreligious ideas. Some of the things Torrance has said aboutPolanyi and his religious commitments and ideas seem largely tobe self-serving. Some of Torrances comments about Harry Proschs collaboration with the aging and increasingly senilePolanyi on his last bookMeaning, as well as Torrances claimsabout his appointment as Polanyis literary executor, do not fit with the historical record. While these may be small matters in an

introduction to Polanyis thought, those who read Mitchellsaccount should be keyed to the fact that there is more to the story about Polanyi and religion than Mitchell lays out here, although


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he does do a credible job of referencing some important parts of the scholarly discussion.

The section in Mitchells chapter titled Religion inPersonalKnowledge works through Polanyis cryptic comments aboutreligion in his magnum opus. This is something that other scholarshave also tried to sort out.51 Mitchell does quote and commenthelpfully upon some of the striking Polanyi lines about religionthat always attract the attention of readers new to PersonalKnowledge. He nicely summarizes Polanyis discussion of differ-ences in verification and validation and Polanyis ideas aboutlevels of participation vis--vis types of real known objects. Formy taste, Mitchells occasional attempts in his discussion toexplain Polanyis views by analogs with C. S. Lewiss views are of limited value. Polanyi was not a conservative Christian, andreaders should be very clear about this. Mitchells short sectiontitled Faith and Reason picks up themes noted earlier in hisdiscussion of Polanyi and Augustine: Polanyi seeks to restorefaith to its proper place by showing how it is central to the knowingprocess.52 The final discussion in the Science and Religionsubsection returns to implications of Polanyis stratified ontol-ogy. Mitchell does a nice job of showing how Polanyi weavestogether his antimaterialistic metaphysic, his cosmology, and his Lebensphilosophie:

Life is an achievement. Human lifecharacterized by con-

sciousness, curiosity, creativity and moral responsibilityrepre-sents the apex of this achievement. Bound up within themeaning of human existence is our duty, as individual centers of thought and responsibility, to employ our faculties to live lives worthy of our cosmic calling.53

Mitchells final chapter, Engaging Polanyi in the TwentiethCentury and Beyond, moves from the overview of Polanyis

thought to a brief comparison of Polanyis views and those of three contemporaries: Michael Oakeshott, Eric Voegelin, andAlasdair MacIntyre. These three have some affinities with Polanyi


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or make some use of Polanyi, and all three are, like Polanyi, deeply interested in the politics of the twentieth century and the culturalroots of politics. Certainly, for the reader seeking an introductionto Polanyi who also knows something about any one or all of thesefigures, this discussion might be a helpful bridge. Readers unfa-miliar with any of these thinkers can perhaps skip this section,although there are in Mitchells discussions some generally inter-esting wrinkles. Mitchell, for example, comments on Polanyiscorrespondence with the recently deceased William F. Buckley Jr., and Polanyis hesitancy to see much that paralleled his ideasin American conservatism. Mitchell does a particularly good jobin his discussion of MacIntyre and Polanyi in showing thatPolanyis ideas are closer to those of MacIntyre than MacIntyrethinks. At the end of this chapter, Mitchell concludes with a brief final discussion outlining how Polanyis ideas in the new century can help move us beyond both Enlightenment rationalism andpostmodern skepticism.54 This discussion is one of the mostinteresting sections of this introduction to Polanyi because hereMitchell moves somewhat beyond Polanyi, but in a way that isconsistent with Polanyis thought. Mitchell suggests, for example,that philosophical materialism provides the psychological andspiritual license for the consumerism of the contemporary American society and that in such a milieu, fidelity to ones homeor community is eroded by the primary value of acquisition.55 Hediscusses the ways in which contemporary society often is self-indulgent and relativistic in orientation and how far this falls fromPolanyis vision for humanity in which liberty must ultimately bein the service, not of trade, but of transcendent ideals.56 At leastto this reader, such claims seem to be on the Polanyian mark.57 Ilook forward to Mitchells future scholarly efforts to dwell inPolanyis philosophical framework in order to extend the con-tours of post-critical thought. In sum, Michael Polanyi is a very solid introduction to Polanyi, one that probes in a sophisticatedmanner the breadth and depth of Polanyis thought.


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The Briefest Introduction: Richard Allens PolanyiRichard Allen is an articulate British Polanyi scholar who has written or edited many things on Polanyis philosophy.58 In 1990,Allen published an introduction to Polanyis thought, titledsimply Thinkers of Our Time: Polanyi, which is part of theThinkers of Our Time series published by the Claridge Press.59Certainly, this is the briefest of the introductions; Claridge Pressstrictly limits authors in the series to 25,000 words. Although itis dense in some sections, this is an introduction that can bequickly read. Quite sensibly, one reviewer has suggested AllensPolanyi might also serve as an introduction to other introduc-tions.60 Allen has acknowledged that he did not have space to treatas thoroughly as he would have liked the social and political aspectsof Polanyi thought.61 Nevertheless, because the major part of Allens discussion focuses on the argument ofPersonal Knowledge,Polanyis longest and most complex book, this short introductioncould be especially useful to a reader working with this text.

Allen begins by commenting on the fact that Polanyi was nota professional philosopher but a talented scientist who took upphilosophy to protect science in a period when Marxist influ-enced ideas about planned science were popular. He argues thatPolanyi found current thinking about science and freedominadequate.62 In Personal Knowledge, Polanyis target was objec-tivism, the assumption that knowledge must be a function of theobserved object alone, and that any personal shaping of hisknowledge by the knower renders it merely subjective. Hesought to show that knowledge is and must be a personalachievement.63 Allen follows with a straightforward list of sixdangerous errors that have infected modern thought sinceGalileo and Descartes.64 His unembellished list, of course,includes the same items (reductionism, unwarranted confidencein the method of doubt, etc.) that most of the other introductionstreat at greater length. Allen includes a five-page biographical

statement that also identifies the topics treated in Polanyis majorbooks. He provides, as well, a very succinct statement about how Polanyis philosophy is unlike most contemporary philosophy.


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For readers whose expectations are shaped by familiarity withcontemporary philosophy, this brief discussion may be helpful.

After this introduction, Allens second chapter succinctly laysout the parts in Personal Knowledge that I earlier called Polanyiscritical philosophizing, that is, the claims against objectivismunderstood as the source of our specifically modern ills and asthat which has derailed humanitarian ideals and attempts at theirrealisation.65 Allen provides a four-element characterization of objectivism and then, in about ten pages, he summarizes thearguments that Polanyi uses to counter each element.66 Someelements are also treated further in later chapters. The thirdchapter turns to a summary of Polanyis alternative account of knowledge as a personal achievement.67 In a very compactfashion, Allen here sets forth Polanyis theory of tacit knowing.He manages to cover a remarkable number of Polanyis ideas in very few pages and even suggests a few comparisons with otherphilosophers. The fourth chapter, The Fiduciary Programme,treats Polanyis account of belief as the root of knowledge, a claimthat puts Polanyi directly at odds with much (but not all) of the Western philosophical tradition. Allen shows how Polanyi de-emphasizes doubt and emphasizes commitment; post-criticalphilosophy is a presuppositional approach68 that begins withbelief and acceptance of our social-cultural framework as theconditions marking our calling to achieve the universal obliga-tions to which we are subject.69 In Comprehensive Entities andComplex Performances, Allen summarizes Polanyis ontologicaland cosmological ideas. He shows how Polanyi reinstates theancient conception of degrees of reality and does so in a directioncontrary to that of Reductionism, which assumes the moretangible to be the more real.70 He outlines Polanyis argumentsconcerning the two levels of control in comprehensive entitiesand sketches Polanyis interesting accountcountering C. P.Snowof the complementary domains of human inquiry, run-

ning from the hard sciences to dramatic history. He provides asuccinct summary of Polanyis discussion of evolution as anachievement and shows that Polanyis image of the universe as


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multi-level is a stark contrast to the reductionism often promul-gated in modern and post-modern culture. In his penultimatechapter, Allen treats Polanyis political philosophy and his inter-est in modern problems of meaning. Polanyis political philoso-phy emphasizes that a free society needs a commitment by itsmembers to truth and a mutual respect for each others self-dedication.71 Although his comments are very few, it is clear inhis remarks on Polanyi and the problem of meaning that Allen,like the writers of almost all of these introductions, is especially interested in religion and theology. Allen hints at a few criticismsof what he takes to be Polanyis overly this-world account of religion. At the end of Allens book is a two-and-a-half pageorientation (now somewhat dated) to Polanyi scholarship and abrief bibliography. He comments on books and authors who have written about Polanyi or who have applied Polanyis post-criticalperspective.

Although my overview of Allens book, like the book itself, hasbeen concise, the reader should not conclude that this introduc-tion is a second-class effort. It is simply a very tightly wroughtintroduction, and perhaps no Polanyi scholar is better able to bebrief than Richard Allen. Of course, the contrast is sharp be-tween, for example, a loquacious introduction like that of DrusillaScott, who projected a modern everyman as a reader, andAllens book, whose publisher projected an audience with no timefor details. Allens Polanyi is a very basic orientation to Polanyispost-critical perspective, and that is just what this Claridge Pressseries intended.

Michael Polanyi and Common Sense:Drusilla Scotts Everyman Revived

The late Lady Drusilla Scott met Michael Polanyi in 1960 andbecame a friend in the last sixteen years of his life; she was a leaderin the British Polanyi-studies group Convivium (now merged with

the largely North American Polanyi Society) that published asmall journal (of the same name), which often featured herinsightful reflections on Polanyis philosophical work. Her book,


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Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi, wasfirst published in 1985 by the Book Guild. After it went out of print, it was reprinted by Eerdmans in 1995 and is still readily available.72 This is the most down-to-earth introductory book,providing an overview of Polanyis ideas. Scott is perhaps thePolanyi interpreter most attuned to the difficulties of readingPolanyi. As she says, Polanyi is advocating such a U-turn inaccepted ways of thinking that the experience of reading him canbe disorienting.73 Scott writes clearly, is imaginative (but some-times digresses), and her informal prose often aims to be witty.She says in her preface that she tried to introduce some of hismain ideas as simply as possible so as to show their value andmeaning in todays world; those who are Everymans heirs, whonow urgently want some light on the real world, should claimPolanyi as our philosopher.74 Scott thus links Polanyis views with the recovery of common sense, which was one way Polanyihimself discussed his philosophical objectives. Scotts book has acertain British charm and is full of illustrative stories; she drawsskillfully not only from the playEveryman, but from a wide rangeof contemporary writersphilosophical, scientific, and literary.

Her opening chapter, The Power of Ideas, makes the casethat Polanyi valued ideas and came to believe that a misunder-standing of science, woven with a particular modern philosophi-cal and cultural narrative, led to the violence in the twentiethcentury that Polanyi knew firsthand. Scott discusses Polanyisnotions about a disastrous dissonance75 at work in modernculture, which combines extreme critical lucidity and an intensemoral conscience to produce nihilism. Polanyi argued that thehope of early Enlightenment ideas got lost as later generationssuccumbed to a materialist outlook obsessed with objectivity.Scott traces the development of Polanyis understanding andcriticism of modernity in terms of his own experience as a fin de sicle Hungarian-born, refugee research scientist who eventually turned from physical chemistry to economics, social science, andphilosophy as he sought to understand his own culture. There isa rather good short biography in this chapter that shows how


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important problems and conclusions for Polanyi are set by hispersonal experience. With verve, Scott introduces Polanyis themesand weaves these into a story of his experience, carefully choosingquotations from various Polanyi writings to make her case elo-quently, as she often also does in succeeding chapters.

Each chapter after the first begins with a few italicizedsentences that link the chapters discussion to the characters inthe medieval playEveryman and that provide a summary of whatthe chapter explores in Polanyis philosophy. Although, as areader, I was at first puzzled by this section, I came to appreciatethis succinct way in which Scott focuses her discussion. Thesecond chapter is a brief plunge into the history of modern ideas(some of which were touched on in the first chapter) that setsforth more concretely the problematic that Polanyi addresses inhis philosophy. This chapter also focuses more directly on themain trope used in this book: Scott employs the story inEverymanas an envelope within which to present a reasonably well-roundedaccount of Polanyis philosophical perspective. This old play stillhas an emotional force today because it is an agonized searchfor values that can stand and endure in the face of suffering anddeath; it is a play about the urgent need of man to know something sure about the meaning of his existence . . .76 Scottscomparison focuses on the old authoritarianism of the RomanCatholic Church and the similar new authoritarianism of scientism(i.e., the misread tradition of science) which systematically un-dercuts the person as a skilled and responsible holder of knowl-edge at home in the world. Polanyis work was to re-equip humanbeings to trust their own faculties, which the era of criticalthought has taught them to distrust. The liberation of the early critical era brought a new authoritarianism which included therift between Knowledge and Everyman.77 The picture of the world and the person that developed from the seventeenth to thetwentieth century was one in which mind and matter were split

and ultimately the motion of matter was what counted. Whatevolved was a picture of the universe as a vast assembly of atomsmoved relentlessly on its path by impersonal inevitable forces,


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and this picture seized the imagination of man and dominatedit.78 Therefore, when Knowledge turned her cold and analyticeyes on to Everyman, and saw that he too was part of the worldof matter, made of atoms, obeying the same laws as the planets,she could not recognize her sister Good Deeds nor her friendEveryman.79 Scotts reading here of the development of thehistory of ideas is not a close reading, but she provides a creativeand concise sketch of Polanyis critique of modern culture against which Polanyis constructive philosophical ideas began to de- velop. Polanyi set about building a truer picture of how Everymanknows his world, how he can justify his claim for the validity of personal knowledge, and this makes a great difference inbringing hope, reality and responsibility back to Everyman.80

After the introduction of Polanyi and Polanyis culturalcriticism in the first two chapters, Scott turns in the next threechapters to an elaboration of the constructive themes in Polanyisthought that counter the prevailing cultural narrative. The thirdchapter focuses on discovery as the paradigm case in Polanyismodel of knowing and the key to his understanding of science.81Scott here introduces the process of scientific research in termsof the pursuit of intellectual beauty, which she portrays as areinstatement of Beauty in Everymans world.

Discovery is the most illuminating element in science, yet ithas been ignored by philosophy of science. However, Polanyihimself a practicing scientistmade discovery central. Scottsdiscussion of discovery unfolds as a brief comparison of the viewsof Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper with the ideas of Polanyi.Russell focused on observation, deduction, and induction, whilePopper relegated the creative element in developing scientificideas to psychology and focused attention on questions of valid-ity. Polanyi, however, emphasized first the matter of choosing agood problem (which relies upon highly personal skills of seeing).Polanyi also assigned importance to intellectual passions, imagi-nation, and the discoverers dim sense of direction, which isguided by intimations of reality, indicated by scientific beauty.82Scott provides a fair summary of Polanyis account of discovery


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seen starkly against the backdrop of Russells and Poppers views.There is perhaps a bit too much effort in her discussion to linkPolanyis ideas with a popular book of the eighties, Robert PirsigsZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Readers today willlikely not know Pirsig, and I dont believe Pirsig ever truly had agrasp of many of the issues that Polanyi sought to address.However, with her many examples from other writers, Scott doesshow that other thinkers share Polanyis view of the importance of discovery. Finally, included in this review of Polanyis perspectiveon discovery is a succinct but lucid summary of Polanyis interest-ing effort to show the difference between accounts of discovery inmodern science from before and after the act of discovery.

The fourth chapter, titled Tacit Knowing, follows from theextended discussion of discovery as the central puzzle of science.Because discovery is central to knowing, it is necessary to re-conceive the nature of knowledge and the knowing process. As hisphilosophical ideas matured, Polanyi developed such a re-conception which he eventually called the theory of tacit knowing.Scott lays out the main parameters of the theory, which sheportrays as the rehabilitation of Five Wits.83 Not all knowledgeis explicit, exact, and testable, Polanyi argues, but all that isexplicit, exact, and testable relies upon tacit elements used by aknower to attend to what is of interest. By carefully discussingskills, Scott shows how Polanyi broadens and reworks the tradi-tional understanding of acquiring and holding knowledge. Shediscusses Polanyis interest in the practical, skillful, and bodily elements of all knowing by reinterpreting Gestalt ideas and part- whole dynamics:

We focus on the whole by not attending to the parts, or as Polanyisays by attending from them to something else which is their joint meaning. We integrate the parts into the whole not by areasoning process but by a sort of bodily skill, which is so much

part of our make-up that we are usually not aware of ityou dontthink of it as a skilled performance when you recognise your childamong a crowd!84


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Scott ably shows how Polanyi binds together perception andother kinds of knowing and how tacit knowing in human beings islinked to the capacities of other animals and to evolutionary history. Seen against the standard account of knowing, Scott thussummarizes the nature of Polanyis personal knowledge: There isthen no finished certainty to our knowledge, but there is nosceptical despair either. Through all our different kinds of knowl-edge there is a reasonable faith, personal responsibility andcontinuing hope.85

Reality, Scotts fifth chapter, sets forth the several impor-tant aspects of Polanyis metaphysical realism. Against the back-drop of a positivistic view of science, Polanyi reasserted thatscience progresses by guessing at aspects of reality indicated by clues in what is seen and heard, just as we guess that certain soundsindicate the presence of a real burglar and go to look.86 Polanyisrealism is commonsensical, but, more importantly, it focusesattention on the knowers commitments, passions, and tacitly heldskills. Polanyi repudiated an impersonal and rule-bound method asthe path to discovery, and instead developed a portrait of thescientific discoverer as a responsible, committed person, makingfull use of tacit powers. Doubt, Polanyi argued, is not the royal roadto truth, but responsibly held belief, which one puts forth withuniversal intent, serves as the key to all human understanding of reality. However, Polanyis notion of reality is not a simple notionthat focuses on tangibility: we recognize something as real becauseit draws us on, makes us feel an obligation to search and discover,rewards us by revealing more and unexpected but recognisablemeaning.87 Minds are, for Polanyi, more richly real than cobble-stones, and we can know rich realities only by deeply dwelling intheir particulars. As Scott puts it, Polanyis idea of indwellinggives a firmer outline to the idea ofcommitment. If we indwell inthe clues we perceive, using them as an extension of ourselves anda tool for discovering more, we have to commit ourselves more to

them.88 All in all, Scotts seamless discussion of the severalcomponents of Polanyis realism is one of her best chapters.

Scott follows chapter 5 with Truth and the Free Society, a


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discussion that complements her chapters on discovery, thetheory of tacit knowing, and Polanyis metaphysics. She outlinesPolanyis broader account of the operation of the larger scientificcommunity situated in a free society. Polanyi was an astute andarticulate scientist who recognized the social aspects of science.Particularly those influenced by early Polanyi texts likeScience,Faith, and Society sometimes see Polanyi as an early sociologist of science. Although I, like Scott, think this is an inadequate descrip-tion of Polanyis approach, it is true that Polanyi carefully laid outan account of the scientific endeavor as a cooperating community of independent researchers pursuing truth. Polanyis examinationof science emerged in the thirties and forties against the backdropof Marxist-influenced movements to plan science. Scott skillfully sketches how Polanyi emphasized the independence of the scien-tist and the authority of scientific opinion operating across themany neighborhoods of science. She lays out Polanyis view of how professional standards operate within science and how whatPolanyi later called conviviality89 provides a necessary but oftenoverlooked element in the scientific community which is commit-ted to the exploration of an unfolding reality. She ably summarizesPolanyis account of science as a global self-governing form of spontaneous organization,90 an organization that in early moder-nity had to reject the authority and tradition of the church but now has (and should acknowledge) its own indispensable tradition. Allof these broader social themes in Polanyis thought come togetherin a circumspect discussion in Scotts chapter.

What Scott does less convincingly in chapter 6 is show concisely how Polanyis vision of the scientific community also yielded what he regarded as a liberal vision of society grounded incertain notions of freedom. There is no doubt that Scott appreci-ates the larger political philosophy Polanyi articulates, as shownby her discussion of Polanyis reflection on the important role of a rich variety of independent associations in the state. But she

might have here discussed Polanyis notions about public libertyand transcendent ideals as a way quickly to get to the heart of his political vision. Her comparison of the evolution of scientific


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views and legal precedents is helpful, but I expect that many readers will find strained her extended effort to compare Puritanideas about liberty of conscience and what she regards as Polanyissense of the scientific spirit.91 Also disconcerting at the end of this chapter is the several-page retelling and analysis of the story in Selma Langerlofs novel Jerusalem. Scott construes the story tobe about moral discovery92 and moral community,93 but mostreaders are apt to find it a long stretch to see this story as an analogpulling together Polanyis account of how scientific discoveriesare made, and how they relate to the tradition and authority of thescientific community.94

Scotts seventh chapter, Moral Inversion and the UnfreeSociety, circles back to explore in more depth Polanyian themesconcerned with the destructive currents in late modern culture,themes introduced in the opening two chapters. Polanyis analysisof the troubled modern mind pointed to the fusion of two kindsof convictions: from a misleading theory of knowledge that came with the rise of modern science, we inherited a far-reachingskepticism that undercuts all moral ideas and judgments; buteighteenth-century scientific rationalism also brought a giant wave of mans unlimited moral aspirations which, turned from itsChristian channel, poured like a destructive torrent through thechannels of rationalism.95 Scott rightly emphasizes how Polanyiagain and again in his analysis of late modern culture hammershome his conclusions about the explosive, destructive impact of this combination of extraordinary contempt for moral values andexcessive moral passions fueling a Utopian perfectionism. Sheoutlines Polanyis case that England and the United States werespared the full impact of moral inversion because there theinversion is limited to vocabulary and logic but not put intopractice; men talk a language of materialism, behaviourism, value-free sociology or utilitarianism, and yet continue in practiceto respect the principles of truth, justice or morality which their

vocabularies anxiously deny.96 Scott then reviews Polanyis nu-merous criticisms of Marxism and Soviet institutions and prac-tices. She ends this chapter with an analysis of a speech by a


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British foreign secretary who typifies what she regards as themuddled moral, epistemological, and metaphysical ideas under-lying late-twentieth-century British policies. Scott tries to refineand update some of Polanyis cultural criticism but she getssomewhat carried away with her analysis of the British foreignsecretarys speech; she sometimes sounds much more conserva-tive than Polanyi himself.

Polanyi held that scientism often misrepresented complexity for it contended that ultimately everything, including the humanbeing, could be exhaustively described in terms of physical andchemical laws. In her eighth and ninth chapters, Scott summarizesand applies Polanyis case against this and other forms of reduc-tionism. Polanyi countered a one-level mechanical account of entities with a hierarchical view that emphasizes how higher levelprinciples of organization operate in margins left open by lowerlevels of control. Lower levels of control determine the condi-tions of success and failure in an entity, but they do not controlthe nature of higher level principles that can come into play.Polanyi used this hierarchical account not only to counter what heregarded as the reductionism of behaviorism but also to criticizeNeo-Darwinian arguments that focus too narrowly on variationand selection. Polanyi contended that discussions of evolutionneeded to make a place for the emergence of greater organiza-tional complexity from the margins left open by lower levels of control. Ultimately, Polanyi held that a theory of evolution thatcannot account for the emergence of human beings who arecreatures inquiring about evolution is a failure. Polanyi tried tolink the structure of evolutionary emergence with his account of tacit knowing. He makes a case that his understanding of thehierarchical structure of entities is a parallel to his account of knowing in terms of subsidiary and focal elements. These mattersare the most difficult elements in Polanyis philosophical perspec-tive. Scott does a reasonably good job (although sometimes I thinkshe makes things too simple) in summarizing the main ideas in thisdifficult terrain. She does a better job in her ninth chapter, Mindand Body, where she presents Polanyis criticisms of behavior-


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ism and his effort to institute a starting point for philosophicalreflection that does not accept an unbridgeable ontological chasmbetween mind and matter. Here she introduces some of thediscussion in the sixties between Polanyi and Marjorie Grene,Polanyis closest philosophical supporter after 1950, but also oneof his best critics.97 Although Polanyi disagreed, Grene thoughtPolanyis eagerness to defeat behaviorism led him back to a mind-body dualism. There are a number of things that Polanyi scholarshave debated and still debate; Scotts discussion of this topic of debate should be interesting to even those readers using Scottsbook to locate the general contours of Polanyis philosophicalperspective.

From discussions in earlier chapters, Scott pulls together inher tenth chapter a rich description of Polanyis account of aperson. She argues that in Polanyis reinterpretation of science,centered on discovery, there is a recovery of the person as morethan material and mechanical: Polanyis ideas of tacit knowledgeand the many-level world transform the possibilities for recognisingpersons in their full humanity, without rejecting the scientificknowledge of the physical world.98 Polanyis person is an en-gaged, changing, and unique figure grounded in the natural andhistorical world; Polanyi gives us an account that extends biology into theory of knowledge.99 Polanyis person is an inquirer, one who dwells in in order to break out, a responsible figure thatmakes choices, respects the achievements of all living things, andaccepts kinship with them: Polanyi set human personhood in acosmic perspective of evolution, seen as emergence and achieve-ment.100

The final two chapters of Scotts book, although interesting,are likely of limited value to readers seeking a basic introductionto Polanyis ideas. These chapters do treat some themes inPolanyis writings, but they are a rather indirect discussion. Theeleventh chapter, The Poets Eye, begins with a comparisonbetween the literary critic F. R. Levis and Polanyi, and thenintroduces Polanyis late writing treating symbol, metaphor, art,myth, and religion, which is the main topic. Certainly Scott is right


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in pointing out that late in life Polanyi tried to extend his earlierphilosophical ideas to say more about meaning that he regardedas related to but somewhat different than meaning in science. Shesays Polanyis argument was sometimes ambiguous and notentirely convincing; yet she thinks Polanyis efforts to identify aspecial sort of truth101 are interesting and important. Thislaunches her discussion of Polanyis misreading of Coleridgesclaim that appreciating art requires the willing suspension of disbelief. She argues that Polanyi has pulled Coleridges idea outof context; what Coleridge has in mind is actually close to whatPolanyi pointed to in analyzing the meaning of poems, works of art, myth, ritual, and religion as requiring transnatural integra-tions; such artifacts are marked by incompatible particulars.102Scott outlines some of the distinctions that appear inMeaning, co-authored with Harry Prosch, about meaning-making in thesedomains that Polanyi tried to work out in the last years of his life.In the last section of the chapter, there is an extended comparisonof Polanyis life and developing outlook and that of Wordsworth.Both took on a mission to unstop our ears and save us from thecrippling restrictions103 of an overly critical and analytical phi-losophy. Scott contends what Polanyi worked out intellectually Wordsworth worked out poetically.104 In this discussion, Scottshows that she is a sensitive Wordsworth reader; but, in the finalanalysis, Polanyi is not comparableat least to this Polanyireaderto an English Romantic poet.

The concluding chapter of Scotts book, A Meaningful World,is one of the longest chapters in the book. It treats what clearly isof special interest to the writer, what she calls the religiousdimension of Polanyis thought,105 about which she acknowl-edges there has been much wrangling in Polanyi scholarship.Early in this chapter Scott sorts through some of Polanyisambiguous comments about religion and offers some conclu-sions. She clearly wants to claim Polanyi as, somehow, a religious

thinker. She holds that the discovery of meaning in our most vitalexperience of the world is a function of religion,106 and insofar asPolanyi was a thinker interested in recovery of meaning, he should


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be recognized as a religious thinker. Certainly the things Polanyisaid over the course of his life reflect his interest in religion, hissense that his philosophical perspective opened new ways to thinkabout and accept religious meaning, and his great hesitancy aboutestablishing for himself a religious affiliation. Scott suggests thatPolanyis insights about science can lead to new approaches toreligion. Polanyi emphasized the priority of belief and the way in which understanding follows and relies upon beliefs in scienceand religion. Also, she stresses that religious understanding is acultivated skill and that Polanyi suggested that tradition andauthority are important in both science and religion. She insightfully emphasizes that Polanyis implications for religion focus on thebreaking out and exploring aspect of religion107 and that theseimplications too often are underplayed by religious institutionsand religious thinkers. She notes that Polanyi brought science andreligion together in his writing as he re-conceived the characterand destiny of human persons situated in nature and history andseeking meaning. Scott introduces the continuing scholarly dis-cussion about Meaning, Polanyis final book, written with Harry Prosch (treated below). What sort of account of religion is here?Although it is clear which side of the debate Scott favors, sheunfortunately, does not do a good enough job of laying out theissues so that one not already familiar with them could follow. Butshe does a nice job of discussing what she calls Polanyis supranatural (rather than supernatural) orientation, which focusesupon the natural world revealing a meaning.108

In sum, Everyman Revived is a competent and readableintroduction to Polanyi which sometimes digresses. On the whole, Drusilla Scott interprets Polanyis thought sensitively as aliterary intellectual particularly interested in the bearing of hisideas on culture, the arts, religion, and theology. Perhaps it is alsotrue, as one reviewer of another introduction to Polanyi says of Scotts book, that it goes too far in the direction of popularpresentation.109 If so, it nevertheless, is a popular presentationthat fulfills the promise of her subtitle: Scott succeeds in showingthe common sense of Michael Polanyi.


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Polanyi and Discovery:Richard Gelwicks The Way of Discovery

The oldest and still one of the best introductions to Polanyisthought is Richard GelwicksThe Way of Discovery, a book,originally published by Oxford University Press in 1977, whichfortunately was re-published by Wipf & Stock in 2004.110 Gelwickfirst met Polanyi in 1962 when he was in the United States atStanford; then he worked directly with Polanyi at Stanford, and

subsequently off and on, until Polanyis death in 1976. He wrotethe first doctoral dissertation focusing on the implications of Polanyi philosophy and put together the first bibliography of Polanyis non-scientific writing.111 As the books title suggests,Gelwick uses discovery as the Rosetta stone with which to open upPolanyis perspective, for Polanyi sees in discovery the organizingpoint for a whole view of the world.112 Polanyi presents discovery as the paradigm case of human knowing and finds in it a calling to

a new way of thinking for our whole society, a calling thatarticulates a new image of humanity, of an avant-garde that callsits company to see themselves as part of a grand and daringexploration in the cosmos.113 Gelwick suggests that Polanyi recog-nized that Western culture was in crisis and particularly that there was in the twentieth century a crisis of belief about belief114 thatrequired recovery of our capacity to hold on to transcendent ideals. What Polanyi does is examine discovery and show its fiduciary

character; in so doing, he provides grounds for hope that areconsonant with a scientific and rational understanding of the world,115 and according to Gelwick this hopeful movement isgaining momentum. To describe Polanyis philosophy with asingle term, Gelwick suggests Polanyis own term heuristic.116This is a term that points to the importance of discovery and thebreadth and interdisciplinarity of Polanyis perspective. Polanyisheuristic philosophy attacked the false ideal of objectivity revered

in philosophy, science, and culture in the mid-twentieth century,but it also articulated a new vision of objectivity that emphasizeshow knowers personally participate in that reality that beckons


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and guides us to ever broadening and surprising horizons of understanding.117

Somewhat like the Scott and Mitchell books, Gelwick beginsthe detailed introduction of Polanyis thought by treating hisunderstanding of the problems and disasters of the twentiethcentury which, he argued, call for a fresh examination of thegrounds of knowledge. The late modern cultural situation was oneof crisis: Beset by this collapse of ultimate and unifying beliefsand foundations, thought is adrift in a vast cosmos withoutdistinct origins or directions.118 Polanyi ultimately came tobelieve that the clue to the way out of the crisis was to betterunderstand the nature of scientific discovery, but it was hisinsight into the brutality of twentieth-century experiences thatled him to this clue. Polanyi came to believe modern ideas aboutscience generate destruction and have, as well, falsified thefoundations of knowledge itself.119

Modernity is marked by the creative development of naturalscience and the drive for social and moral progress. But Polanyibecame convinced that the violence of modernity evolved fromthe way in which the twin ideals of humanitarianism and scien-tific objectivism120 became intertwined. What happened wasthat the fusion of scientific objectivism with intense moralpassions produced a relentless drive for social ameliorationthat brooks no dissent or opposition.121 In the name of objectiv-ism, political ideologies have arisen in modernity that invite theindividual to surrender his or her self to an interpretation of alllife while telling the individual that this interpretation is objec-tively true and the individual bears no responsibility for it.122Polanyi pointed out that modern people need to recognize thatmodern nihilism satisfies moral drives. Polanyi recognized thatto cling to our humanitarian visions, we have to believe in the value and power of ideas that are traditional and transcen-dent.123 Such values cannot be objectified, but the reductionistic

ideal of scientific detachment simply dismisses such values.Polanyi saw that we have a cultural crisis because we havecorrupted such values with corrosive doubt and narrow-minded


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obsession with the explicit. His work as a scientist led Polanyi torecognize that a richer account of scientific discovery, bettergrounded in scientific practice and the history of science, couldprovide the key to reforming and recovering out ideals.

This narrative comes through more or less in the Scott,Mitchell, and Prosch books, but it is lucidly articulated in Gelwicksbook. Another element of Gelwicks discussion is what he calls anoutline of Polanyis analysis of how the objective ideal of knowledge came to be a central dogma124 of modern scienceand science-influenced culture. Gelwick gathers together in atwelve-page, coherent discussion the several elements of Polanyisreading of the history of Western ideas, which Polanyi sketchily presents in several different texts. But Gelwick emphasizes that,although Polanyi took an interest in and had a sophisticatedreading of the development of Western ideas, his objective was toshow that the contemporary cultural crisis is rooted in our ideasand can be corrected by reforming our ideas. Polanyi wanted hiscontemporaries to understand that the attractiveness of theobjective ideal will turn out to be its pseudo-substitution of factfor responsible commitment, the appearance of holding knowl-edge without risk or values.125

Gelwick argues that Polanyi always respected the methods of science but, based on his experience as a scientist, increasingly came to disagree with the common views projected by objectivismabout the methods of science. Polanyi turned toward discovery asthe key to science and he realized that not much work had beendone on discovery. In Gelwicks words, The nature of discovery was perceived to be the Achilles heel of the objective ideal of knowledge. Once this issue is seen, the paradigm begins to fall andan alternative view begins to arise.126 Polanyis analysis of discovery focused attention on the skilled researcher equipped with proper tools who is attuned to the prevailing views of science.Polanyi thought that the selection of a problem to investigate wasa key factor in discovery. Often the importance of a problem wasnot recognizable until after a discovery. Polanyis experiencetaught him that strictness and rigor of procedure were secondary


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to creative imagination in scientific work and that this meant thatmatters of personal judgment were deeply a part of scientificdiscovery. Polanyi collected cases of significant scientific work in which traditional scientific rules were ignored; his writing aboutscience weaves into the discussion such cases. Gelwick also showsthat Polanyi found in Gestalt psychology some clues to the way creative imagination plays into the problem of scientific discov-ery. Gestalt thinkers recognized that seeing a pattern involves thecreation of a coherent whole (itself more than the sum of its parts,or pieces), but Gestalt psychology had stopped at a moremechanistic point and had regarded perception to be an internalequilibration of external stimuli.127 What Polanyi added was theconclusion that seeing a pattern is the outcome of an intentionaleffort of the person to find order in reality.128 Polanyi recognizedthe implications of this view, i.e., that the act of discovery wasdependent upon our personal powers of thought, and that his view overthrew three centuries of epistemology that had builtupon a structure of knowledge in which there was no person.129Thus by following through the nature of discovery, we are led toa total rethinking of the general ideal of knowledge in our culture.Discovery is the point within science itself that leads to a truerunderstanding of knowledge and of ourselves as persons.130Ultimately Polanyi worked out a view which holds that knowingis an integration of bodily clues that we indwell in order tounderstanda view he described as challenging cultures mostbasic assumptions of our idea of knowledge.131

In his second chapter, titled From Scientist to Philosopher,Gelwick charts Polanyis developing philosophy as a sequence of career changes from medicine to physical chemistry to socialscience to philosophy. He emphasizes that Polanyis moves revealthat he always had very broad interests in the whole world. As Ihave noted above, Polanyis writing reflects his broad interests inits strikingly interdisciplinarity, so much so that reading a book

like Personal Knowledge is difficult. Gelwick notes that Polanyiseems to be a man perpetually fascinated by the ranges of reality that come to us through our experience. . . . The whole world is his


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only genuine interest.132 Although Polanyi is sometimes tagged aphilosopher of science and an epistemologist, Gelwick rightly insists that Polanyi never saw the problem of knowledge as anacademic problem alone. It was always the question of the natureof our knowing and of its bearing upon the major issues of our lifeand destiny.133 Gelwick discusses how Polanyis own early expe-rience as a scientist taught him important things about the natureof scientific work. The fate in the scientific community of his ownthesis on the potential theory of adsorption as well as his work atthe Institute of Fiber Chemistry taught him about the nature of authority and orthodoxy in science and how discoveries work within the framework of authority and orthodoxy. The last twosections of the second chapter provide a brief overview of Polanyis major works, focusing on (1) Science, Faith, and Society,Polanyis first systematic effort in the mid-forties to produce aphilosophical statement, and (2) Personal Knowledge, Polanyis magnum opus based on Polanyis 195152 Gifford Lectures. Butthere are here also summary comments on Polanyis later writing.Gelwick nicely lays out, piece by piece, the major elements of Science, Faith, and Societ y andPersonal Knowledge, making a casethat Polanyis reconceptualization of human knowing is no lessthan a Copernican revolution.

A New Paradigm, Gelwicks third chapter, moves from theoverview of Polanyis ideas to an expanded discussion of Polanyisbasic epistemological model. By telling a story that is in fact acomposite of examples Polanyi himself uses, Gelwick rathercleverly gets at Polanyis fundamental ideas about how a personintegrates into a meaningful whole the tacit particulars in whichhe or she dwells. Later Gelwick discusses the designs (printed inhis book) that are made by a series of woodblock prints, which helinks to basic claims made by Polanyis epistemological model.Here he goes over much of the special vocabulary (proximal,distal, tacit explicit, subsidiary and focal awareness) andsummary phrases (e.g., we know more than we can tell) thatPolanyi often used to discuss tacit integration. At the end of hischapter, Gelwick briefly reviews some of the ideas found in other


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thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition who seem some-times on the edge of insights about knowing that resemblePolanyis theory of tacit knowing. He also comments on whatseemed to him, in the mid-seventies, to be signs in philosophy of science as well in the broader culture that the objectivist paradigm was yielding to views more like those articulated by Polanyi. Thisremains an interesting section of the book because of the emer-gence in the last thirty years of the literature and culture that wenow usually term post-modern. Gelwick concludes his discussionof Polanyis work as a new paradigm by saying, [T]he separationof the knower and the known is no longer convincing even thoughthat separation is institutionalized in our habits of thought, ourideals, and our organization of life.134 He suggests Polanyi isimportant not as the first to criticize scientific objectivism but asthe first to provide a comprehensive philosophical vision that isan alternative commensurate with the problems that we face.135

After his discussion of Polanyis basic epistemological themes,Gelwick turns in his fourth chapter, A Heuristic Philosophy, tobroader implications of Polanyis perspective, what Gelwick callsPolanyis new vision that beckons us toward a responsible society of explorers.136 This chapter is concerned with Polanyis com-prehensive and alternative ideal,137 with what I termed, above,Polanyis constructive philosophizing and Lebensphilosophie. Inthis chapter, Gelwick pulls many elements together. He does agood job of showing how Polanyis philosophy has heuristicthreads running throughout that touch the theme of finding,discovering, growing, expanding, [and] enriching.138 He nicely captures Polanyis optimism and realism about human beings:Polanyi is a thinker who sets before us the opportunity forunlimited exploration if we can learn to live with the infinite underthe conditions of finite existence.139 Gelwicks discussions out-line the finer details of Polanyis ideas but he also always is keenly attuned to the broadest parameters of Polanyis philosophy:

Viewed in its totality, Polanyis philosophy is one that is aimedprimarily at the equipping and encouraging of humans in theunending task of pursuing meaning and truth.140


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What are the several more complicated elements in Polanyisperspective that Gelwick at least touches on and weaves togetherin this chapter? He discusses Polanyis claim that science bears onreality although reality itself is always emerging. He treats Polanyisideas about how imagination and intuition work together inscientific discovery. He outlines Polanyis views about the tacitpowers and kinship of all animals. He sketches Polanyis accountof how tacit powers evolve in human beings into the operation of self-set standards and of universal intent in articulate humaninquiry. Gelwick shows how Polanyi, expanding his theory of tacitknowing, eventually came to describe the order of the universe ashierarchical: The universe, from inanimate matter up to humanlife, presents a highly complex and varied picture, yet it is one of ascending levels of order in which new operational principlescome into play as the lower conditions are presented that makethem possible.141 This chapter also tries to make clear how Polanyi used his account of the hierarchical structure of theuniverse to recast ideas about evolution. Polanyi argues, [H]umanlife stands at the top of a long story of achievements, of bioticchanges that involved increasing subordination of lower levels tothe service of higher ones.142 Gelwick writes that Polanyi tracesa new theme in the theory of evolution, one which

focuses upon centers of individuality in contrast with the usualconcern of natural selection with populations. . . . What is novel

here is that Polanyi has aligned his theory of knowing with theemergence of human life so that it gives an account of the rise of intelligent human life.143

In the last section of this chapter, Gelwick lays out the way in which Polanyi tried to expand the use of the theory of tacitknowing to describe the discovery of meaning in art and religion,showing how this differs from discoveries of science. These late

Polanyi discussions were condensed and complex and Polanyiinvented many diagrams to set forth his views. Gelwick does areasonably good job of trying to explain all of this briefly.


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Gelwicks final two chapters round out the discussion by reviewing Polanyis main themes and commenting on his influ-ence. Invitation to Explorers surveys the ways in the mid-seventies that Polanyis heuristic philosophy was reforming out-looks in different areas. Gelwick briefly comments on how thoseusing Polanyis ideas were recasting issues in different areas of philosophy and in discussions in religion and art. Of particular value is Gelwicks discussion of the several essays inIntellect andHope, an important Polanyi festschrift from the late sixties thatincluded reflections by several prominent thinkers. The lastchapter in The Way of Discovery pulls together the themesdeveloped in earlier chapters. Although the discussion here would lose some of its resonance, this chapter could be readindependently as a very quick introduction providing an accountof the shape and significance of Polanyis heuristic philosophy.Gelwick reviews Polanyis analysis of the crisis of modern cultureand Polanyis constructive philosophical effort to heal the splitbetween the knower and the known; Polanyi aimed to recover arich account of the person as engaged in the world. Polanyiconfronts materialist reductionism and modes of thought thatbifurcate matters into fact and value. Polanyi made clear, Gelwicksays in conclusion, that scientific discovery, instead of expung-ing our personal beliefs and our participation in the major tasksof knowing and shaping our planetary destiny, calls us to resumethe pursuit of truth inexhaustibly.144 As I noted at the beginningof the discussion ofThe Way of Discovery, this is the oldest of thePolanyi introductions, but it remains, still today, a particularly well-rounded and articulate presentation of Polanyis main ideas.

Polanyi and Post-Modernism; Jerry Gills The Tacit ModeJerry Gills The Tacit Mode,145 published in 2000, provides adiscussion of Polanyi, as its subtitleMichael Polanyis PostmodernPhilosophyimplies, that is pitched at a somewhat different

audience than the introductions treated above. The Tacit Mode isnot, strictly speaking, a basic introduction to Polanyis thought,like the Mitchell, Allen, Scott, and Gelwick books. Nevertheless,


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at least the first section (i.e., part 1, which is four chapters, 88 of the 183-page, eight-chapter book) may be a helpful for readers with certain contemporary interests and background who seek anorientation to Polanyis perspective. Although Mitchells intro-duction does touch upon post-modernism, Gills book much moredirectly situates his discussion of Polanyis thought in the contextof the history of philosophy as that is understood at the end of thetwentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.146

This book is part of a SUNY series, edited by processtheologian David Griffin, that focuses on revisioniary, constructive orperhaps bestreconstructive147 post-modern thought.Griffins short essay introducing the series discusses the appro-priateness of dividing post-modern thought into deconstructiveand reconstructive camps and the importance of taking seri-ously reconstructive thinkers. Gills introduction takes up whereGriffin leaves off by proposing that Polanyis thought was clearly an effort to reconstitute modern philosophy, reorienting it fromthe course along which it has proceeded since Descartes. Polanyiused the term post-critical inPersonal Knowledge to signal hisreconstructive intent and what Gill wants to do is to contextualizePolanyis thought within the broader perspective of the history of modern philosophy. Gill aims to identify where Polanyis post-critical thought fits into the landscape of the modernismpost-modernism discussion. All of the introductory works discussedhere, at least indirectly, do treat Polanyis criticisms of modern-ism and his constructive alternative vision, butwith the excep-tion of Mitchells brief discussionnone of these books sodirectly treat post-modernism and the very recent history of Western philosophy.

One might describe the perspective of Gills book in another way, so as to reveal its limitations. The other reviewed books show how Polanyis ideas emerged in the context of his life as an migrscientist engaged with the issues of his day. Early on, Polanyi

struggled to articulate a vision of science that is not centrally controlled, and this broadened into a philosophical vision of liberal society. Polanyi eventually turned to epistemology. Al-


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though his epistemological model is always bound up with hisinterest in scientific discovery, it is also concerned with the largerproject of human inquiry. Gills discussion does not focus directly on this personal, historical, developmental account of Polanyisthought. What he does, instead, is fit Polanyi more narrowly intothe context of the modern history of philosophical ideas. This isan important contribution, but it makes his book on Polanyi onethat is better suited for readers steeped in recent philosophy.

How is this book organized? It is broken into two majorsections with four chapters in the first division and four in thesecond. Gill suggests that he does not intend to treat Polanyisreconstructive approach to postmodern philosophy in a step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter format,148 but that his purpose is totreat the main emphases of Polanyis thought around two majorfoci: locat

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