Reconsidering Michael Polanyi S Philosophy

The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) was one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to resolve the internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment: scientific detachment and moral nihilism with humanist values. Stefania Jha’s intellectual biography places Polanyi in the context of his time and culture, analyzes his key philosophical ideas, and explicates the application—and at times misappropriation—of his work. Polanyi’s method was not laid out in his published works, and his vocabulary tends to make his writings difficult to understand. By exposing the structure of his theory of tacit knowing, and by tracing the growth of his thinking, Jha shows how the various elements of his thought are integrated. Through examination of his philosophical roots in Kant and the complexity of his evolving thought, she counteracts the popular notion that Polanyi’s philosophy stands apart from the western philosophic tradition. Jha’s deep analysis makes Polanyi’s shift of focus from science to philosophy more intelligible, his philosophy more approachable, and the causes he championed—such as the freedom of science and cultural freedom—more understandable. Applying his notion of tacit knowing in practical directions, Jha seeks to bring the study of Polanyi’s philosophy out of the specialists’ enclave and into such fields as ethics and clinical medicine.

Michael Polanyi is one of the most inspiring and original thinkers in the 20th century. He launched a new and independent philosophical tradition and fertilized many intellectual areas from cognitive psychology to management sciences. Polanyi’s systematic thoughts span over many areas of philosophy, yet his most fruitful ideas, the fundamentals of his system are contributions to epistemology and ontology. His theory of tacit knowledge, his critique of both the objectivist and the subjectivist views of knowledge, his concept of emergence, and his theory of spontaneous order and coordination—just to mention a few—are probably the most important and most well-known. Polanyi also gave us a new picture about science in which scientist’s personal participation guided by his cognitive and moral commitment, passions and trust, is an essential part of knowledge itself, in both its discovery and its validation. This volume focuses on these epistemological and ontological issues. Thirteen critical essays analyze, interpret and develop further Polanyi’s ideas in the two parts of the book: Knowing and Being. Most of these papers address Polanyian themes in a comparative way, in dialogue with other major traditions illuminating both sides and helping to re-evaluate Polanyi in broader philosophical context. The title of this book also refers to a seminal collection of papers of Michael Polanyi (edited by Marjori Grene in 1969), Knowing and Being.

Beyond Empiricism: Michael Polanyi Reconsidered systemati- cally presents Michael Polanyi's concepts of modern science and the modern scientist. Professor Kane argues thar despite all attempts to establish empirical parameters, Polanyi is correct in his assertion that science rises upon metaphysical bedrock. Kane then establishes parallels between the structure of scientific validity and the scientist himself where the «non-empirical» aspects of the former are reflected in the «non-explicit» elements of the latter. Polanyi's concepts of imagination and intuition are refined and their inter- action in the process of discovery is explained. A variety of practical implications for the scientific and especially educational communities is offered.

"The Tacit Dimension" argues that tacit knowledge -tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments- is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. This volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

Describes Michael Polanyi's role in the way the philosophy of science was seen as a social enterprise, not relying entirely on empiricism and reason alone.

The polymath Michael Polanyi first made his mark as a physical chemist, but his interests gradually shifted to economics, politics, and philosophy, in which field he would ultimately propose a revolutionary theory of knowledge that grew out of his firsthand experience with both the scientific method and political totalitarianism. In this sixth entry in ISI Books’ Library of Modern Thinkers’ series, Mark T. Mitchell reveals how Polanyi came to recognize that the roots of the modern political and spiritual crisis lay in an errant conception of knowledge that served to foreclose any possibility of making meaningful statements about truth, goodness, or beauty. Polanyi’s theory of knowledge as ineluctably personal but also grounded in reality is not merely of historical interest, writes Mitchell, for it proposes an attractive alternative for anyone who would reject both the hubris of modern rationalism and the ultimately nihilistic implications of academic postmodernism.

Explores the thought of twentieth-century philosopher Michael Polanyi.