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Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing (Library Modern Thinkers Series)

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Until now, Drusilla Scott's "Everyman Revived" has for many been the most useful primer on Michael Polanyi's deep, rich and complex philosophical writings. Scott's book remains excellent, but Mark Mitchell's exploration of Polanyi's epistemology is more accessible and better organized.

Mitchell's book is useful to anyone interested in Polanyi. It serves as a very capable introduction to the ideas; anyone reading Polanyi for the first time will benefit greatly from having Mitchell's book close at hand. Likewise, scholars who have been wrestling with the nuances of tacit knowing will appreciate Mitchell's organization and his thorough coverage of the development of ideas in Polanyi's works.

Mitchell offers exceptionally clear explanations of very complicated ideas, linking themes from among Polanyi's many works with helpful citations. He also draws connections among Polanyi and other writers who considered similar challenges, some of whom preceded and influenced Polanyi, and some who drew and expanded on Polanyi's ideas.

I've already given this book as a gift three times, and surely will again. For anyone interested in the importance of tradition and liberty to the advancement of knowledge, this book is a delight.

This book serves as a first-rate overview of Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), a Hungarian physical chemist (would-have-been Nobel Laureate) turned philosopher of science, economics and societies. Generally unknown, Polanyi shouldn't be, and having been adopted by some on the Right, he might not remain anonymous for long. ISI publishers - who promote Conservative thought (but for their occasional Creationist forays, usually reasonably so, sometimes brilliantly) - have made Polanyi a member of their Library Of Modern Thinkers series (including Bertrand de Jouvenel, Eric Voegelin, Ludwig von Mises, Robert Nisbet, Wilhelm Röpke). Polanyi was a man of ideas, neither radical, nor absolutist, most concerned with Western modernity's general dismissal of tradition and faith grown out of an over-exuberant sense of empiricism's applicability in the human realm, leading to a brand of nihilistic skepticism, and worse - Postmodernism. Where "beliefs" are dismissed as not empirically verifiable, robbing humans of things they can know but can't prove (admittedly slippery terrain), and at least contributing to a denial of an I-Thou perspective as discussed by Joseph Campbell. To put tradition and faith on a more equal footing, Polanyi returns to the source of this superior attitude concerning science, to argue it's just as dependent on tradition, authority and (calm down, Postmodernists) a level of subjectivity - which, however, he finds a way to attach to concrete reality in nature (sorry, Postmodernists).

Our author provides a fine survey of Polanyi's life and its rather historic irony. Polanyi's economic analysis, favoring rationally regulated free markets preceded economist and Nobel Laureate, Friedrich Hayek's work, for which Hayek gave Polanyi credit. In 1944 Hayek's capitalist manifesto was published, "The Road To Serfdom" (a stimulant to Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan). In that same year a staunch supporter of socialism published his own manifesto, "The Great Transformation". Its author none other than Karl Polanyi (Michael's older brother) who happened to encounter Hayek and von Mises (see above) in Vienna when Keynesian economics was king (the first time), before Kaynes read "Serfdom" taming his own theory. Unlike myopic pleas for socialism today, Karl's book is not so trifling. While Michael shelved science for philosophy loosing his shot at the Nobel, his son John (University Of Toronto) won it for chemistry ten years after his father Michael was gone. For Michael, his years in science were essential preparation, "An experience in science is by far the most important basic ground for developing philosophic ideas." Sadly, Michael's survey of life may not have been so grand as it should have been, "Today at seventy five my voice has not carried far; I shall die an old man as an infant prodigy." And a year later he did. It's interesting to note that brother Karl (and Marx) thought Enlightenment's capitalistic machinery was the dehumanizing force to blame for our woes, while Michael saw it as Enlightenment's hyper-rationalism overextended. Marxism's remaining anti-Western fragment, mutated in the form of Postmodernism, instead saw our problems as a failure of reason, desirous of eliminating it as Western bigotry. While Enlightenment appears to have initiated things, Postmoderns carried the flag in their usual self-contradictory manner through smug impersonations of rational dismissal, all the while opposing Western reason and rejecting Enlightenment. (Who says modern intellectuals in the humanities have no sense of humor?)

Polanyi argues that knowledge is acquired by two kinds of awareness - focal and subsidiary (secondary), with our focus on the object of our attention while dwelling on secondary things in the background. For example, language: when reading we look through words to their meaning but tend to words and letters secondarily. A poorly written piece arrests our attention as we switch to focus on the words, struggling for their meaning, which suddenly become rather opaque. Acquired knowledge thus demands personal participation employing this focal/subsidiary method. This personal aspect makes knowledge particular (ignoring Carl Jung's universals due to common wiring in the brain) and subjective, making objective detachment impossible in actual practice. Satisfaction in knowing comes from ever deepening coherence with reality and promises indeterminate future manifestations. Hence allowance for revelations emergent from sound scientific theories not seen often for decades, developments of morality, or religion. Paralysis of subjectivity is removed because there is an external reality universal to all, which we approach with ever-greater coherence accepted by others if the insights deepen understanding (one assumes natural selection did not evolve our senses intending to deceive us - recalling humans have zero living interaction with Relativity or quantum mechanics). All knowledge, including science, depends on a tradition (which, Polanyi submits, need not be static, encouraging a degree of decent in the interest of truth) and authority (everybody learns from somebody) - traced to Enlightenment's reaction against corruption in the Roman Church. This reader can't help but suspect an apparent shortcoming equating the foundations of knowing science and religion in this way. While science provides testable agreement between observers (Polanyi is, after all, trying to loosen the empirical leash), could different religions really agree on religious universals? Doesn't "indeterminate future manifestations" split the flock, not providing greater coherence but leading if not to new denominations then a new religion altogether? Campbell's demonstration that at root all religions are the same, clothed in local dress, seems likely to hold limited appeal.

Polanyi proposes integration of a dual perception, where a machine (or entity) - exemplified by a watch (or society) - is governed by two levels, those of physics and chemistry, and those by which they were put to use. Smash the watch and while principles of physics and chemistry persist, the comprehensive reality of the thing disappears with loss of that higher principle to which it was put to use (to tell time). While Polanyi does not make this comparison, strip away a common set of norms by which a people defines itself, subservient to a radical superiority of plurality or freedom from judgment and the comprehensive reality of communities composed of individuals is exchanged for atomized individuals with no community, governed only by rights, not responsibilities, bound by contracts rather than common sentiment.

While as opposed to planning of science as he was to the economy (because both are far too vast and complex for a centralized entity ever to hope to grasp) and as a defender of science, Polanyi nonetheless submits that when a rigorous fidelity to science is coupled with a reductionist-materialist concept of reality then implications extend far beyond the realm of science, jeopardizing moral and political structures. If morality is but a convention, tradition mere inertia, God just a psychological necessity then society risks nihilistic listlessness. As liberty is the exercise of free will in the face of constraints, physical and moral, liberty is then also threatened. By eliminating the fact (empirically based) and value (not empirically based) divide, Polanyi seeks to provide allowance for ideals we may commit to such as truth, beauty and justice, what he calls intangible reality, more real to humans via their meaning and implications than tangible realities of science - so the charge on an electron is 1.60218e-19 coulombs?

This is a wonderfully clear exposition of the main strands of Polanyi's thought. I speak from the perspective of having read a number of Polanyi's major writings (Tacit Dimension, Personal Knowledge, Meaning, Knowing and Being) as well as introductory works by Drusilla Scott and Esther Meeks before coming upon this new overview. I like many features of Prof. Mitchell's book. One of these, especially useful for those already acquainted with Polanyi's own works, is a front-of-the-book bibliography with abbreviations that serve as references throughout the text. These references should also be valuable to someone new to Polanyi who wants to consult original sources related to specific topics of interest.

Second, is the clean writing, evidence of careful editing and - as important as anything else - the selections from Polanyi's own writings chosen to succinctly represent his views. Once confident of understanding, the new reader may be more comfortable to sample the original writings. It's not so much that Polanyi's writing style is difficult but rather that his ideas, developed as they were over time and in a wide variety of contexts, require one to do considerable sifting, summarizing and systematizing to make the fullest sense of them. But that's exactly where the author comes to our aid. He has done the work you would expect of a Polanyi scholar and the reader benefits from the clarity he brings to a wide range of issues that might otherwise be missed. Please don't read this as a warning to avoid reading Polanyi's own writing. To do so would be to miss his unique "voice" and miss the experience of "indwelling" (a key term in his theory of knowing) one of the great minds of our era.

Finally, the book is well organized. A short preface sketches the features of the 20th century that framed Polanyi's life and provided the issues that deeply concerned him. Chapter 1 sketches his life and times giving us a sense of the trajectory of his life from brilliant research chemist to philosopher of science and politics. The remainder of the chapters summarize and show the relevance of his thinking on Economics, Science and Politics (Ch 2); The Tacit Dimension, his new paradigm on knowing (Ch 3); Meaning, Morality and Religion (Ch 4); and Engaging Polanyi in the 20th Century and Beyond (Ch 5). This final chapter contrasts Polanyi with other key figures of his times giving special attention to Michael Oakeshott, Eric Voegelin, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Chapter 5 (and the book) concludes with thoughts about Polanyi's legacy, particularly with regard to the 21st century postmodernist climate and issues that concerned Polanyi but remain unresolved or have taken new forms in our time.

Most of us are likely to recall, as a youth, torturing our parents with the proverbial ... "I KNOW". What kid doesn't ..."KNOW"? This phenomenon tends to hang around well into adulthood, eventually transforming into a more practical/useful endeavor commonly called ... "KNOWING".

Mark Mitchell's take on Michael Polanyi's art of knowing seems to help narrow the gaping gap between our subjective self and the personal in us. Finding the personal element in ALL of knowing while simultaneously affirming the objective nature of the thing known is key. The PERSONAL ELEMENT in us actively enters INTO our most PASSIONATE COMMITMENTS...the SUBJECTIVE STATES are where we endure our feelings... the OBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVIST seeks to remove the human knower from the knowing process.

Mitchell continues to "unpack" Polanyi's approach as it pertains to the tacit dimension - the fact that we can KNOW MORE than we can tell or effectively express.
The tacit dimension of knowing consist in an integration of two mutually exclusive elements ... the SUBSIDIARY(PROXIMAL) and the FOCAL(DISTAL). In order to focus on any object one must dwell IN the subsidiaries while attending to the focal target.
What we hold subsidiarily is the proximal term of the tacit relationship. It represents an extension of our bodies in the process of achieving a meaningful relationship with distal element. Because the proximal component of tacit knowing is rooted IN OUR BODIES and EXTENDS out from them, all thought is embedded in the body, which is the instrument of ALL our external knowledge, whether intellectual or practical. This form of indwelling leads Polanyi to affirm that knowledge requires the active and continued participation of the knower. Thus, separating himself radically from those who embrace the ideal of passive and detached rationalism ... including Cartesian dualism, which deems the body simply a physical extension and the mind as a separate entity, able to by-pass sense experience, yet contain knowledge.

Concerning Scientism, which seeks to reduce all knowledge to the confines of the empirically verified, Polanyi claims that radical skepticism and a strong impulse towards perfectionism combine to create a volitile political and moral disposition
he calls "moral inversion". The realm of facts is assumed to be reducible to scientific terms and therefore objectively knowable, while the realm of values is said to lie outside of scientific methodology and is characterized as merely subjective knowledge. Thus, moral inversion enables the modern mind, tortured by moral self-doubt, to indulge its moral passions in terms which also satisfy its passion for ruthless objectivity.

Our ability to sustain any meaningful traction/progress, when dealing with reality and meeting our own PERSONAL expectations of KNOWING, seem vortexually bound. Especially when a generous helpin' of 'analysis paralysis' is scientifically applied to what should be "naturally" accessible to the modern inquisitive mind.
In one essay, Polanyi writes that we "gradually penetrate to things that are increasingly real, things which, being real, may yet manifest themselves on an indeterminate range of future occasions". This implies a vision of reality in which the core is MOST real, while the fringes, though real, are not AS real as what is closer to the core. The closer we approach the real, the more INDETERMINATE and UNEXPECTED will be our findings. Welcome to paradoxville!!! This indeterminateness is not due to an essential randomness at the heart of reality; instead, it points to the infinite RICHNESS of reality. This richness of the real produces unexpected manifestations. Our current knowledge of being is finite, thus we are likely to never reach/attain the core of reality, a reality that presents us with infinite possibilities. The process of knowing presents us with continual surprises. If the more real is capable of manifesting itself in indeterminate and unexpected ways, the knowing process is open-ended and contingent. Being conducted by imperfect individuals working within particular traditions, knowing is both fallible and colored by personal experience.

Finally, Mitchell views Polanyi's take on the indwelling/embeddedness concern as follows... If we are embedded within a language, a culture, and a historical setting
in such a way that the framework by which we comprehend the world is, in part, by the language, culture, and historical setting in which we dwell, then it is foolishness to imagine the possibility of getting completely outside of that framework in order to critique it. This framework represents the particular tradition to which one belongs, and from which we attain the tools used to mount a critique. To imagine evaluating one's particular tradition from outside ALL traditions is parallel to critiquing one's particular language by standing outside ANY language. Just a tad oxymoronish? As Polanyi puts it, "I cannot speak except from INSIDE a language" ... well said.

I encourage anyone who has an interest in the philosophical endeavors of Michael Polanyi to consider the purchase of this book by Mark T. Mitchell. It will prime your neurons to fire and synaptically connect with those other neurons that will
likely put you in the "KNOW" ... or better yet ... the "KNOWING".

The author writes ably about Polanyi's thinking regarding the dilemma of the "modern/postmodern conundrum" (p.165), the alternative between "modern" insistence on scientific verification of claims of truth, and "postmodern" skepticism about any objective truth at all. The first case disregards morality, beauty, and other "intangibles" as not susceptible to truth-values, and the second case lays claim only to "tangibles" dependent on preferences of the moment rather than on lasting truths.

Interestingly, Polanyi considers intangibles more real than tangibles, but fails to justify this view, as he returns to reliance on "faith", in more than just the religious sense. He reverts to advocating dependence on tradition and authority (p.63), as well as on certain "tacit knowing" (p.70).

This project, although I agree with him that scientism and the related loss of more fundamental and transcendent values warrant criticism, unfortunately offers no solid basis for its proposals. Strangely, Polanyi objects to Descartes (p.157) as a source of the problem, while other recent thinkers accuse Descartes of the opposite, of denying the supremacy of science by his dualism of mind and matter. Mind, or consciousness, could indeed have been a better point of departure for Polanyi.

The book's author speaks of him (p.168) as reintroducing "the personal participation of the knower into the process of knowing". The knower is, through consciousness of the known, in fact not only a participant, but the determiner of the known, of reality. Therefore consciousness, with its totality of apprehensions of beauty, morality, delight or displeasure, etc., takes precedence over its particular perceptions like those of the natural world. One can accordingly ascertain truths concerning these inner experiences as one can concerning experiences of nature, an outstanding example given by mathematical logic, and it is not necessary to have recourse to vague and unsupported persuasions.