Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

The contrast between the personal and the subjective is a central aspect of Polanyi's argument in Personal Knowledge; this essay examines the way this distinction is developed and offers possible reasons Polanyi has been misunderstood on this point. It also discusses some ambiguities in Polanyi's use of "subjective" and "subjectivity" and comments on the general neglect of Polanyi's work by philosophers.

Polanyi belongs to a tradition which is neither modernist nor postmodernist, but which affirms speculative philosophy as an alternative to both and as an important form of public discourse. With his origins in the philosophical culture of central Europe, he may well emerge as a bridge between continental and Anglo-American analytic philosophy. He was a moral philosopher in the Aristotelian tradition who anticipated the turn in recent years away from the modern ethics of rules to the classical ethics of virtue. Within this context he espoused a new kind of liberalism and a different understanding of liberty.

Michael Polanyi and Edward Shils shared a great many views, and in their long mutual relationship influenced one another. This memorial note examines the relationship and some of the respects in which Shils presented a Polanyian social theory organized around the notion of tradition.

Michael Polanyi made an original contribution in his reflections on tradition within the scientific community. Starting with his Riddell Lectures (Science, Faith and Society), he considered the role of authority and the transmission of tacit knowledge within the scientific community, an analysis that can be extended to other, often contrasting, realms of intellectual life.