Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

Michael Polanyi articulates two arguments against the view that moral judgment has no proper place in the conduct of political science: Non-judgmental political science cannot understand what it studies; and non-judgmental political science cannot understand the political scientist himself. Evaluation of these arguments not only clarifies important dimensions of Polanyi’s conceptions of understanding and tacit inference, it prompts a reconsideration of the nature of both moral deliberation and moral truth. The encounter with Polanyi demonstrates that non-judgmental political science does indeed fall short of its stated objective.

In a Polanyian emergentist ethics, moral ways of being and their concomitant interpretive structures come as achievements in response to a heuristic in the human condition. Religious transformation, as seen in mysticism and enlightenment, however, may present a radical, “transnatural” solution of a different order. Polanyi’s understanding of “breaking out” from conceptual frameworks, and his conception that Christian worship promotes a sustained hopeful anguish, are contrasted with a Polanyian “breaking in” to a new framework of knowing and being that provides a happy solution to human suffering. With a new framework, a new spirit, or center, is seen through that provides a different experience of the world. Polanyi’s conceptions of a telic organizing principle, breaking out, and breaking in provide three different conceptions of God.

This article offers an appreciative review of Milton Scarborough’s book, Comparative Theories of Nonduality: The Search for a Middle Way. The nondualistic metaphysics and epistemology Scarborough argues for integrating three major influences: the Buddhist notions of emptiness and nothingness, ancient Hebrewcovenantal theology, and the minority perspectives within Western philosophy of Polanyi and Merleau-Ponty. What results is a vision of a protean reality that is not captured adequately by fixed essences—especially dualistic alternatives— or by a drive toward some unreachable certainty in knowledge. The article raises somequestions about the implications of Scarborough’s thought and how he formulates it, but as a whole praises the work as a fine example of cross-cultural philosophy.

This essay replies to Walter Gulick’s review of my book. It points out the book’s double purpose, namely, finding both a Western middle way and also a middle way between East and West. It clarifies the flexibility of my use of “dualism” while emphasizing my consistency in the use of “middle way” as referring to a larger and more concrete reality as the source of abstracted dualisms. It compares the Buddha’s namarupa with the mindbody of Merleau-Ponty and Poteat. It articulates six benefits of my approach. Finally, it justifies my emphasis on Hebrew thought about covenant, history, and knowledge.