Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

Volume 19, Issue 2, 1993

Polanyi's Progress
Transcendence, Universality and Teleology

Michael Polanyi’s work supports the idea of progress by linking progress to the transcendent, the universal, and the teleological. Polanyi’s epistemology is developed in tandem with an implied metaphysics, one which incorporates a tripartite dialectic among the community, the individual, and the transcendent, universal reality which both community and individual progressively seek. Traditions, whether scientific or religious, may rightfully claim a penultimate authority. However, in science just as in religion, only the living God can possess ultimate authority. Hence, traditions may undergo progressive development by breaking out of their current understandings en route to greater understandings. In order to do so, the tradition must continually submit itself to the reality which it seeks to mediate to its members.