Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

In many contemporary societies, multitudes have used and are still using psychoanalysis to account for their actions to one another, by attributing to them repressed motives as their causes. The significance of this wide metaclinical use of psychoanalysis remains deeply misunderstood, as searchers predominantly treat psychoanalysis as a pure theory (despite the fact that it transformed social interactions), or as an asocial procedure, achieved by individuals escaping the moral requirements of society. To correct our vision of psychoanalysis, I rely on Michael Polanyi’s analysis of moral inversion and Charles W. Mills’ sketch of a psychoanalytic vocabulary of motives. An analysis of Freud’s theory of repression benefitting from those complementary insights shows that it allows contemporaries to assert backhandedly and indirectly their commitment to the cardinal values of an emerging individualist society.

This essay articulates a theory and practice of “reading toward reality” based on Polanyi’s conception of scientific discovery as proceeding from the apprehension of problems, guided by our tacit intimations of a new coherence that would resolve these problems, and a reality as the condition of such inquiry. I argue that, analogously, (good) literature poses problems of sense that refer us to our own tacit knowledge of the normative conditions of sense—conditions which underlie and sometimes contradict our conventional modes of sensemaking. Literature thus can educate us to those human realities which underlie our everyday social world and to the conditions by which we might more adequately judge and make sense of our experience.

In this essay I seek to clarify the unruly notion of emergence by describing three distinct varieties. I suggest that it is often fruitful to ascertain whether what emerges is an aspect of the physical world or a matter of novel meaning rather than quibble over whether emergence is an epistemological construct or is ontological in nature.

This paper interprets the batting styles of Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams utilizing key concepts of the Michael Polanyi Reader. In doing so it demonstrates the thoughtful organization of Polanyi’s work in the Reader, on the one hand, and the explanatory and descriptive power of Polanyi’s thought about practices on the other. Key Polanyi concepts utilized in this paper include: indwelling, the specifiable and the unspecifiable, connoisseurship, a-critical and critical judgment, knowledge and knowing as action, understanding, and commitment with its personal and universal poles.

Michael Polanyi’s thought still has an “outsider” status, despite the efforts of The Polanyi Society and extensive publications by other scholars in various fields. Gulick attributes this limited familiarity to Polanyi’s complexity and atypical philosophical insights, his re-introduction of the personal in feats of knowing, and his call for significant intellectual reform. Gulick sets out to remedy the situation with his well written, comprehensive, and accessible anthology. Polanyi’s thought can be applied to many of today’s concerns, including human research, animal intelligence, ecoliterature, and socio-political problems. Gulick’s book is an excellent resource for introducing students and others to the relevance of Polanyi’s thought for today’s issues.

This well-organized collection offers a blueprint for tracing continuity in Polanyi’s lifelong intellectual output. Gulick’s Recovering Truths: A Comprehensive Anthology of Michael Polanyi’s Writings makes it possible for anyone interested in Polanyi’s writings to explore the overall philosophical stance from which Polanyi’s thought originates. In addition to key texts from Polanyi’s ouvre, the volume introduces the reader to the method by which Polanyi’s philosophy transcends disciplinary preoccupations and transforms the post-Cartesian intellectual terrain through the conceptual tools of a post-critical philosophy.

In this brief essay, I respond to three generous reviews of my annotated anthology of Michael Polanyi’s comprehensive thought. Where my meaning or Polanyi’s thought seems unclear or controversial, I offer my rationale for my usage or interpretations.

Between the late 1930s and the 1950s, Michael Polanyi came in close contact with a diverse cast of intellectuals seeking a renewal of the liberal doctrine. The elaboration of this “neoliberalism” happened through a transnational collaboration between economists, philosophers, and social theorists, united in their rejection of central planning. Defining a common agenda for this “early neoliberalism” offered an opportunity to discard the old laissez-faire doctrine and restore a supervisory role of the state. Ultimately, post-war dissensions regarding the direction of these efforts led Polanyi away from the neoliberal core.

For Polanyi, the Society of Explorers (SoE) describes the ideal form of a free society. He does not, however, provide us with a thick description of such a society. This essay attempts to do so by bringing together his later social and political thoughts with those set forth in his discussion of “Conviviality.”