Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

Polanyi says that the concept of tacit knowledge is “necessarily fraught with the roots that it embodies” (TD, xviii). This paper demonstrates that these roots can be seen in Polanyi’s early writings between 1939 and 1946. In particular, the concepts of “intuitive judgment” and “personal judgment” have some peculiar features that flow subsequently into the idea of tacit knowledge. In this regard, they can be considered ancestors of Polanyi’s best-known concept. In the present paper, I propose a historical reconstruction of the two concepts. In particular, I focus on the problems from which they stem, namely Polanyi’s criticism of research planning and his account on the functioning of science and its institutional and social arrangement. Besides this historical reconstruction, I draw a comparison between the concept of tacit knowledge and its early predecessors.

Michael Polanyi introduced the concept of fields in the last several pages of Personal Knowledge. In this essay I examine whether the last-minute addition of fields advances his explanation of anthropogenesis. Polanyi’s view of the role of fields in solving problems and discovery plus their place in ontogenesis and phylogenesis is examined and found not to be wholly satisfactory. Alternative explanations of the factors advancing discovery and problem solving are advanced.

In this interview, Phil Mullins questions Sheldon Richmond about the main ideas developed in his 2020 book A Way Through the Global Techno-Scientific Culture.

Critical theorist Elizabeth Grosz moves beyond the New Materialism she previously espoused and argues for a monism that avoids reductive materialism, holding that materiality is inconceivable without its immaterial frame. She also argues that this position ought to serve as the basis for an immanent and non-normative ontoethics. I give a summation and review of the book before offering an argument against such an approach to ethics. I also offer a related critique of the tendency, widespread within critical theory, to consider all transcendence oppressive.

Two reviewers summarize and analyze Gábor Bíró’s book, The Economic Thought of Michael Polanyi. The author then responds to each.