Mullins: "On Reading Polanyi..." - Revision history

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Moleski: /* The Tacit Mode */

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‎The Tacit Mode

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 How is this book organized? It is broken into two major sections with four chapters in the first division and four in the second. Gill suggests that he does not intend to treat "Polanyi's reconstructive approach to postmodern philosophy" in a 'step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter format,"<ref>Ibid., 1.</ref> but that his purpose is to "treat the main emphases of Polanyi's thought around two major foci: locating a fresh axis (part 1) and tracing the patterns thereof (part 2)."<ref>Ibid., 10.</ref> Since the first part of his discussion could serve as an introduction to Polanyi for those concerned with the history of philosophy and conversant with themes in the literature of postmodernism, I will focus on part 1 with only a brief overview paragraph on part 2.
-Taking up the "fresh axis" discussion, chapter 1 provides a quick summary of the history of modern philosophy that outlines the approaches and problems of Descartes, Hume, and Kant. This opens up Gill's following chapter 2 discussion of "Polanyi's treatment of the structure of human experience with an eye to overcoming the errors of modernist philosophy."<ref>Ibid., 31.</ref> Gill's discussion focuses on what he terms the "awareness dimension" and the "activity dimension,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> and this leads to an exploration of Polanyi's understanding of, and emphasis upon, the body as central to all human experience, especially to that domain of experience called cognition. Gill aims, in his dimensional analysis of Polanyi's philosophical approach, to show how Polanyi avoids the more typical modernist approach to experience in terms of realms or levels. His dimensional analysis focuses on matters of integration and interaction among the various aspects of human experience. As he notes, Polanyi is interested in the nature of meaning, and complex meaning is "best understood as a function of the interaction among simultaneous and interpenetrating dimensions of reality."<ref>Ibid., 34.</ref> Gill contrasts Polanyi's own philosophy with modern critical philosophy"which is "reductionistic or dualistic" while "a dimensional model allows for a greater richness, on the one hand, and the essential wholeness of human experience on the other hand."<ref>Ibid.  </ref> The "activity dimension" of experience in Gill's account falls somewhere along "a continuum between the bodily and conceptual poles."<ref>Ibid., 38.</ref> Thus, "in Polanyi's scheme of things, the intersection between the awareness and activity dimensions, with their respective poles, gives rise to yet a third dimension or continuum, namely that of cognitivity,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> which Gill explores in a subsequent chapter. At the end of his second chapter, however, what Gill also underscores is "the crucial role of the body in the shaping of our interaction with the world."<ref>Ibid., 44.</ref> Every reader of Polanyi must appreciate the way in which Polanyi conceives of embodiment and the integrative activities of persons. Gill does a solid job here of describing Polanyi's ideas about indwelling and integration, although in my judgment he overestimates the influence of Merleau-Ponty upon Polanyi. What, then, in the final analysis are the virtues and limitations of Gill's "fresh axis" discussion as an approach to Polanyi's thought? It is a creative overview of Polanyi's perspective that serves reasonably well to show how Polanyi's views differ from much of modern philosophy. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Gill quotes generously from Polanyi texts, this is a rather abstract account. Gill provides an architectonic approach to Polanyi, which he lays out in a diagram; this may be helpful for some Polanyi readers, although it will likely confuse others.
+Taking up the "fresh axis" discussion, chapter 1 provides a quick summary of the history of modern philosophy that outlines the approaches and problems of Descartes, Hume, and Kant. This opens up Gill's following chapter 2 discussion of "Polanyi's treatment of the structure of human experience with an eye to overcoming the errors of modernist philosophy."<ref>Ibid., 31.</ref> Gill's discussion focuses on what he terms the "awareness dimension" and the "activity dimension,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> and this leads to an exploration of Polanyi's understanding of, and emphasis upon, the body as central to all human experience, especially to that domain of experience called cognition. Gill aims, in his dimensional analysis of Polanyi's philosophical approach, to show how Polanyi avoids the more typical modernist approach to experience in terms of realms or levels. His dimensional analysis focuses on matters of integration and interaction among the various aspects of human experience. As he notes, Polanyi is interested in the nature of meaning, and complex meaning is "best understood as a function of the interaction among simultaneous and interpenetrating ''dimensions'' of reality."<ref>Ibid., 34.</ref> Gill contrasts Polanyi's own philosophy with modern critical philosophy--which is "reductionistic or dualistic" while "a dimensional model allows for a greater richness, on the one hand, and the essential wholeness of human experience on the other hand."<ref>Ibid.  </ref> The "activity dimension" of experience in Gill's account falls somewhere along "a continuum between the bodily and conceptual poles."<ref>Ibid., 38.</ref> Thus, "in Polanyi's scheme of things, the intersection between the awareness and activity dimensions, with their respective poles, gives rise to yet a third dimension or continuum, namely that of cognitivity,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> which Gill explores in a subsequent chapter. At the end of his second chapter, however, what Gill also underscores is "the crucial role of the body in the shaping of our interaction with the world."<ref>Ibid., 44.</ref> Every reader of Polanyi must appreciate the way in which Polanyi conceives of embodiment and the integrative activities of persons. Gill does a solid job here of describing Polanyi's ideas about indwelling and integration, although in my judgment he overestimates the influence of Merleau-Ponty upon Polanyi. What, then, in the final analysis are the virtues and limitations of Gill's "fresh axis" discussion as an approach to Polanyi's thought? It is a creative overview of Polanyi's perspective that serves reasonably well to show how Polanyi's views differ from much of modern philosophy. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Gill quotes generously from Polanyi texts, this is a rather abstract account. Gill provides an architectonic approach to Polanyi, which he lays out in a diagram; this may be helpful for some Polanyi readers, although it will likely confuse others.
 The third chapter in ''The Tacit Mode'' shifts to a discussion of Polanyi's analysis of the structure of knowledge. Here Gill examines the "interplay between the explicit and tacit components of human experience."<ref>Ibid., 51.</ref> He provides a solid discussion of how Polanyi challenges the traditional modernist account of knowledge as limited to what Polanyi terms explicit knowledge. Gill explains Polanyi's attack upon the philosophical ideal of objectivity and his effort to make clear the pervasiveness of personal coefficients in all knowing. Tacit knowledge is the "anchor or tether for explicit knowing" and therefore "we always know more than we can tell."<ref>Ibid., 54.</ref> Gill clearly elucidates Polanyi's case for the logical priority of tacit knowing. But he emphasizes that "Polanyi is not saying that every claim to tacit knowledge is to be accepted as veridical, any more than every claim to explicit knowledge is to be accepted as true."<ref>Ibid. </ref> Testing tacit knowledge is, however, different than testing explicit knowledge. The case that Gill makes for Polanyi's approach to knowing is one that emphasizes that "knowing can and must have a place to begin that neither guarantees certainty nor leads to subjectivism."<ref>Ibid., 57.</ref> Gill calls this place where Polanyi anchors knowledge (i.e., tacit knowing) "its "axis" rather than its foundation because the latter term conjures up an image that inherently requires us to ask what it is that the foundation itself rests upon."<ref>Ibid. </ref> Polanyi, in Gill's view, thereby avoids the problems of both foundationalism and relativism.
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 Prosch's opening three chapters outline Polanyi's "diagnosis" of the plight of the modern mind. He later clearly summarizes the material here in this way:
-:: [T]he modern mind is suffering from two diseases. These consist of two false ideals: that of detached objectivity or explicitness as the ideal of knowledge and that of perfectionism as the ideal in moral and social concerns. Together these two ideals"actually incompatible"have worked themselves into what he called "moral inversion."<ref>Ibid., 205.</ref>
+:: [T]he modern mind is suffering from two diseases. These consist of two false ideals: that of detached objectivity or explicitness as the ideal of knowledge and that of perfectionism as the ideal in moral and social concerns. Together these two ideals--actually incompatible--have worked themselves into what he called "moral inversion."<ref>Ibid., 205.</ref>
 There are many very interesting and incisive elements in Prosch's discussion of modern habits of thought in these chapters. In his opening chapter, Prosch carefully outlines Polanyi's account of how modern European intellectuals helped destroy the free cultural and cosmopolitan environment they needed to thrive. He discusses Polanyi's clear vision that a utilitarian commitment to science serving the public's material interest was a betrayal of what is primary in science. Science must accept as its guide the power of thought to see the truth. Prosch very aptly describes Polanyi's sense that intellectuals and others in the twentieth century acquired an "all-pervasive moral dissatisfaction"<ref>Ibid., 17.</ref> with everything about modern industrial civilization. They were captivated by social planning as a solution to the disorder and suffering of modernity. Polanyi saw that even neoclassical economists who argued against social planning in the name of freedom failed to see how complexity works to make impossible certain kinds of planned programs. Prosch also does a very credible job of showing how Polanyi, as a chemist in the mid-thirties, was already working on ideas that later become his theory of tacit knowing. Polanyi saw the modern obsession with exactitude and countered it by hinting at the value of the inexact in most areas of inquiry.
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 Polanyi believed that the imaginative transnatural integrations producing religious meaning were extraordinarily comprehensive in scope. For those who can achieve such integrations, "it is our total life that becomes at last integrated in the presence of God."<ref>Ibid. </ref> Polanyi held that the key to the plausibility of religious integrations lies in whether or not human beings have a deep sense that the world is fundamentally meaningful. This is the basic "religious hypothesis" and, although there is much in contemporary culture that discourages people from making such a hypothesis, there is "no scientific reason why we cannot believe the religious hypothesis that the world is meaningful."<ref>Ibid., 175.</ref> Polanyi's post-critical reformation of epistemology and philosophy of science, in Prosch's account of Polanyi, have thus opened the way to "restoring the possibility of our belief in those intangible, transnatural comprehensive entities that enable us to acquire more integrated and meaningful selves."<ref>Ibid. </ref>
-In the final chapter of this section entitled "Treatment," Prosch turns from the review of Polanyi's ideas about art and religion to a consideration of Polanyi's liberal political vision. This might seem an odd concluding note for his summary of Polanyi's philosophical views, but in fact it is not, for, as Prosch makes clear, all of the broader human endeavors of the no”sphere that Polanyi affirms as worthy pursuits are possible only in a certain kind of social environment. Thus Polanyi was vigilantly "concerned about securing the conditions essential for these activities."<ref>Ibid., 177.</ref> Prosch's discussion thus returns, in part, to some of the themes in the opening two chapters of his book. He discusses
+In the final chapter of this section entitled "Treatment," Prosch turns from the review of Polanyi's ideas about art and religion to a consideration of Polanyi's liberal political vision. This might seem an odd concluding note for his summary of Polanyi's philosophical views, but in fact it is not, for, as Prosch makes clear, all of the broader human endeavors of the no&ouml;sphere that Polanyi affirms as worthy pursuits are possible only in a certain kind of social environment. Thus Polanyi was vigilantly "concerned about securing the conditions essential for these activities."<ref>Ibid., 177.</ref> Prosch's discussion thus returns, in part, to some of the themes in the opening two chapters of his book. He discusses
 Polanyi's account of freedom and his criticisms of Marxism, fascism, utilitarianism, and pragmatism as popular modern perspectives that all fail to recognize the importance of specialized communities (e.g., science, law, religion, etc.) that serve transcendent ideals. Later, he suggests how Polanyi's views are an outgrowth of his account of polycentrism, as it applies to culture. Governments should not interfere in the name of purported social utility or public good with the spontaneous initiatives within specialized communities where members serve ideals such as truth. Prosch however somewhat oversimplifies Polanyi when he makes it appear that serving transcendent ideals is an ultimate commitment that is simply either made or not made and when it is made it is an acceptance of the heritage of the past. Polanyi uses the term "calling" to talk about a person's vocation, but Prosch neglects to emphasize that Polanyi uses the term broadly to point to the opportunities that are present in any person's historical-social setting. Polanyi consistently resists deterministic modern historicist views and Prosch should make such convictions clearer. In this chapter, Prosch includes a discussion of Polanyi's opposition to the "planned" science movement, and he links this to a lengthy review of Polanyi's contributions to economics and a discussion of Polanyi's ideas about economics education. Regarding Polanyi's account of economics, Prosch provides more detail than any of the other books reviewed here (although Mitchell's book is also very insightful about Polanyi's work in economics). Polanyi supported a free economy, "centering around open markets, supply-and-demand pricing, and profits," but about the market economy Polanyi also had "an understanding of its deficiencies, and how to remedy them, he held, was not at all based on the notion that any of these economic matters entailed transcendentally spiritual or ideal ends, intrinsically valuable in themselves."<ref>Ibid., 198.</ref> In no other publication that I know has any scholar so carefully as Prosch laid out (making excellent use of archival materials) Polanyi's pragmatic discussions about how to eliminate some of the undesirable effects of a market economy. Polanyi believed that it was possible to preserve a basic polycentric system and yet also make significant socially desirable modifications of the system of spontaneous order that the market establishes. Nevertheless, Polanyi recognized that even while humans work for the moral improvement of society "we must acknowledge that we can reduce unjust privileges only by graded states, and never completely."<ref>Ibid., 195.</ref> Prosch suggests that Polanyi thought Moral ideals, like the meaningful artifacts of art and religion, are purposes bearing on eternity which human beings seem to need. Polanyi sternly warned about the modern dangers of moral perfectionism and Polanyi is thus "an incurable moralist."<ref>Ibid., 197.</ref> Human beings "have moral duties" but Polanyi "did not think that religion was the source of all our moral duties nor of all the other duties entailed by the no”spheric firmament of obligations which we have set over ourselves."<ref>Ibid. </ref> While religion for Polanyi 'seemed to have been connected with morality primarily in making us better able to live with our necessarily limited moral achievements,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> Polanyi was not prescribing religion as the cure for the problems of the modern mind. In Prosch's view, it was a recovery of belief in transcendent ideals that grounds a free society; this recovery most concerned Polanyi. Polanyi argued, "we needed to develop an epistemology adequate to humane thought and to use it in the reformation of those views of man which will lend an ontological basis for his grasp of his own dignity and high calling in the universe."<ref>Ibid. </ref>

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 == ''The Tacit Mode'' ==
-Jerry Gill's ''The Tacit Mode'',<ref>Jerry H. Gill, ''The Tacit Mode: Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy'' (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000).</ref> published in 2000, provides a discussion of Polanyi, as its subtitle "Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy" implies, that is pitched at a somewhat different audience than the introductions treated above. ''The Tacit Mode'' is not, strictly speaking, a basic introduction to Polanyi's thought, like the Mitchell, Allen, Scott, and Gelwick books. Nevertheless, at least the first section (i.e., part 1, which is four chapters, 88 of the 183-page, eight-chapter book) may be a helpful for readers with certain contemporary interests and background who seek an orientation to Polanyi's perspective. Although Mitchell's introduction does touch upon post-modernism, Gill's book much more directly situates his discussion of Polanyi's thought in the context of the history of philosophy as that is understood at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.<ref>Another interesting book on Polanyi's thought that is, strictly speaking, not an introduction is Andy Sanders, Michael Polanyi's Post-Critical Epistemology: A Reconstruction of Some Aspects of "Tacit Knowing" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988). Sanders's book might be a helpful aid to understanding Polanyi for a reader solidly grounded in analytic philosophy. He identifies the aims of his book as follows: "My aim, then, is not a general exposition of Polanyi's "Life and Work" or his "Thought" but, rather, to clarify and develop certain aspects of his work in connection with some contemporary positions within analytical philosophy (broadly so called)" (i).</ref>
+Jerry Gill's ''The Tacit Mode'',<ref>Jerry H. Gill, ''The Tacit Mode: Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy'' (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000).</ref> published in 2000, provides a discussion of Polanyi, as its subtitle--''Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy--implies, that is pitched at a somewhat different audience than the introductions treated above. ''The Tacit Mode'' is not, strictly speaking, a basic introduction to Polanyi's thought, like the Mitchell, Allen, Scott, and Gelwick books. Nevertheless, at least the first section (i.e., part 1, which is four chapters, 88 of the 183-page, eight-chapter book) may be a helpful for readers with certain contemporary interests and background who seek an orientation to Polanyi's perspective. Although Mitchell's introduction does touch upon post-modernism, Gill's book much more directly situates his discussion of Polanyi's thought in the context of the history of philosophy as that is understood at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.<ref>Another interesting book on Polanyi's thought that is, strictly speaking, not an introduction is Andy Sanders, Michael Polanyi's Post-Critical Epistemology: A Reconstruction of Some Aspects of "Tacit Knowing" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988). Sanders's book might be a helpful aid to understanding Polanyi for a reader solidly grounded in analytic philosophy. He identifies the aims of his book as follows: "My aim, then, is not a general exposition of Polanyi's "Life and Work" or his "Thought" but, rather, to clarify and develop certain aspects of his work in connection with some contemporary positions within analytical philosophy (broadly so called)" (i).</ref>
-This book is part of a SUNY series, edited by process theologian David Griffin, that focuses on ''"revisionary, constructive''--or perhaps best--''reconstructive''"<ref>Gill, ''The Tacit Mode'', xi.</ref> post-modern thought. Griffin's short essay introducing the series discusses the appropriateness of dividing post-modern thought into "deconstructive" and "reconstructive" camps and the importance of taking seriously "reconstructive" thinkers. Gill's introduction takes up where Griffin leaves off by proposing that Polanyi's thought was clearly an effort to reconstitute modern philosophy, reorienting it from the course along which it has proceeded since Descartes. Polanyi used the term "post-critical" in ''Personal Knowledge'' to signal his reconstructive intent and what Gill wants to do is to contextualize Polanyi's thought within the broader perspective of the history of modern philosophy. Gill aims to identify where Polanyi's "post-critical" thought fits into the landscape of the modernism"post-modernism discussion. All of the introductory works discussed here, at least indirectly, do treat Polanyi's criticisms of modernism and his constructive alternative vision, but"with the exception of Mitchell's brief discussion"none of these books so directly treat post-modernism and the very recent history of Western philosophy.
+This book is part of a SUNY series, edited by process theologian David Griffin, that focuses on ''"revisionary, constructive''--or perhaps best--''reconstructive''"<ref>Gill, ''The Tacit Mode'', xi.</ref> post-modern thought. Griffin's short essay introducing the series discusses the appropriateness of dividing post-modern thought into "deconstructive" and "reconstructive" camps and the importance of taking seriously "reconstructive" thinkers. Gill's introduction takes up where Griffin leaves off by proposing that Polanyi's thought was clearly an effort to reconstitute modern philosophy, reorienting it from the course along which it has proceeded since Descartes. Polanyi used the term "post-critical" in ''Personal Knowledge'' to signal his reconstructive intent and what Gill wants to do is to contextualize Polanyi's thought within the broader perspective of the history of modern philosophy. Gill aims to identify where Polanyi's "post-critical" thought fits into the landscape of the modernism"post-modernism discussion. All of the introductory works discussed here, at least indirectly, do treat Polanyi's criticisms of modernism and his constructive alternative vision, but--with the exception of Mitchell's brief discussion--none of these books so directly treat post-modernism and the very recent history of Western philosophy.
 One might describe the perspective of Gill's book in another way, so as to reveal its limitations. The other reviewed books show how Polanyi's ideas emerged in the context of his life as an ‚migr‚ scientist engaged with the issues of his day. Early on, Polanyi struggled to articulate a vision of science that is not centrally controlled, and this broadened into a philosophical vision of liberal society. Polanyi eventually turned to epistemology. Although his epistemological model is always bound up with his interest in scientific discovery, it is also concerned with the larger project of human inquiry. Gill's discussion does not focus directly on this personal, historical, developmental account of Polanyi's thought. What he does, instead, is fit Polanyi more narrowly into the context of the modern history of philosophical ideas. This is an important contribution, but it makes his book on Polanyi one that is better suited for readers steeped in recent philosophy.
-How is this book organized" It is broken into two major sections with four chapters in the first division and four in the second. Gill suggests that he does not intend to treat "Polanyi's reconstructive approach to postmodern philosophy" in a 'step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter format,"<ref>Ibid., 1.</ref> but that his purpose is to "treat the main emphases of Polanyi's thought around two major foci: locating a fresh axis (part 1) and tracing the patterns thereof (part 2)."<ref>Ibid., 10.</ref> Since the first part of his discussion could serve as an introduction to Polanyi for those concerned with the history of philosophy and conversant with themes in the literature of postmodernism, I will focus on part 1 with only a brief overview paragraph on part 2.
+How is this book organized? It is broken into two major sections with four chapters in the first division and four in the second. Gill suggests that he does not intend to treat "Polanyi's reconstructive approach to postmodern philosophy" in a 'step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter format,"<ref>Ibid., 1.</ref> but that his purpose is to "treat the main emphases of Polanyi's thought around two major foci: locating a fresh axis (part 1) and tracing the patterns thereof (part 2)."<ref>Ibid., 10.</ref> Since the first part of his discussion could serve as an introduction to Polanyi for those concerned with the history of philosophy and conversant with themes in the literature of postmodernism, I will focus on part 1 with only a brief overview paragraph on part 2.
 Taking up the "fresh axis" discussion, chapter 1 provides a quick summary of the history of modern philosophy that outlines the approaches and problems of Descartes, Hume, and Kant. This opens up Gill's following chapter 2 discussion of "Polanyi's treatment of the structure of human experience with an eye to overcoming the errors of modernist philosophy."<ref>Ibid., 31.</ref> Gill's discussion focuses on what he terms the "awareness dimension" and the "activity dimension,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> and this leads to an exploration of Polanyi's understanding of, and emphasis upon, the body as central to all human experience, especially to that domain of experience called cognition. Gill aims, in his dimensional analysis of Polanyi's philosophical approach, to show how Polanyi avoids the more typical modernist approach to experience in terms of realms or levels. His dimensional analysis focuses on matters of integration and interaction among the various aspects of human experience. As he notes, Polanyi is interested in the nature of meaning, and complex meaning is "best understood as a function of the interaction among simultaneous and interpenetrating dimensions of reality."<ref>Ibid., 34.</ref> Gill contrasts Polanyi's own philosophy with modern critical philosophy"which is "reductionistic or dualistic" while "a dimensional model allows for a greater richness, on the one hand, and the essential wholeness of human experience on the other hand."<ref>Ibid.  </ref> The "activity dimension" of experience in Gill's account falls somewhere along "a continuum between the bodily and conceptual poles."<ref>Ibid., 38.</ref> Thus, "in Polanyi's scheme of things, the intersection between the awareness and activity dimensions, with their respective poles, gives rise to yet a third dimension or continuum, namely that of cognitivity,"<ref>Ibid. </ref> which Gill explores in a subsequent chapter. At the end of his second chapter, however, what Gill also underscores is "the crucial role of the body in the shaping of our interaction with the world."<ref>Ibid., 44.</ref> Every reader of Polanyi must appreciate the way in which Polanyi conceives of embodiment and the integrative activities of persons. Gill does a solid job here of describing Polanyi's ideas about indwelling and integration, although in my judgment he overestimates the influence of Merleau-Ponty upon Polanyi. What, then, in the final analysis are the virtues and limitations of Gill's "fresh axis" discussion as an approach to Polanyi's thought" It is a creative overview of Polanyi's perspective that serves reasonably well to show how Polanyi's views differ from much of modern philosophy. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Gill quotes generously from Polanyi texts, this is a rather abstract account. Gill provides an architectonic approach to Polanyi, which he lays out in a diagram; this may be helpful for some Polanyi readers, although it will likely confuse others.

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 The section in Mitchell's chapter titled "Religion in ''Personal Knowledge''" works through Polanyi's cryptic comments about religion in his magnum opus. This is something that other scholars have also tried to sort out.<ref>See, for example, my own essay "Religious Meaning in Polanyi's ''Personal Knowledge''," ''Polanyiana'' (vol. 2, no. 4/vol.3, no. 1) 1992/1993: 75-83.</ref> Mitchell does quote and comment helpfully upon some of the striking Polanyi lines about religion that always attract the attention of readers new to ''Personal Knowledge''. He nicely summarizes Polanyi's discussion of differences in verification and validation and Polanyi's ideas about levels of participation vis-&agrave;-vis types of real known objects. For my taste, Mitchell's occasional attempts in his discussion to explain Polanyi's views by analogs with C. S. Lewis's views are of limited value. Polanyi was not a conservative Christian, and readers should be very clear about this. Mitchell's short section titled "Faith and Reason" picks up themes noted earlier in his discussion of Polanyi and Augustine: "Polanyi seeks to restore faith to its proper place by showing how it is central to the knowing process."<ref>Mitchell, ''Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing'', 128.</ref> The final discussion in the 'science and Religion" subsection returns to implications of Polanyi's stratified ontology. Mitchell does a nice job of showing how Polanyi weaves together his antimaterialistic metaphysic, his cosmology, and his Lebensphilosophie:
-:: Life is an achievement. Human life"characterized by consciousness, curiosity, creativity and moral responsibility"represents the apex of this achievement. Bound up within the meaning of human existence is our duty, as individual centers of thought and responsibility, to employ our faculties to live lives worthy of our cosmic calling.<ref>Ibid., 135.</ref>
+:: Life is an achievement. Human life--characterized by consciousness, curiosity, creativity and moral responsibility--represents the apex of this achievement. Bound up within the meaning of human existence is our duty, as individual centers of thought and responsibility, to employ our faculties to live lives worthy of our cosmic calling.<ref>Ibid., 135.</ref>
 Mitchell's final chapter, "Engaging Polanyi in the Twentieth Century and Beyond," moves from the overview of Polanyi's thought to a brief comparison of Polanyi's views and those of three contemporaries: Michael Oakeshott, Eric Voegelin, and Alasdair MacIntyre. These three have some affinities with Polanyi or make some use of Polanyi, and all three are, like Polanyi, deeply interested in the politics of the twentieth century and the cultural roots of politics. Certainly, for the reader seeking an introduction to Polanyi who also knows something about any one or all of these figures, this discussion might be a helpful bridge. Readers unfamiliar with any of these thinkers can perhaps skip this section, although there are in Mitchell's discussions some generally interesting wrinkles. Mitchell, for example, comments on Polanyi's correspondence with the recently deceased William F. Buckley Jr., and Polanyi's hesitancy to see much that paralleled his ideas in American conservatism. Mitchell does a particularly good job in his discussion of MacIntyre and Polanyi in showing that Polanyi's ideas are closer to those of MacIntyre than MacIntyre thinks. At the end of this chapter, Mitchell concludes with a brief final discussion outlining how Polanyi's ideas in the new century can "help move us beyond both Enlightenment rationalism and postmodern skepticism."<ref>Ibid., 140-41.</ref> This discussion is one of the most interesting sections of this introduction to Polanyi because here Mitchell moves somewhat beyond Polanyi, but in a way that is consistent with Polanyi's thought. Mitchell suggests, for example, that "philosophical materialism provides the psychological and spiritual license" for the consumerism of the contemporary American society and that "in such a milieu, fidelity to one's home or community is eroded by the primary value of acquisition."<ref>Ibid., 162.</ref> He discusses the ways in which contemporary society often is selfindulgent and relativistic in orientation and how far this falls from Polanyi's vision for humanity in which "liberty must ultimately be in the service, not of trade, but of transcendent ideals."<ref>Ibid., 165.</ref> At least to this reader, such claims seem to be on the Polanyian mark.<ref>Some of the themes in Mitchell's discussion of "Polanyi's Legacy" (Ibid., 162-169), in particular his analysis of consumerism, suggest ways that a Polanyian philosophical perspective could be fruitfully linked to the work of a figure like Albert Borgmann, an insightful philosopher of technology.</ref> I look forward to Mitchell's future scholarly efforts to dwell in Polanyi's philosophical framework in order to extend the contours of post-critical thought. In sum, Michael Polanyi is a very solid introduction to Polanyi, one that probes in a sophisticated manner the breadth and depth of Polanyi's thought.

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 The late Lady Drusilla Scott met Michael Polanyi in 1960 and became a friend in the last sixteen years of his life; she was a leader in the British Polanyi-studies group Convivium (now merged with the largely North American Polanyi Society) that published a small journal (of the same name), which often featured her insightful reflections on Polanyi's philosophical work. Her book,
-''Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi'', was first published in 1985 by the Book Guild. After it went out of print, it was reprinted by Eerdmans in 1995 and is still readily available.<ref>Drusilla Scott, ''Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi'' (Lewes, Sussex: Book Guild, 1985; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).</ref> This is the most down-to-earth introductory book, providing an overview of Polanyi's ideas. Scott is perhaps the Polanyi interpreter most attuned to the difficulties of reading Polanyi. As she says, "Polanyi is advocating such a U-turn in accepted ways of thinking that the experience of reading him can be disorienting."<ref>Ibid., ii.</ref> Scott writes clearly, is imaginative (but sometimes digresses), and her informal prose often aims to be witty. She says in her preface that she tried to "introduce some of his main ideas as simply as possible so as to show their value and meaning in today's world"; those who are Everyman's heirs, who now "urgently want some light on the real world, should claim Polanyi as our philosopher."<ref>Ibid.</ref> Scott thus links Polanyi's views with the recovery of common sense, which was one way Polanyi himself discussed his philosophical objectives. Scott's book has a certain British charm and is full of illustrative stories; she draws skillfully not only from the play Everyman, but from a wide range of contemporary writers"philosophical, scientific, and literary. Her opening chapter, "The Power of Ideas," makes the case that Polanyi valued ideas and came to believe that a misunderstanding of science, woven with a particular modern philosophical and cultural narrative, led to the violence in the twentieth century that Polanyi knew firsthand. Scott discusses Polanyi's notions about a "disastrous dissonance"<ref>Ibid., 7.</ref> at work in modern culture, which combines extreme critical lucidity and an intense moral conscience to produce nihilism. Polanyi argued that the hope of early Enlightenment ideas got lost as later generations succumbed to a materialist outlook obsessed with objectivity. Scott traces the development of Polanyi's understanding and criticism of modernity in terms of his own experience as a fin de si&egrave;cle Hungarian-born, refugee research scientist who eventually turned from physical chemistry to economics, social science, and philosophy as he sought to understand his own culture. There is a rather good short biography in this chapter that shows how important problems and conclusions for Polanyi are set by his personal experience. With verve, Scott introduces Polanyi's themes and weaves these into a story of his experience, carefully choosing quotations from various Polanyi writings to make her case eloquently, as she often also does in succeeding chapters.
+''Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi'', was first published in 1985 by the Book Guild. After it went out of print, it was reprinted by Eerdmans in 1995 and is still readily available.<ref>Drusilla Scott, ''Everyman Revived: The Common Sense of Michael Polanyi'' (Lewes, Sussex: Book Guild, 1985; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).</ref> This is the most down-to-earth introductory book, providing an overview of Polanyi's ideas. Scott is perhaps the Polanyi interpreter most attuned to the difficulties of reading Polanyi. As she says, "Polanyi is advocating such a U-turn in accepted ways of thinking that the experience of reading him can be disorienting."<ref>Ibid., ii.</ref> Scott writes clearly, is imaginative (but sometimes digresses), and her informal prose often aims to be witty. She says in her preface that she tried to "introduce some of his main ideas as simply as possible so as to show their value and meaning in today's world"; those who are Everyman's heirs, who now "urgently want some light on the real world, should claim Polanyi as our philosopher."<ref>Ibid.</ref> Scott thus links Polanyi's views with the recovery of common sense, which was one way Polanyi himself discussed his philosophical objectives. Scott's book has a certain British charm and is full of illustrative stories; she draws skillfully not only from the play Everyman, but from a wide range of contemporary writers--philosophical, scientific, and literary. Her opening chapter, "The Power of Ideas," makes the case that Polanyi valued ideas and came to believe that a misunderstanding of science, woven with a particular modern philosophical and cultural narrative, led to the violence in the twentieth century that Polanyi knew firsthand. Scott discusses Polanyi's notions about a "disastrous dissonance"<ref>Ibid., 7.</ref> at work in modern culture, which combines extreme critical lucidity and an intense moral conscience to produce nihilism. Polanyi argued that the hope of early Enlightenment ideas got lost as later generations succumbed to a materialist outlook obsessed with objectivity. Scott traces the development of Polanyi's understanding and criticism of modernity in terms of his own experience as a fin de si&egrave;cle Hungarian-born, refugee research scientist who eventually turned from physical chemistry to economics, social science, and philosophy as he sought to understand his own culture. There is a rather good short biography in this chapter that shows how important problems and conclusions for Polanyi are set by his personal experience. With verve, Scott introduces Polanyi's themes and weaves these into a story of his experience, carefully choosing quotations from various Polanyi writings to make her case eloquently, as she often also does in succeeding chapters.
 Each chapter after the first begins with a few italicized sentences that link the chapter's discussion to the characters in the medieval play Everyman and that provide a summary of what the chapter explores in Polanyi's philosophy. Although, as a reader, I was at first puzzled by this section, I came to appreciate this succinct way in which Scott focuses her discussion. The second chapter is a brief plunge into the history of modern ideas (some of which were touched on in the first chapter) that sets forth more concretely the problematic that Polanyi addresses in his philosophy. This chapter also focuses more directly on the main trope used in this book: Scott employs the story in Everyman as an envelope within which to present a reasonably well-rounded account of Polanyi's philosophical perspective. This old play still has an "emotional force" today because it is an "agonized search for values that can stand and endure in the face of suffering and death"; it is a play about "the urgent need of man to know something sure about the meaning of his existence . . ."<ref>Ibid., 15.</ref> Scott's comparison focuses on the old authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic Church and the similar new authoritarianism of scientism (i.e., the misread tradition of science) which systematically undercuts the person as a skilled and responsible holder of knowledge at home in the world. Polanyi's work was to re-equip human beings to trust their own faculties, which the era of critical thought has taught them to distrust. The liberation of the early critical era brought a new authoritarianism which included "the rift between Knowledge and Everyman."<ref>Ibid., 16.</ref> The picture of the world and the person that developed from the seventeenth to the twentieth century was one in which mind and matter were split and ultimately the motion of matter was what counted. What evolved was "a picture of the universe as a vast assembly of atoms moved relentlessly on its path by impersonal inevitable forces," and this picture 'seized the imagination of man and dominated it."<ref>Ibid., 20.</ref> Therefore, when "Knowledge turned her cold and analytic eyes on to Everyman, and saw that he too was part of the world of matter, made of atoms, obeying the same laws as the planets, she could not recognize her sister Good Deeds nor her friend Everyman."<ref>Ibid.</ref> Scott's reading here of the development of the history of ideas is not a close reading, but she provides a creative and concise sketch of Polanyi's critique of modern culture against which Polanyi's constructive philosophical ideas began to develop. Polanyi 'set about building a truer picture of how Everyman knows his world, how he can justify his claim for the validity of "personal knowledge"," and this makes a great difference "in bringing hope, reality and responsibility back to Everyman."<ref>Ibid., 27.</ref>

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 :: the meaningful integrations achieved by man in the no&ouml;sphere form a continuum with those achieved in perception and knowledge, in the sense that they are all examples of the tacit triad: (1) a mind (2) dwelling in subsidiary clues and (3) creating a meaningful integration of these clues into a focally known whole.<ref>Ibid., 134-135.</ref>
-But Prosch wants to make plain his view that "Polanyi, of course, never lost sight of the fact that there are differences between the integrations and realities forming the no&ouml;sphere and those existing prior to the no&ouml;sphere."<ref>Ibid., 136. Polanyi introduces the terms "no&ouml;genesis" and "no&ouml;sphere" from Teilhard de Chardin only in the last chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'' (p. 388), where "no&ouml;sphere" designates "the lasting articulate framework of thought," a framework which Polanyi seems to think emerges in human evolutionary history with the invention of language. Polanyi seems to hold that about 50,000 years ago human beings became no longer mute and that this was a turning point after which it makes sense to speak of human beings as acquiring and preserving in some manner "human knowledge." Polanyi speaks of this turning point as "the rise of human thought" (p. 389) and as the 'second major rebellion against meaningless inanimate being" (p. 389). This term from de Chardin is likely introduced only at the end of ''Personal Knowledge'' because Polanyi thought it succinctly captured something that he thought was overlooked in most discussions of evolution. Polanyi struggled with the final chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'' and was working on it almost up until the book was published in 1958. He apparently read the French edition of The Phenomenon of Man when it was published in 1955 or not long afterward. See my reflections on the discussion Polanyi had with J. H. Oldham about appropriating de Chardin's term in his last chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'', and more generally on Polanyi's very mixed review of de Chardin's thought ("Michael Polanyi on Teilhard de Chardin," Appraisal 4, no. 4 [October 2003]: 195" 200). ''Meaning'', as well as Prosch's ''Michael Polanyi: A Critical Exposition'', make a great deal of the "no&ouml;sphere." I don't believe the context in which the term emerges in ''Personal Knowledge'' and the meaning it has in that context suggest the kind of fundamental metaphysical/ontological distinction Prosch insists is basic to Polanyi's philosophy.</ref> In the very careful discussions in this chapter, Prosch lays the groundwork for his account in the following chapters of Polanyi's views of art and religion. Here he sets forth the basic elements of his particular interpretation of ontological distinctions Polanyi made between different kinds of realities, an interpretation that I have, above, pointed out is at odds with interpretations of Gelwick and Scott. Prosch is quite self-conscious about this difference and, as I have suggested, wants to set the record straight in regard to what precisely he believes Polanyi claimed about different kinds of realities. Anyone reading ''Michael Polanyi: A Critical Exposition'' should at least be mindful that this is a point of contention in Polanyi scholarship rather than a settled matter. Prosch's reading of Polanyi texts is, in my view, one defensible reading, but it is not the best reading. Prosch makes Polanyi into a philosopher much more conventional than he was.<ref>See my discussion of Polanyi's link to the medieval rather than the modern philosophical tradition in Phil Mullins, "Comprehension and the "Comprehensive Entity": Polanyi's Theory of Tacit Knowing and Its Metaphysical Implications," ''Tradition & Discovery'' 33, no. 3 (2006-7): 26-43.</ref>
+But Prosch wants to make plain his view that "Polanyi, of course, never lost sight of the fact that there are differences between the integrations and realities forming the no&ouml;sphere and those existing prior to the no&ouml;sphere."<ref>Ibid., 136. Polanyi introduces the terms "no&ouml;genesis" and "no&ouml;sphere" from Teilhard de Chardin only in the last chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'' (p. 388), where "no&ouml;sphere" designates "the lasting articulate framework of thought," a framework which Polanyi seems to think emerges in human evolutionary history with the invention of language. Polanyi seems to hold that about 50,000 years ago human beings became no longer mute and that this was a turning point after which it makes sense to speak of human beings as acquiring and preserving in some manner "human knowledge." Polanyi speaks of this turning point as "the rise of human thought" (p. 389) and as the 'second major rebellion against meaningless inanimate being" (p. 389). This term from de Chardin is likely introduced only at the end of ''Personal Knowledge'' because Polanyi thought it succinctly captured something that he thought was overlooked in most discussions of evolution. Polanyi struggled with the final chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'' and was working on it almost up until the book was published in 1958. He apparently read the French edition of The Phenomenon of Man when it was published in 1955 or not long afterward. See my reflections on the discussion Polanyi had with J. H. Oldham about appropriating de Chardin's term in his last chapter of ''Personal Knowledge'', and more generally on Polanyi's very mixed review of de Chardin's thought ("Michael Polanyi on Teilhard de Chardin," Appraisal 4, no. 4 [October 2003]: 195-200). ''Meaning'', as well as Prosch's ''Michael Polanyi: A Critical Exposition'', make a great deal of the "no&ouml;sphere." I don't believe the context in which the term emerges in ''Personal Knowledge'' and the meaning it has in that context suggest the kind of fundamental metaphysical/ontological distinction Prosch insists is basic to Polanyi's philosophy.</ref> In the very careful discussions in this chapter, Prosch lays the groundwork for his account in the following chapters of Polanyi's views of art and religion. Here he sets forth the basic elements of his particular interpretation of ontological distinctions Polanyi made between different kinds of realities, an interpretation that I have, above, pointed out is at odds with interpretations of Gelwick and Scott. Prosch is quite self-conscious about this difference and, as I have suggested, wants to set the record straight in regard to what precisely he believes Polanyi claimed about different kinds of realities. Anyone reading ''Michael Polanyi: A Critical Exposition'' should at least be mindful that this is a point of contention in Polanyi scholarship rather than a settled matter. Prosch's reading of Polanyi texts is, in my view, one defensible reading, but it is not the best reading. Prosch makes Polanyi into a philosopher much more conventional than he was.<ref>See my discussion of Polanyi's link to the medieval rather than the modern philosophical tradition in Phil Mullins, "Comprehension and the "Comprehensive Entity": Polanyi's Theory of Tacit Knowing and Its Metaphysical Implications," ''Tradition & Discovery'' 33, no. 3 (2006-7): 26-43.</ref>
 Prosch emphasizes that Polanyi understood the origins of different kinds of realities in different ways: the origins of realities of the no”spher

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-; "On Reading Polanyi and Reading About Polanyi's Philosophical Perspective: Notes on Secondary Sources"
+; "On Reading Polanyi and Reading About Polanyi's Philosophical Perspective<nowiki>:</nowiki> Notes on Secondary Sources"
-: Phil Mullins Missouri Western State University
+:: Phil Mullins Missouri Western State University
-: ''The Political Science Reviewer'' (Vol. XXXVII) 2008: 158-240.
+:: ''The Political Science Reviewer'' (Vol. XXXVII) 2008: 158-240.
 * ''Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing'' by Mark T. Mitchell (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2006).