{"id":29160,"date":"2022-10-20T07:09:32","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T14:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29160"},"modified":"2022-10-20T07:09:32","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T14:09:32","slug":"exploring-what-lies-beneath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/exploring-what-lies-beneath\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring What Lies Beneath"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian-British chemist and informal philosopher, invites the reader to plumb the depths of how knowing<\/em> and the related issue of the process and structure of thought<\/em> happens in our minds and bodies. His book, \u201cThe Tacit Dimension,\u201d relays his three-part lecture in three chapters (with some modifications) given in 1962 at Yale University.[1]<\/a> Polanyi wrote in his introduction: \u201cThis book is an interim report on an inquiry started more than twenty years ago\u2026. The Terry Lectures of 1962 thus give a correct summary of my position [on tacit knowing].\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Polanyi, as demonstrated through his thorough index (prepared by his wife), drew from many eclectic sources, ancient to contemporary, over the course of his more than twenty years of inquiry. His motive as a chemist for this philosophical pursuit arose out of his historical context and the Soviet ideology under Stalin he encountered, an ideology \u201c\u2026which denied justification to the pursuit of science.\u201d[3]<\/a> He reflects on a conversation from 1935: “I was struck by the fact that this denial of the very existence of independent scientific thought came from a socialist theory which derived its tremendous persuasive power from its claim to scientific certainty. The scientific outlook appeared to have produced a mechanical conception of man and history in which there was no place for science itself. This conception denied altogether any intrinsic power to thought and thus denied also any grounds for claiming freedom of thought. I saw also that this self-immolation of the mind was actuated by powerful moral motives. The mechanical course of history was to bring universal justice. Scientific skepticism would trust only material necessity for achieving universal brotherhood. Skepticism and utopianism had thus fused into a new skeptical fanaticism.[4]”<\/a><\/p>\n

Out of this impetus, Polanyi\u2019s multi-decade philosophical journey began. Understanding this historical context, and the motivation it gave to Polanyi to persevere in his quest, has helped me to more deeply appreciate the structure of his writing and the focus he brings to each section of his lecture and chapters in his book.<\/p>\n

Polanyi first describes the nature, structure, and processes of tacit knowing. This chapter is built around his core hypothesis, \u201cwe can know more than we can tell<\/em> [sic<\/em>].\u201d[5]<\/a> This is what tacit knowing is. \u00a0It results from four intersecting aspects that engage the proximal and distal terms of tacit knowing: functional, phenomenal, semantic, and ontological.[6]<\/a> These four aspects are mediated mostly at a subconscious level through one\u2019s body\u2014both the senses and neurological system. \u201cOur body is the ultimate instrument of all our external knowledge, whether intellectual or practical.\u201d [7]<\/a><\/p>\n

From this foundation, Polanyi then explores the implications of tacit knowing for developing moral frameworks and for the scientific journey of discovery. Through the process of interiorization or indwelling, Polanyi argues that all knowledge is personal (versus objective) and that they dynamics of tacit knowing allows persons to experience the world as dynamic rather than mechanistic.[8]<\/a> \u201c\u2026tacit knowing achieves comprehension by indwelling\u2026all knowledge consists of or is rooted in such acts of comprehension.\u201d[9]<\/a>The details of his argument in Chapter One are fascinating and my margins are filled with ponderings for how his insights relate to my NPO, current political dynamics in the USA, and what Bolsinger noted in our reading from last week (succinctly summarized by Eric Basye): \u201cLeadership is about diagnosing the problem.\u201d[10]<\/a> Thus, I\u2019ve spent most of my time on this chapter.<\/p>\n

In Chapter Two, Polanyi tackles the science of evolution (termed \u201cemergence\u201d by Polanyi)[11]<\/a> through the lens of tacit knowing. He is especially interested in implications for increasingly complex\/comprehensive organisms, writing, \u201c\u2026the structure of tacit knowing determines the structure of comprehensive entities.\u201d[12]<\/a> In Chapter Three, Polanyi extends his arguments regarding tacit knowing even further, exploring its relevance to the development of moral standards. He writes: \u201cWe must ask whether intellectual powers, grounded in tacit knowing and descended from evolutionary emergence, can exercise the kind of responsible judgement which we must claim if we are to attribute a moral sense to man.\u201d[13]<\/a> He grapples with the relationship between science and religion and offers this closing thought to ponder: “Men need a purpose which bears on eternity. Truth does that; our ideals do it; and this might be enough, if we could ever be satisfied with our manifest moral shortcomings and with a society which has such shortcomings fatally involved in its workings. Perhaps this problem cannot be resolved on secular grounds alone. But its religious solution should become more feasible once religious faith is released from pressure by an absurd vision of the universe, and so there will open up instead a meaningful world which could resound to religion.[14]<\/a>”<\/p>\n

This book is classified as philosophy of science. But I also experienced it as a biography of sorts. His lecture and writing style invited me to enter his journey of discovery as he struggled to respond to and interact with his historical context, his scientific and psychological contemporaries, and the urgent questions he found himself asking. He externalized his interiorization of tacit knowledge and its applications to much larger issues facing our human societies. In this process he gave me room to indwell his insights. I will be pondering them for quite some time as I search for ways to relay them in relevant and accessible language to the participants in my NPO and to others as we all are faced with knowledge and truth challenges in our respective contexts.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Polanyi, Michael (1966), and Amartya Sen. 2009. The Tacit Dimension<\/em>. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, vi-vii.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., xvii-xviii.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 3.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 3-4.<\/a><\/p>\n

[5] Ibid., 4.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 13.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 15.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 16-25.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid., 55.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> \u201cForged in Resistance.\u201d Eric Basye. October 12, 2022. Accessed October 20, 2022. https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/forged-in-resistance\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Polanyi, 36-46.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Ibid., 55.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Ibid., 56.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Ibid., 92.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian-British chemist and informal philosopher, invites the reader to plumb the depths of how knowing and the related issue of the process and structure of thought happens in our minds and bodies. His book, \u201cThe Tacit Dimension,\u201d relays his three-part lecture in three chapters (with some modifications) given in 1962 at Yale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2386,4,2404,2403],"class_list":["post-29160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bolsinger","tag-polanyi","tag-tacit-knowing","tag-the-tacit-dimension","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29161,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160\/revisions\/29161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}