Abstract

This dissertation demonstrates that Michael Polanyi is a committed realist, in spite of his well-known emphasis on the role of the personal in knowing. According to Polanyi, reality exists and is structured independently of the knower and his knowledge of it; nevertheless reality and the knower are such that reality is knowable to a substantial though fallible degree. ;The dissertation develops the peculiar character of Polanyi's realism. Its specific form is determined largely by Polanyi's theory of knowing, in particular, the subsidiary-focal integrative feat which characterizes the epistemic act, and its application to scientific discovery. Polanyi's realism is also influenced by his definition of reality as that which is expected to manifest itself indeterminately in the future. The key concept in Polanyi's realism is the idea that the knower "makes contact" with "an aspect of reality." Successful contact is recognized in terms of various criteria, the examination of which serves to amplify the idea of contact. ;The dissertation develops Polanyian positions on some of the main issues in the contemporary discussion of the philosophy of scientific discovery and scientific realism, including the questions of progress and success in science, continuity and convergence, the commensurability of competing theories, the rationality of scientific change, and the reference of theoretical terms. ;Finally, the dissertation suggests a two-fold defense of Polanyi's realism. First, Polanyi's notions of tacit knowing, indwelling and the bodily rootedness of all thought are developed in light of relevant concepts from Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. Knowledge is inextricably rooted in the knower's body and hence in the world. The knower possesses a layer of experimential knowledge which is preobjective or tacit, which is the necessary foundation for objective knowledge. It is a kind of knowing which is also being. It constitutes a contact with the world that antedates any dichotomy between knower and known, thereby justifying realism