Abstract

A brief summary of Michael Polanyi’s philosophical system, focusing on his phenomenological epistemology. It evaluates the presuppositions of metaphorical and mythical-religious thought as well as those of Polanyi’s metaphysics which utilizes presuppositions in a way comparable with genuine scientific theorizing. Sharp phenomenological analyses demonstrate that perception of reality in all modes entails an active perspective. Consciousness is a process "from" the components or subsidiaries of an experience "to" a meaningful awareness or focus which is more than the components. For example, "we seem to look through [two stereoscopic pictures], or past them, while we look straight at their joint image". In oral communication we can separate components of voice sounds, utterances of words, words in sentences, impressions of intelligibility or propositions, and finally, meaningful communication which is accomplished in going through these modes. The priority of "intended" structure at the basis of all experience can challenge the supremacy of positivism. Scientific theories do not have to be developed from mechanistic observation; this is one way of seeing things. Representational art, Polanyi explains, does not present us with the facts, and yet no one is disappointed that we are given an artifact because the work sparks our imagination to "see" what is there. In a way similar to art, scientific theories are based in imaginative vision which makes it possible to express the order that must be. However, Polanyi is too quick in shifting from the epistemological and ontological "fact" that all "objects" of experience are dependent on a perceiver active in the world he explains to a plea for a return to teleological thought. He makes a strong case for "... the need [for] a theory of knowledge which shows up the fallacy of positivistic scepticism..." but his analysis of this problem does not take us too far in "... supporting the possibility of a knowledge of entities governed by higher principles".—P.S.