Work · Science & Human Sciences
Personal Knowledge
Scientific knowledge rests on skills, judgement and commitment that cannot be fully made explicit; objectivity is reached through, not without, the knower.
Introduction
“Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy” (1958) grew out of the Gifford Lectures Polanyi gave in Aberdeen in 1951–52. Against the ideal of a strictly impersonal, detached objectivity, he argues that all knowing – from perception through skills and connoisseurship to scientific theory – involves the personal participation of the knower, who relies on clues and rules that cannot be fully specified. Such knowledge is not merely subjective: it is held with “universal intent”, as a claim about reality open to the judgement of others. Polanyi draws on Gestalt psychology, the history of science and his own experience as a chemist, and ends with reflections on evolution and the place of mind in a hierarchically ordered world. Kuhn cited the book, and it has been discussed in the philosophy of science, in education and in theology.
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