Polanyi's Personal Knowledge: Intellectual Passions

OK, I loved this chapter. It really resonated with me (even though I have a few problems with it). In particular I thought the section on Scientific Value was spot on. I defines three criteria for assessing the value of a scientific affirmation: certainty, profundity, and intrinsic interest. He aptly points out that the three are to some extent incompatible and while enhancing one aspect of a theory we may degrade another aspect. In particular he claims that modern science has a tendency to follow the "Laplacean ideal" of strict objectivity which enhances certainty at the expense of intrinsic interest. I would agree, at least to some extent. I see this in some of the more extreme proponents of a Theory of Everything. High energy physics has achieved tremendous precision, and its practitioners should be praised for that. The Laplacean ideal, in my opinion, isn't BAD. It's just not the ONLY thing. Let's not pretend that high energy physics can possibly give us a theory of "everything". In part this is just a misnomer, and most physicist mean by this only (only!) a single theory that accounts for all four known fundamental forces. But some actually claim that achieving such a theory would represent the end of physics. That would only be true IF all we really care about is particle physics. I'm all for particle physics. But I'm for lots of other stuff too that does not, as far as we can tell, reduce to particle physics. Perhaps it does, but let's be honest about the fact that we can't tell yet.

So Polanyi emphasizes the personal component involved in discovery and in the evaluation of a discovery as a "true" discovery. He claims that our anticipation that a new theory will be fruitful leads us to believe that it is true. He admits that this anticipation can be misguided (as he says in the previous chapter, we have to risk saying nonsense in order to say anything at all). He also discusses something very like Kuhn's incommensurability when he states that "Formal operations relying on one framework of interpretation cannot demonstrate a proposition to persons who rely on another framework." (p. 151) And he makes it clear that he thinks there are no formal rules whereby we can mediate such disputes, or determine which facts are of scientific interest and which are not. He does say that a new conception can sometimes reconcile two competing frameworks, but this is not generally how he solves the problem. His solution, like that of Kuhn, seems to be a sociological one. Each scientist is accredited by the scientific community as an expert in a certain area. Each accredited scientist then has the job of accrediting the work of others in that area and closely related areas. By this means the society of scientists polices itself.

I find this a little dissatisfying. Polanyi makes such a big deal about the role of personal passions in generating scientific conceptions and the belief that those conceptions are true. But he then claims that we can't sit alone in thinking our new conceptions is true. Our new conceptions must "conquer or die." (p. 150) So therefore we get mired in sociology. But what makes the collective group of scientists better able to judge a NEW conception (rather than work that fits entirely within an accepted framework, which they are specifically trained to judge) than an individual scientist? Presumably it goes back to Polanyi's assertion that we are competent to judge what is "real" and although competence doesn't imply perfection, if you get enough competent people working together you can get it right most of the time. Presumably we can count on each scientist to do a good job policing the whole of science as long as they maintain their "passion for mental excellence" which "believes itself to be fulfilling universal obligations." (p. 174) While I agree with Polanyi that formal rules for judging scientific theories are "doomed to failure" I cannot say that I find his solution to the problem fully acceptable.

I liked his discussion of mathematics, especially his claim that math is not just a set of non-contradictory statements but rather a set of INTERESTING (and also non-contradictory) statements. He also discounts the notion that mathematics consists only of tautologies by pointing out that the axioms are not tautologies. And it is important to note that we don't use just any set of axioms, but only those that are interesting or fruitful.

Finally, I enjoyed his last section on Dwelling In and Breaking Out. The language he used was almost mystical, but the experience he is trying to describe is real. There is a difference between dwelling in scientific theory, of gaining a deep appreciation for a theory's beauty, of internalizing a theory and making it part of your thinking, as opposed to using the theory in a routine manner. His description of discovery also sounds mystical but gets at something real. There is a sense of breaking out or breaking through when a discovery is made (not that I've made any important discoveries, but even the little discoveries carry some of this feeling). I'm with Polanyi that science is ultimately pursued for these moments of personal passion. That's certainly why I do it.