Commitment, Calling and Universal Intent

Rooted within its Enlightenment heritage the traditional role of epistemology has been to define both truth and falsity in impersonal terms. The exclusion of personal commitments is required to justify claims to universal validity. Polanyi points out

Ibid. p.274.

I

See, for example, Polanyi's accounts of F. A. Mesmer's work in Ibid. pp.51f ; 107f and Polanyi |

and Prosch Meaning, p. 146. i

the profound disparity between this view and his vision of fiduciary knowing. He writes, "The framework of commitment leaves no scope for such an endeavour; for its acceptance necessarily invalidates any impersonal justification of knowledge."^^^ Polanyi suggests the following dilemma for those who propose a standard of impersonal knowing: "The reflecting person is... caught in an insoluble conflict between a demand for impersonality which would discredit all commitment and an urge to make up his mind which drives him to recommit him self."B ertran d Russell attempted to resolve this dilemma by defining truth as the coincidence of subjective belief and the actual facts, but it is impossible, within the terms allowable in Russell's schema, to know if or when this has occurred. Polanyi, with his fiduciary programme, shows that the dilemma can be resolved:

The answer is this. The 'actual facts' are accredited facts, as seen within the commitment situation, while subjective beliefs are the convictions accrediting these facts as seen non-committally, by someone not sharing them. But if we regard the beliefs in question non-committally, as a mere state of mind, we cannot speak confidently, without self-contradiction, of the facts to which these beliefs

refer. For it is self-contradictory to secede from the commitment situation as regards the beliefs held

within it, but to remain committed to the same beliefs in acknowledging their factual content as frwe.'"

A scientist will pursue a discovery which remains elusive sustained by the conviction that the solution to the problem is hidden only because the approach adopted is somehow misguided. There may also be a tension between the conviction that something is known and the thought that the conviction might possibly be mistaken. In both cases there can be no Archimedean point from which the approach to the truth can be compared with the actual truth. It is only possible to compare different approaches - the articulate systems which we indwell. Polanyi states: "According to the logic of commitment, truth is something that can he thought o f only by believing itf^^^

For Polanyi this affirmation is not solipsistic but it does recognise the profound relationship which exists between the commitments which we hold and the social

'""ibid. p.303. "" Ibid. p.304.

'" Ibid. p.304. Polanyi's emphasis. Ibid. p.305. Polanyi's emphasis.

and cultural contexts in which we are nurtured. Polanyi rejects the Cartesian cogito

by asserting the communal co-efficient in human knowing. He writes:

Articulate systems which foster and satisfy an intellectual passion can survive only with the support of a society which respects the values affirmed by these passions, and a society has a cultural life only to the extent to which it acknowledges and fulfils the obligation to lend its support to the cultivation of these passions. Since the advancement and dissemination of knowledge by the pursuit of science, or technology and mathematics forms part of cultural life, the tacit coefficients by which these articulate systems are understood and accredited, and which uphold quite generally our shaping and affirmation of factual truth, are also coefficients of a cultural life shared by a community.""

Recognition of the communal coefficient of our intellectual passions alerts us, again, to the fact that when we assert the truth, and do so with universal intent, our convictions arise out of a particular context. In this we appear to be confronted by a dilemma that if we hold convictions on the basis of a received authority they do not appear to be our convictions. On the other hand, if we actively affirm them it appears that our affirmation is arbitrary: why these convictions rather than others? Further, as Polanyi notes, "The exercise of authority will tend to appear as bigoted or as hypocritical, if it asserts as universal what is only parochial.

Does this imply that every affirmation is made in bad faith? It will do so only if it is made on the basis of an ill-founded received authority or if, as the objectivist has done, we propose a standard of impersonal knowledge. Polanyi, by illuminating the fiduciary and tacit elements of knowing, has sought to show that such a standard is illusory and meaningless. Polanyi accepts that any particular cultural context will be limited but does not conclude that limitation implies either invalidity or relativism. He writes, "I accept these accidents of personal existence as the concrete opportunities for exercising our personal responsibilities. This acceptance is the sense o f my calling"^^^

Once the epistemic significance of our personal participation is established the question of the formation of our calling (culturally, intellectually, emotionally etc.)

Ibid. p.203. Ibid. p.204.

will appear not only a valid concern but a necessary and urgent one. What is the 'mechanism' by which human beings come to participate in a calling and how is a cultural heritage communicated? Polanyi suggests:

The affiliation begins with the fact that a child submits to education within a community, and it is confirmed throughout life to the extent to which the adult continues to place exceptional confidence in the intellectual leaders of the same community. Just as children learn to speak by assuming that the words used in their presence mean something, so throughout the whole range of cultural apprenticeship the intellectual junior's craving to understand the doings and the sayings of his intellectual superiors assumes that what they are doing and saying has a hidden meaning which, when discovered, will be found satisfying to some extent.""

The student must believe that the teacher possesses something which is both meaningful, communicable and true. The possibility of the transfer is contingent upon this belief. "The learner, like the discoverer, must believe before he can know."^^^ The submission of the student to the teacher is, "like an act of heuristic conjecture".H ow ever, the dynamic of submission is not one of absolute submission. "Every acceptance of authority is qualified by some measure of reaction to it or even against it. Submission to a consensus is always accompanied to some extent by the imposition of one's views on the consensus to which we submit."'Conversely, even the most radical dissent from a recognised authority or norm must be asserted in terms which will be recognisable to those who affirm it. Revolutionaries or radical reformers must provide a 'bridge' from that which they condemn to that which they affirm because, "dissent does not seek to abolish public authority, but to claim it for itself."'^''

Human nurture and formation occurs in particular contexts and it is only through such nurture and formation that we are able to participate and function effectively as human beings. These contexts provide ways'^' by which we endeavour to make sense of our lives and the world in which we live. They are, to recall an image used earlier in this chapter, our 'spectacles': they provide us with a way of seeing. But

"" Ibid. pp.207f. Ibid. p.208 "® Ibid. p.208. "" Ibid.p.208. Ibid. p.209.

our knowledge of them is primarily subsidiary, not focal. We may render our knowledge of some aspects of them focal in certain circumstances (and may thereby consider some revision of them necessary) but this is exceptional, not typical. The 'spectacles' used in different contexts and communities differ and, consequently, the meanings established through the use of them will be marked by a concomitant diversity. The distinctions between differing cultural spectacles are not easily understood because we are accustomed to evaluating their meaning by what we are able to see through them and not by looking at them.

Polanyi's view here represents no thoroughgoing relativism but an acknowledgement of the cultural particularity of a person's calling. Within that calling a person must bear his or her responsibility in the search for truth. Polanyi illustrates this point by reference to the role of the judge in the law courts.

By seeking the right decision the judge must find the law, supposed to be existing - though as yet

unknown. This is why eventually his decision becomes binding as law. The judge's discretion is thus narrowed down to zero by the stranglehold of his universal intent - by the power of his responsibility over himself. This is his independence. It consists in keeping himself wholly responsible to the interests of justice, excluding any subjectivity, whether of fear or favour. Judicial independence has been secured, where it exists, by centuries of passionate resistance to intimidation and corruption; for justice is an intellectual passion seeking satisfaction of itself, by inspiring and ruling men's lives.

There are parallels between the work of the judge in making a decision and the course of scientific discovery'^"':

In both cases the innovator has a wide decision of choice, because he has no fixed rules to rely on, and the range of his discretion determines the measure of his personal responsibility. In both cases a passionate search for a solution that is regarded as potentially pre-existing, narrows down discretion to zero and issues at the same time an innovation claiming universal acceptance. In both cases the original mind takes a decision on grounds which are insufficient to minds lacking similar powers of creative judgment. The active scientific investigator stakes bit by bit his whole professional life on a series of such decisions and this day-to-day gamble represents his most responsible activity. The

This is the responsibility of which objectivism sought to relieve us in its claims to impersonal objective knowledge.

Polanyi Personal Knowledge. pp.308f. Polanyi's emphasis.

Polanyi is concerned here with scientific discoveries and momentous legal decisions. Such phenomena should be distinguished from routine scientific work and general legal administration.

same is true o f the judge, with the difference, of course, that the risk is bom here mainly by the parties to the case and by the society which has entrusted itself to the interpretation of its laws by the courts.'125

The scientist engaged in the pursuit of a discovery gropes towards that which is hidden but which he or she believes may be accessible. The choices made in this process are the scientist’s own but the scientist is constrained by the problem by which he or she is confronted.

Insofar as they are acting responsibly, their personal participation in drawing their own conclusions is completely compensated for by the fact that they are submitting to the universal status of the hidden reality which they are trying to approach. Accidents may sometimes bring about - or prevent - discovery, but research does not rely on accident: the continuously renewed risks of failure normally incurred at every heuristic step are taken without ever acting at random. Responsible action excludes randomness, even as it suppresses egocentric arbitrariness.'^"

Aliy significant scientific enquiry is bound up with uncertainty and the implications of new knowledge cannot be known from the beginning. What is referred to is believed to be real and, to use an idea to which Polanyi frequently returns, "to attribute reality to something is to express the belief that its presence will yet show up in an indefinite number of unpredictable ways."'^^

Polanyi's realism is to the fore in this part of his analysis. He writes, "An empirical statement is true to the extent to which it reveals an aspect of reality, a reality lai'gely hidden to us, and existing therefore independently o f our knowing it. By trying to say something that is true about a reality believed to be existing independently of our knowing it, all assertions of fact necessarily carry universal intent. Our claim to speak o f reality serves thus as the external anchoring of our commitment in making a factual statement.

The scientist's intimations about the hidden reality are his or her own; they are personal and the product of the scientist's originality. But, as Polanyi wishes to

Polanyi Personal Knowledge. pp.309f. '^" Ibid. p.310.

Ibid. p.311. This is one of Polanyi's definitions of'reality'.

emphasise, "they are not a subjective state of mind, but convictions held with universal intent, and heavy with arduous p r o je c ts ." F o r the scientific discoverer, as with the judge, personal judgements - which are intrinsic to the heuristic striving - are balanced by the rigorous responsibility which must be exercised with regard to the reality which both scientist and judge endeavour to comprehend. But the personal component cannot be circumvented and every effort to present scientific discovery, or legal judgement, in impersonal terms can only serve to distort an understanding of the process. Polanyi explains:

Desisting henceforth from the vain pursuit of a formalized scientific method, commitment accepts in its place the person of the scientist as the agent responsible for conducting and accrediting scientific discoveries. The scientist's procedure is of course methodical. But his methods are but the maxims of an art which he applies in his own original way to the problem of his own choice. Discovery forms part of the art of knowing; it can be studied by precept and example, but its higher performances require particular native gifts appropriate to particular subjects.'""

Commitment provides a framework in which assent is delivered from randomness or egocentricity. A framework of commitment is the context from which affirmations can be made. Inherent within this framework is the existence of subsidiary affirmations which are relied upon and if objections to these subsidiary affirmations were made they could not necessarily be refuted. Thus such a framework, "allows us to commit ourselves on evidence which, but for the weight of our own personal judgment, would admit of other conclusions. We may firmly believe what we might conceivably doubt; and may hold to be true what might conceivably be f a l s e . P o l a n y i believes this to be a decisive issue in epistemology. Every act of knowing entails a tacit contribution on the part of the knower and, crucially for Polanyi, "this coefficient is no mere imperfection, but a necessary component of all knowledge.

In visual perception it is possible to be confronted with a phenomenon which admits to two or more contradictory interpretations. We might think of the drawing used

Ibid. p.311.

'"" Ibid. p.3 Ilf. The function of the scientific community - though not emphasised at this point must not be lost to view. The scientist is no 'Cartesian soloist'!

‘"'ibid. p.312. '"^ Ibid. p.312.

by Wittgenstein which can be seen as the head of either a duck or a rabbit, depending on how one looks at it.'^^ We may be able to switch from one perception to the other, but cannot sustain both possibilities at once. Polanyi explains: "The only way to avoid being committed... is to close one's eyes. This corresponds to the conclusion reached before in my critique of doubt: to avoid believing one must stop thinking."'^"' This demonstrates that even in a 'primitive tacit act' such as perception there is an active search for the truth in which a conclusion may be drawn in the face of alternative possibilities.'^^ And Polanyi asserts: "There is... complete continuity between a perceptive judgment and the process by which we establish responsible convictions in the course of scientific research.

Of course, the perception which we form in the face of ambiguous phenomena may be mistaken. We can only do the best we can as we seek to make sense of what we are looking at; but to withhold making a decision resolves nothing: "To postpone mental decisions on account of their conceivable fallibility would necessarily block all decisions for ever, and pile up the hazards of hesitation to infinity. It would amount to voluntary mental stupor. Stupor alone can eliminate both belief and e r r o r . I n many circumstances the integration which forms a perception is so fast that to speak of a 'postponement of a decision' is inappropriate. We may, on the basis of a subliminal doubt about the veracity of a perception, 'take another look' - as we might if we think we recognise someone while entertaining the doubt that we might be mistaken. But in so many cases our perception is correct - we recognise the pen, the paper, the book, the computer, the desk and chair etc., and we are able to get on with our work without difficulty.

Wittgenstein (1958). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford, Blackwells. p.l94. Polanyi Personal Knowledge, p.314.

In many acts of perception the kind of ambiguity which we find in the case of the duck-rabbit is absent. Nevertheless, perception is what Polanyi calls an 'integrative' act and although it may be both unproblematic and almost instantaneous it does not exist apart from the action of the knower. We will return to Polanyi's treatment of this theme in our treatment of tacit knowledge in the present chapter and in the final chapter in the context of a discussion about imagination.

Polanyi Personal Knowledge, p.314. We note here Polanyi's tendency to move freely back and forth between discussion of perception and discovery. This is no oversight or inconsistency but part of the 'strategy' of his epistemological formulations. Polanyi writes, "I have tried to pursue

systematically the kinship between perception and scientific discovery." Polanyi and Prosch Meaning, p.56.

Commitment is necessary and yet any commitment held can neither defend itself against all objection nor make claims to incorrigibility on any other grounds: "To accept commitment as the framework within which we may believe something to be true, is to circumscribe the hazards of belief. It is to establish the conception of