Polanyi's Truth

The dreams of the communists and Nazi's were not, it seems to me, mainly the result of the mistaken hopes of the Enlightenment ideal of trying to solve all problems with reason, science and technology, which was suggested by the great modern epistemologist Michael Polanyi. It was more the “tacit intimation,” the implicit knowing that took the dictators on their paths of radical change. It seems to me that the dictators defined truth more in Polanyi's terms, that is, something is true if it reveals deeper meaning, if it has potential for future discoveries or manifestations, and not merely because something could be true because it could be proven exactly with scientific methodology.

We generally affirm Polanyi's preference for implicit truth, but we do not then blame Enlightenment science for the political philosophies of the twentieth century. We might instead turn the standard dynamic around and begin with science, the way intuition is often used first, and use implicit knowledge as the final or deeper meaning of truth. This way science, and implicit knowledge that comes from religion, can work in harmony, without having to disparage either side.