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Michael Polanyi and Karl Mannheim
Abstract
This essay reviews historical records that set forth the discussions and interaction of Michael Polanyi and Karl Mannheim from 1944 until Mannheim’s death early in 1947. The letters describe Polanyi’s effort to assemble a book to be published in a series edited by Manneheim. They also reveal the different perspectives these thinkers took about freedom and the historical context of ideas. Records of J.H. Oldham’s discussion group “the Moot” suggest that these and other differences in philosophy were debated in meetings of “the Moot” attended by Polanyi and Mannheim in 1944.<br /
This essay focuses attention on Polanyi’s 1946 book Science, Faith and Society as an early constructive philosophical effort to rehabilitate belief and show that it is integral to science. Particularly important is the opening chapter “Science and Reality,” which is Polanyi’s inaugural gambit directly to address the question about the nature of science in metaphysical terms. Polanyi’s metaphysical account of science affirms that fundamental beliefs of scientists, although largely not articulable, guide their effort to discern Gestalten to which they are committed as elements of reality. However, real entities remain partially hidden and later inquiry may reveal indeterminate future manifestations. My discussion in this essay reviews thematically akin publications preceding Science, Faith and Society and some of Polanyi’s later writing that re-works ideas in his early book. I also suggest that Polanyi’s ideas in Science, Faith and Society were likely influenced by his work with Dorothy Emmet.
The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) is today recognized as one of the most important twentieth-century thinkers about scientific knowledge and scientific community. Yet Polanyi's philosophy of science exhibits an unresolved tension between science as a traditional community and science as an intellectual marketplace. Binding together these different models was important for his overall intellectual and political project, which was a defense of bourgeois liberal order. His philosophy of science and his economic thought were mutually supporting elements within this political project. Polanyi's intellectual corpus formed a contradictory unity, the tensions within which were manageable only under particular historical conditions. His attempt to hold together traditional authority and the free market fit with, and derived plausibility from, the social conditions under which his philosophical work came to maturity: Keynesian class compromise and surviving habits of social deference within postwar Britain.
Thesis (ThD.)--PAcific School of Religion, 1965. Includes bibliographical references and bibliography of Polanyi's works.
Shils, who translated some of Mannheim's works into English and was a friend of Polanyi, offers an interesting account (221-235) of Mannheim. It is not clear if Shils knew Polanyi in 1944, when Polanyi becomes acquainted with Mannheim in England
- Shils Edward
Edward, Shils, "Karl Mannheim," The American Scholar, Spring, 1995: 221. Shils, who translated
some of Mannheim's works into English and was a friend of Polanyi, offers an interesting account (221-235)
of Mannheim. It is not clear if Shils knew Polanyi in 1944, when Polanyi becomes acquainted with Mannheim
in England. But it is certain that Shils knew Polanyi before Mannheim's death in 1947. Shils reports ("On the
Tradition of Intellectuals: Authority and Antinomianism According to Michael Polanyi," TAD 22: 2: 10-26)
that he was invited by Polanyi to give an address in Manchester in January of 1947 (21). In Shils' article on
Mannheim (234), Shils also tells a story about telling Polanyi that Mannehim had died in January of 1947.
Since most Polanyi-Mannheim letters have now been published and they are numbered in Gábor's collection, first citations to specific letters in the collection are hereafter abbreviated, using only the number of the letter in the collection, the sender and receiver, and the date of the letter
- Karl Of
- Mannheim
of Karl Mannheim, Scientist, Philosopher, and Sociologist (Lampeter, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press,
2003). Since most Polanyi-Mannheim letters have now been published and they are numbered in Gábor's
collection, first citations to specific letters in the collection are hereafter abbreviated, using only the number of
the letter in the collection, the sender and receiver, and the date of the letter. Subsequent citations of published
letters simply note the letter number in parentheses in the text following the quotation.
Also as "Self-Government of Science" in Polanyi's The Logic of Liberty
Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 85 (February
1943): 19-38. Also in Scientific Monthly 60 (February 1945): 141-150. Also as "Self-Government of Science"
in Polanyi's The Logic of Liberty (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951): 49-68. Hereafter The Logic of Liberty is
abbreviated LL.
362-363) notes this was partially reprinted (and/or reorganized and reprinted) in two other places later and in LL
Economica 8 (November 1941): 421-456. Richard Allen (Society, Economics, Philosophy:
Selected Papers by Michael Polanyi [New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997]: 362-363) notes this
was partially reprinted (and/or reorganized and reprinted) in two other places later and in LL. Society,
Economics, Philosophy: Selected Papers by Michael Polanyi is hereafter abbreviated SEP.
For a general discussion of "the Moot" and its context see Roger Kojecky T. S. Eliot's Social Criticism
- Reeves Taylor
For a general discussion of "the Moot" and its context see Roger Kojecky T. S. Eliot's Social
Criticism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971): 156-197, 238-239, and Taylor and Reeves, 24-48. This
list of members combines those listed in each of these sources.
- Kathleen Bliss
- Joseph Oldham
- Houldsworth
Kathleen Bliss, "Oldham, Joseph Houldsworth," Dictionary of National Biography: 1961-1970
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 806-808.
Kojecky, 163-197 provides a rich account of the unfolding set of Moot discussions up until Mannheim's death in January of 1947. Ideas about an order or an elite with a special role are never far from the center of gravity in this group
- Reeves Taylor
Taylor and Reeves, 26-28. See also Kojecky, 163 who points out that those who attended the first
Moot meeting had received a letter from Oldham "raising the idea of a Christian order." Kojecky, 163-197
provides a rich account of the unfolding set of Moot discussions up until Mannheim's death in January of 1947.
Ideas about an order or an elite with a special role are never far from the center of gravity in this group; this is
the background for the December 1944 papers by Eliot, Mannheim and Polanyi on the "clerisy," the term that
Eliot adopted from Coleridge.
Planning for Freedom" in his 1942 book Real Life Is Meeting (Macmillan; Seabury, 1953), which is a review and paean of praise for Mannheim's claims for planning
- Reeves Taylor
Taylor and Reeves, 25. See also, for example, J. H. Oldham's chapter "Planning for Freedom" in
his 1942 book Real Life Is Meeting (Macmillan; Seabury, 1953), which is a review and paean of praise for
Mannheim's claims for planning. See http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Sui-Generis/Berdyaev/essays/
rlm.htm.
- Oldham Letter To Polanyi
Oldham letter to Polanyi, 12 November 1943. Box 15, Folder 3.
Box 4, Folder 11. Ultimately, Polanyi does not pursue the possible publication with Eliot because his agreement with Mannheim's employer gives Routledge an option for two future publications
- Eliot Polanyi To
Polanyi to Eliot, 3rd June 1944. Box 4, Folder 11. Ultimately, Polanyi does not pursue the possible
publication with Eliot because his agreement with Mannheim's employer gives Routledge an option for two
future publications. Polanyi to Eliot, 27
Michael Polanyi in the Moot
- Éva Gábor
Éva Gábor ("Michael Polanyi in the Moot," Polanyiana Vol. 2, No. 1-2 [1992]: 124) suggsts that
Three Periods of History" was originally intended as the introduction. There is evidence in the early paragraphs of the text of this essay (found in Box 29, Folder 8) that this was probably originally written as an introduction to the projected Mannheim book titled "The Autonomy of Science
- Moleski Scott
No. 254. Mannheim to Polanyi, October 27, 1944. Scott and Moleski, 194, note 112 suggest a
Polanyi essay "Three Periods of History" was originally intended as the introduction. There is evidence in the
early paragraphs of the text of this essay (found in Box 29, Folder 8) that this was probably originally written
as an introduction to the projected Mannheim book titled "The Autonomy of Science." As we discuss below
(footnote 73), however, "Three Periods of History" appears to have become a part of another projected book.
There is no discussion of "Three Periods of History" in Polanyi and Mannheim's letters, but it is clear quite
clear in the letters that both Polanyi and Mannheim want to see Polanyi's response to Eliot reshaped as the
introduction to Polanyi' projected book in Mannheim's series.
) suggest that a lunch for all three parties could not be worked out, although it is possible that Polanyi and Mannheim had lunch and Polanyi and Eliot
- Mrs K Polanyi's Letter To Professor
- Mannheim
Polanyi's letter to Professor and Mrs. K. Mannheim of 23 May 1945, Box 4, Folder 12, proposes
a lunch meeting on the 31 st of May that would include Eliot. Polanyi wrote a similar proposal to Eliot (23 May
1945, Box 4, Folder 12). Subsequent letters in Box 4, Folder 12 (Eliot to Polanyi, 25 May 1945; Mannheim
to Polanyi, 25 May 1945; and Polanyi to Mannheim, 26 May 1945) suggest that a lunch for all three parties could
not be worked out, although it is possible that Polanyi and Mannheim had lunch and Polanyi and Eliot met later
in the afternoon of the 31 st at Eliot's office.
Planning for Freedom
- Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, "Planning for Freedom," Manchester GuardianWeekly, July 3, 1951, p. 4.
Mannheim's Historicism" Manchester Guardian Weekly
- Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, "Mannheim's Historicism" Manchester Guardian Weekly, December 9, 1952, p. 4.