Volume 26, Issue 3, 1999/2000
Dale Cannon
Pages 51-61
Some Aspects of Polanyi’s Version of Realism
This essay attempts to clarify certain aspects of Polanyi’s version of comprehensive realism: the irreducible role of responsible personal commitment as transcending human subjectivity in any meaningful reference to transcendent reality, and thus for any coherent realism; realism as a fundamental presupposition of intellectual responsibility in the humanities and in the sciences; a conception of intrinsic (vs. extrinsic, anthropocentrically projected) meaning characterizing real things, in greater and lesser degrees; a conception of embodied tacit knowing as a relational, acquaintance knowing that achieves contact with reality-in-itself, transcending our grasp – hence, transcending our representational or propositional knowing (which is always reality-as-constituted or construed-by-us).