You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Edited by Fred Schwartz. New York: International Universities Press, 1974, 158 pp. $8.00.
This superb collection is the last, posthumous fruit of George Klein's stewardship of Psychological Issues. Michael Polanyi came to the philosophy of science from physical chemistry, and these writings allude to psychoanalysis only tangentially. Polanyi's brilliant, historically informed defense of science as a social institution nevertheless offers the intellectual tools needed to affirm the legitimacy of introspection and empathy as the principal observational method of a scientific psychology.
As a contribution to the history of ideas, Polanyi's work is a stunning attack on logical positivism. A beautifully argued analysis of the evolution of scientific method demonstrates that induction is not the only pathway to truth; the tendency of scientists to minimize the role of speculation in their discoveries is irrational. Hume had already shown that no theory can be proven inductively; the ability to develop abstractions from observational data is only given to genius. The history of science has been less concerned with the process of discovery than with its justification. Discoveries are actually based on belief, self-confidence, and the power of grandeur, profundity, beauty, or elegance, rather than on passionless, pseudo-objective work.
These characteristics of science suggest that it can only be propagated by direct personal contact. Its tradition has been continuous from the days of Galileo through successors including Freud. The practice of science is thus an art, mastered by a tiny élite, and viable only if it can impress a wider public. Ultimately, attacks on science or outsiders' attempts to control it are like wars of religion. Such opposition has grown in the modern context which is characterized by barren skepticism about ideals and fervent reformist programs. In totalitarian societies, these utopian demands are clothed in pseudoscientific garb, and real sc