Personal knowledge
towards a post-critical philosophy
by Michael Polanyi · first published 1958
43% recommend57% neutral
Asserts that scientific knowledge is a synthesis of personal experience, moral judgement, and empirical findings.
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…e.g. facial recognition. , A quick and enjoyable read that might appeal to many in this crowd. Akin to Hadamard's Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. If you've got time, MP's earlier Personal Knowledge (1958, ~400pp) might be a worthwhile deeper-dive. I recall that his style reminded me of Lewis Thomas.
on “Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?” ↗Beginning of Infinity - David Deutsch Personal Knowledge - Michael Polanyi
on “Ask HN: Books that teach you to think” ↗No mention of Michael Polanyi. Personal Knowledge is perhaps the defining criticism of positivism.
on “Philosophy’s Critique of Scientism – Part 1” ↗See also: Polanyi, Personal Knowledge and The Tacit Dimension.
on “Special Sciences: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis (1974) [pdf]” ↗Sure. Polanyi is easy. He wrote a trio of short, accessible, and engaging books outlining his ideas: Science, Faith, and Society (1946), Personal Knowledge (1958), and The Tacit Dimension (1966). He was a true polymath, and very up-to-date with psychological science of his day; I would be interested in your thoughts as a specialist. Rosmini is hard. He…
on “Intuition is a “superpower”” ↗…need epistemology to tell you why you can believe the results of the experiments. And you can't derive epistemology from experiments. Logical positivism tried to do this, and failed. Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge pretty much killed logical positivism, because he showed that no scientist is in the fully objective position that was required to set up and evaluate the experiments.
on “Time Doesn’t Belong to Physics” ↗…was happening before. This ties in to a lot of other issues about formalizing procedures and interactions. You might want to look at James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State and perhaps Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge for examples of people who are skeptical about doing this -- but I'm sure there's another side there.
on “Ask HN: When have you taken a decision in code outside your domain of expertise?” ↗…essential quality in a scientific statement and may accordingly be said to be right or wrong, depending on whether we acknowledge or deny the presence of that quality in it." --- Michael Polanyi --- Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, p140
on “Weird Science” ↗Article states: "In his book, Personal Knowledge Polanyi introduced the expression tacit knowledge. Most of the knowledge we apply in everyday life is tacit. In fact, we do not know which rules we apply when we perform a task." This is an essential…
on “Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized (2020)” ↗See also: Personal Knowledge - Michael Polanyi, 1958. "not only that there is knowledge that cannot be adequately articulated by verbal means, but also that all knowledge is rooted in tacit knowledge...." Against Method. Paul Feyerabend,…
on “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [pdf]” ↗…hard work in every instance, but work.) I'd like to see more ways to interact and make the knowledge part of one's own experiences rather than as received truth (something Polanyi got mostly right in his Personal Knowledge book). Of course I'm instantly suspicious of any technique or product that tries to oversell its ability to teach concepts faster with better retention, and even more suspicious when it tries to sell…
on “How well does Khan Academy teach?” ↗