“Polanyi has . . . developed his understanding of the process of scientific discovery by exploring two concepts that he has isolated: intuition and imagination. He elaborates four categories of intuition, the first of which, dynamic intuition, just is this integrative skill of tacit foreknowing and is the one on which I will presently focus my attention.

“Strategic intuition accounts for the scientist’s ability to assess whether the importance of the problem and possible discovery at hand would warrant the investment of the powers and resources requisite for its pursuit. This is intuition in its more practical outworking. Strategic intuition compares its sense of the hidden reality discovered, and its importance, with the general philosophical and economic tenor of the society and time in which the scientist functions, and with the various resources at his disposal. Polanyi’s elucidation of this aspect of science compares positively with C. S. Peirce’s work on the economy of research.

“Creative intuition is the term Polanyi gives to the tacit powers that evoke the final, spontaneous integration that constitutes the discovery. Creative intuition ‘fills’ the empty focus, which has, up to this point, been the unknown center of significance for the subsidiary clues. With the climactic event of discovery, clues are transformed in a focus of meaning, and intimations and anticipations are borne out. In light of the foregoing intimations and anticipations, in fact, the discovery is recognized as such; by the time the discovery appears on the scene, though it may still be surprising, it bears an aura of familiarity as a result of the discoverer’s anticipations.

“A final form of intuition, which I shall call ‘confirmatory’ intuition (Polanyi does not give a name to what he describes), consists of the intuitive recognition of the result as valid. Confirmatory intuition may be heavily relied upon, to the relative exclusion of articulate confirmation, for even years after the discovery, depending upon the relative wealth or poverty of evidence for the claim. It is never wholly eliminated either, given the tacit foundation of all knowledge.

“But let us return to dynamic intuition. Dynamic intuition is active specifically in the problem and process stages of a scientific discovery. It is responsible for the very glimpse of a hidden coherence that can be designated a problem; the glimpse that sparks puzzlement and interest in the scientist, and eventually provokes him to sustained research. It operates between the problem and the discovery, actually guiding the scientist’s progress, by providing the scientist with what Polanyi refers to frequently as a ‘sense of the increasing proximity of the solution.’ Dynamic intuition recognizes clues and somehow ‘measures the distance’ between the present understanding and the intuited focus. Polanyi draws on his own scientific experience as well as everyday experience for the recognition of this sense of increasing proximity. He points out that we have all experienced it in the common attempt to remember someones name; we know somehow that we are close and then closer to having it; we speak of its being ‘on the tip of my tongue.’

“Foreknowledge of a solution and a sense of increasing proximity to it both retain a slight air of paradox, given the inability to explain them in any explicit fashion. But it is, in fact, nothing short of amazing that puzzles and mysteries can be solved, that babies can learn to speak and move through their world, and that scientists can make earthshaking discoveries-all of which involve the tacit recognition of unspecifiable clues. Polanyi captures the appropriate sense of wonder in his citation of [mathematician George] Polya:

The process of solving a mathematical problem continues to depend, therefore, at every stage on the same ability to anticipate a hidden potentiality which will enable the student first to see a problem and then to set out to solve it. Polya has compared a mathematical discovery consisting of a whole chain of consecutive steps with an arch, where every stone depends for its stability on the presence of others, and he pointed out the paradox that the stones are in fact put in one at a time. Again, the paradox is resolved by the fact that each successive step of the incomplete solution is upheld by the heuristic anticipation which originally evoked its invention: by the feeling that its emergence has narrowed further the logical gap of the problem.

“Dynamic intuition, unspecifiable capacity that it is, leads to the solution, for it gives rise to a tacit understanding of the focus and of the path toward it: ‘This is how I would resolve the paradox of the “Meno”: We can pursue scientific discovery without knowing what we are looking for, because the gradient of deepening coherence tells us where to start and which way to turn, and eventually brings us to the point where we may stop and claim a discovery.’

“It may be objected that use of the term ‘intuition’ only serves to fuel the fire of the critic’s claim that Polanyi’s work sanctions mysticism. The term, of course, may be a little misleading, but its choice can be justified As for the concept itself, Polanyi does not have a mystical source of knowledge in mind — in the sense of one that provides knowledge immediately or irrationally. The heart of the matter is that intuition is just the ordinary integrative skill that characterizes every form of human achievement: ‘not the supreme immediate knowledge, called intuition by Leibniz or Spinoza or Husserl, but a work-a-day skill for scientific guessing with a chance of guessing right.’ Besides, the skill of integration to an as-yet-uncomprehended focus is remarkable enough in itself, especially to those of us raised in a milieu that has set explicit knowledge as its paradigm and ideal and presumed that nothing in addition is required for scientific success.

“Does the appellation ‘intuition’ suggest infallibility? If it does, it is not that Polanyi means it to. Human knowledge ‘comprises everything in which we may be totally mistaken,’ and tacit, intuitive knowledge is not exempt. But neither does this imply that there is nothing at all to this so-called faculty of intuition, or that ‘intuition’ really falsely represents an activity that merely is a matter of chance. Polanyi says: ‘The fact that this faculty often fails does not discredit it; a method for guessing 10% above average in roulette would be worth millions.’ If no such faculty were operative, a scientist would be left with the overwhelming task of testing an infinite number of alternative solutions to a problem and, more basically, with deciding between an infinite number of possible problems ranging in undetectable potential from good to bad and specious. Finally, if ever the scientist reached the solution, he would fail to recognize it. The fact that this is not what happens in science, that real discovery occurs without an infinite number of attempts and that results are confidently maintained, testifies to the existence of this intuitive skill.”

— from Esther Lightcap Meek, Contact with Reality: Michael Polanyi’s Realism and Why It Matters (Cascade Books, 2017)

Related reading and listening

  • Excluding cranks and dabblers — Drusilla Scott on Michael Polanyi’s insistence that the “community of science” required authority
  • Harbinger of disorder — Mark Mitchell on Michael Polanyi’s recognition of the dangerous dead-end of materialistic reductionism
  • The personal element in all knowing — Mark Mitchell connects key aspects of Michael Polanyi’s conception of knowledge with Matthew Crawford’s insistence that real knowing involves more than technique. (34 minutes)
  • An impoverished anthropology —
    FROM VOL. 146
    Mark Mitchell asks whether there is anything that truly binds Americans together beyond their commitment to self-creation. (34 minutes)
  • Making contact with reality —
    FROM VOL. 139
    Esther Lightcap Meek discusses the realism of philosopher and chemist Michael Polanyi. (23 minutes)
  • Knowing the world through the body —
    FROM VOL. 76
    Professor Martin X. Moleski explains why Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) left his career in science to become a philosopher. (16 minutes)
  • Steward of knowledge vs. autonomous knower —
    FROM VOL. 66
    Esther Lightcap Meek challenges the modernist view of knowledge, which prefers the figure of the autonomous knower to the figure of a steward of knowledge acquired in part from others. (15 minutes)
  • “The system will be first” —
    FROM VOL. 27
    Robert Kanigel describes the transformation of work due to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s concept of scientific management. (11 minutes)
  • Nature’s intelligibility — In this lecture, Christopher Blum argues that scientists need to regain a full appreciation of nature’s intelligibility, as they are apt to lose sight of reality due to the reductionism produced by their theories. (31 minutes)
  • The recovery of true authority for societal flourishing — Michael Hanby addresses a confusion at the heart of our current cultural crisis: a conflation of the concepts of authority and power. (52 minutes)
  • How we know the world — Daniel Ritchie argues that poet and hymnodist William Cowper was ahead of his time in critiquing the Enlightenment’s reductionist view of knowledge. (16 minutes)
  • William Cowper: Reconciling the Heart with the Head — Daniel E. Ritchie discusses the life and work of poet William Cowper (1731–1800), comparing his commitment to understanding reality through personal knowledge, intuition, and rigorous contemplation with the thought of Michael Polanyi. (43 minutes)
  • Theological realism — Kevin J. Vanhoozer discusses theologian T. F. Torrance’s understanding of the positive relation between science and theology. (52 minutes)
  • Seeking control, in white magic and The Green Book — Alan Jacobs on C. S. Lewis’s critique of the modern pursuit of god-like control
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
  • Meek, Esther Lightcap — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Esther Lightcap Meek is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Geneva College, in Western Pennsylvania, and Senior Scholar with The Seattle School for Theology and Psychology.
  • Freedom from the nature of things? — Leon Kass on the pressure exerted by the authority of science to embrace reductionistic materialism
  • Life, liberty, and the defense of dignity — In a 2003 interview, Leon Kass discussed his book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. The unifying theme in the book’s essays is the threat of dehumanization in one form or another. (36 minutes)
  • Among Oppenheimer’s company — James L. Nolan, Jr., the author of Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, discusses the Manhattan Project as a case study in the dangers of technological enthusiasm outpacing wisdom and caution. (27 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 156 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kimbell Kornu, Paul Tyson, Mark Noll, David Ney, William C. Hackett, and Marian Schwartz
  • Science, the only reliable leader (but to where?) — Stephen Gaukroger on the replacement of political, social, and cultural goals with scientific, technological, and economic ones
  • Recovering natural philosophy — Science teacher Ravi Scott Jain discusses natural philosophy, the “love of wisdom in the realm of nature,” as the overarching discipline in the sciences. (21 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 155 — FEATURED GUESTS: Donald Kraybill, Thaddeus Kozinski, David Bentley Hart, Nigel Biggar, Ravi Scott Jain, and Jason Baxter
  • Cosmology without God — Modern science is practiced in the context of beliefs that are intrinsically metaphysical and theological, even though practitioners of science claim (and usually genuinely believe) that their disciplines are philosophically neutral. David Alcalde challenges such claims within a sub-field of astrophysics. (21 minutes)
  • Diagnosing our political conflicts — Michael Hanby explains why the modern pursuit of freedom — obeying its founding logic — has taken such a destructive turn. (36 minutes)
  • Carelessly invoking “science” in the pandemic — Historian of science Steven Shapin talks about about how the authority of “science” has been invoked by many political authorities during the pandemic, yet how scientific pursuits are deeply human endeavors. (18 minutes)
  • Plagues and technocratic politics — Philosopher Michael Hanby insists that responses to COVID-19 were distorted by the widespread belief that science is a monolithic source of infallible knowledge, the only reliable source of knowledge about how we should live. (38 minutes)
  • When “follow the science” doesn’t work — Peter Leithart reflects on the all-too-human nature of science and the effects of quarantine on the Church’s embodied mission. (32 minutes)
  • The reality that science cannot see — Philosopher Paul Tyson illustrates features of daily life that science cannot “see,” such as love, friendship, justice, and hope, and argues that such things are nonetheless real. (20 minutes)
  • Why “Creation” is more than “origins” — In this archive interview from Volume 121 of the Journal, Michael Hanby talks about why we shouldn’t assume that science can ever be philosophically and theologically neutral. (32 minutes)
  • Mary Midgley, R.I.P. — Philosopher Mary Midgley (1919–2018) was a tireless critic of the reductionist, atomistic claims of modern science. (16 minutes)
  • Rediscovering the Organism: Science and Its Contexts — Philosophers, theologians, historians, and research scientists are interviewed in an effort to describe the interaction of science with other disciplines and with the settings in which science is practiced and exerts its influence. (107 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 139 — FEATURED GUESTS: W. Bradford Littlejohn, Simon Oliver, Matthew Levering, Esther Lightcap Meek, Paul Tyson, and David Fagerberg
  • How science became the omnipotent arbiter of genuine knowledge — Peter Harrison on the creation of an allegedly neutral public sphere
  • Shedding epistemic modesty — Peter Harrison on the rise of confidence in scientific progress
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 123 — FEATURED GUESTS: Nicholas M. Healy, Christian Smith, James K. A. Smith, Esther Lightcap Meek, Richard Viladesau, and Jeremy Begbie
  • Creation’s gift to the sciences — Michael Hanby: “There is no pure method, and no science can do and indeed ever does without a metaphysics and therefore ultimately a theology.”
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 121 — FEATURED GUESTS: Daniel Gabelman, Curtis White, Michael Hanby, Alan Jacobs, James K. A. Smith, Bruce Herman, and Walter Hansen
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 108 — FEATURED GUESTS: Thomas Albert Howard, Jean Porter, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hans Boersma, Felicia Wu Song, and Elias Aboujaoude
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 104 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Le Fanu, Garret Keizer, Daniel Ritchie, Monica Ganas, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Peter J. Leithart
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 93 — FEATURED GUESTS: Alan Jacobs, James A. Herrick, Robert C. Roberts, J. Daryl Charles, Allan C. Carlson, and Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose
  • Yuval Levin: “The Moral Challenge of Modern Science” — Yuval Levin calls for a more deliberate awareness of how science shapes how we ask and answer moral questions together. (44 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 80 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stephen A. McKnight, Tim Morris, Don Petcher, Vigen Guroian, Paul Valliere, and Calvin Stapert
  • Christianity and science in the beginning — Historian Stephen A. McKnight argues that Fransic Bacon did not employ religious ideas with cynical and manipulative intent, but with the utmost sincerity. But was he theologically sound?
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 76 — FEATURED GUESTS: D. H. Williams, Catherine Edwards Sanders, Ted Prescott, Martin X. Moleski, Stephen Prickett, and Barrett Fisher
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 72 — FEATURED GUESTS: John Polkinghorne, Francesca Aran Murphy, James Hitchcock, Wilfred McClay, Philip McFarland, and David Hackett Fischer
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 66 — FEATURED GUESTS: Leon Kass, Nigel Cameron, Susan Wise Bauer, Esther Lightcap Meek, John Shelton Lawrence, and Ralph Wood
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 51 — FEATURED GUESTS: Nigel Cameron, David Blankenhorn, Robert Wuthnow, Mortimer Adler, Roger Lundin, Dana Gioia, Mary Midgely, and Ted Libbey
  • Tacit Knowing, Truthful Knowing — This 2-1/2-hour audio documentary surveys Michael Polanyi’s criticisms of both objectivism and subjectivism, and his attempts to develop a more truthful understanding of how we know the world. (143 minutes)
Tags: