Knowledge That Is Manifestly Personal [02.22.98]

‘All human knowledge is now seen to be shaped and sustained by the inarticulate mental faculties which we share with the animals.
This view entails a decisive change in our ideal of knowledge. The participation of the knower in shaping his knowledge, which had hitherto been tolerated only as a flaw - a shortcoming to be eliminated from perfect knowledge - is now recognised as the true guide and master of our cognitive powers. We acknowledge now that our powers of knowing operate widely without causing us to utter any explicit statements; and that even when they do issue in an utterance, this is used merely as an instrument for enlarging the range of the tacit powers that originated it. The ideal of a knowledge embodied in strictly impersonal statements now appears self-contradictory, meaningless, a fit subject for ridicule. We must learn to accept as our ideal a knowledge that is manifestly personal.’

Michael Polanyi [1959]. The Study of Man. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago & London. ISBN 0-226-67291-3 [p. 26/7].