Polanyi and Newman: A Reconsideration

Abstract

The author’s doctoral dissertation on the theological implications of the epistemologies of John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) operated on the assumption that Polanyi’s work was independent of Newman’s. That assumption was wrong. Polanyi read Newman’s Grammar of Assent twice and took at least five pages of notes on it; he also had a copy of the book in his personal library when he died. He mentioned his reading to a friend, but indicated that he could not quote Newman because to do so would distort Newman’s meaning. The purpose of this essay is to defend the thesis that the similarities between the epistemologies are real and to speculate why diagramming the relationship between the two systems of thought was not a worthwhile project for Polanyi. When I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation, “Illative Sense and Tacit Knowledge: A Comparison of the Theological Implications of the Epistemologies of John Henry Newman and Michael Polanyi,”1 I believed that Michael Polanyi’s work was completely independent of John Henry Newman’s Grammar of Assent: “I cannot find any evidence that Newman’s epistemology in any way influenced Polanyi’s” (Personal Catholicism, xxii). Since that time, I have found evidence that Polanyi had twice read Newman’s Grammar of Assent (hereafter cited as GA). which raises the question of what kind of influence Newman may have had on Polanyi. Some of the evidence of Polanyi’s reading of the Grammar was available when I wrote my dissertation; it is my fault that I did not find it then. The most interesting note did not turn up until 2010, when I did a final survey of the material Bill Scott had collected for Michael Polanyi: Scientist and Philosopher.2 On January 27, 1959, Hugh O’Neill, one of Polanyi’s earliest and best friends from Manchester, invited Polanyi to give a talk on “Scientific and Non-scientific Ways of Thought” to a Newman association. Polanyi regretfully declined the invitation, then, in a postscript, told O’Neill that he had read the Grammar twice: The Athenaeum Pall Mall S.W.I