The role of commitment in scientific inquiry: Polanyi or popper?

Abstract

Michael Polanyi has argued that commitment has an essential role to play in the scientific enterprise. Commitment plays an essential role first in the scientist's re? lation to the cause of science. Science is an enterprise committed to the search for truth, and if you want to be a scientist, you must devote yourself to this cause by declaring your loyalty to it. Although there is no formalized oath, as in medicine, a similar commitment is required. To become a scientist is to enter, as it were, a covenant, to promise to oneself and to the community of scientists that he will not allow his natural desires for all kinds of personal profits to interfere with his ser? vice to his cause?the search after truth. And no matter how impersonal all the objects and ends of science may be, the scientist himself still remains a person of whom the responsible act of commitment to a cause beyond himself is required. Not only does Polanyi argue that a scientist qua scientist must be committed to the cause of science; he also claims that commitment plays an essential role in the actual pursuit of scientific knowledge, i.e. in discovery, observation, verification, theory construction, and the like. Polanyi contends indeed that scientific inquiry is possible only in such a context of commitment. Recognizing the hazards of com? mitment Polanyi maintains that the risks involved in it are necessary if science is to proceed. He says "I believe, that in spite of the hazards involved, I am called upon to search for the truth and state my findings. This sentence summarizing my programme, conveys an ultimate belief which I find myself holding" (Polanyi, 1964, p. 299). Like Polanyi, Karl Popper has seen the hazards involved in passionate commit? ment and belief. Yet this common recognition of the hazards and risks of commit? ment has led them to conflicting views as to the role of commitment in scientific inquiry. Their divergent views as to the role of comnfitment in scientific inquiry is seen in the different ways that they characterize their conceptions of scientific method. On Popper's view, scientific method is critical, on Polanyi's it is post critical. It will help to illuminate the role of commitment in scientific inquiry to explore in more detail this contrast between Polanyi and Popper. Popper developed his theory of scientific methodology in answer to the problem of induction. The traditional problem of induction, according to Popper, is