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Polanyi's Notion of Hierarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

A. Olding
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Macquarie University, Australia

Extract

Professor Gill's recent defence of the notion of ‘reasons of the heart’ in religion1 depends upon Polanyi's view that through ‘tacit knowledge’ of lower levels of reality we can come to know something of higher levels - even, I take it, of God, himself, as the highest level of all. Unfortunately, Polanyi's argument for such a hierarchy of being is confused and depends for its apparent strength on an illicit mixing together of ontological and what may be loosely called methodological claims. Because of this and other confusions, the argument is difficult to state concisely. For convenience I will first use Marjorie Grene's formulation.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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