An Introduction to the Duke Lectures
Phil Mullins
Michael Polanyi’s Duke Lectures were given in February and
early March of 1964 when Polanyi was in residence in the spring term at
The Duke Lectures are one lecture set of several that
Polanyi delivered in the early and mid sixties. All of these sets of lectures,
as well as Polanyi’s 1966 book The Tacit
Dimension, reflect Polanyi’s effort to move from the more expansive
philosophic discussion of Personal
Knowledge to a more focused and concise treatment of his theory of tacit knowing. In November,
1961, Polanyi gave the Jefferson, or Virginia, Lectures when he was a
distinguished professor for the fall term at the
Two
copies of the typescripts of the Duke Lectures were given by William Poteat to
the Duke University Library and are available there. However, unpublished
copies of these materials have for many years circulated among those interested
in Polanyi’s thought. The clarity of the writing in this set of Polanyi
lectures is noteworthy. Some scholars such as Marjorie Grene have used
quotations from, or made references to, the Duke Lectures in her
publications.[4] Polanyi did intend to publish the Duke Lectures with
Doubleday/Anchor, and the publication process was unfolding in the mid sixties,
but Polanyi apparently had earlier signed an agreement with Yale University
Press to publish The Tacit Dimension. There are eight letters in the Papers of
Michael Polanyi which suggest that, although Polanyi was initially advised the
Duke Lectures could be published, ultimately Doubleday lawyers decided against
publication since they anticipated possible legal problems with Yale University
Press.[4] Yale University Press never
actually published The Tacit Dimension,
but Doubleday/Anchor did in the U.S.A. in 1966 and Routledge and Kegan Paul in
London in 1967. The project to publish the Duke Lectures was never resurrected
after Doubleday/Anchor became the American publisher of The Tacit Dimension. Thanks are due to Professor John Polanyi for granting
permission to the Polanyi Society to post the Duke Lectures on the Polanyi
Society web site.[6]
Endnotes
[1] Several details here and
below are drawn from William Taussig Scott and Martin X. Moleski, SJ, Michael
Polanyi: Scientist and Philosopher (New York; Oxford University Press,
2005), 254-256. This section of the biography provides a rich account of
Polanyi’s time at Duke. References below to Michael Polanyi: Scientist and
Philosopher are in the text in
parentheses or are listed by the authors’ names and page.
[2] Scott and Moleski, 321,
note 22. Polanyi’s essay, “The Metaphysical Reach of Science,” first published
in 1967 in British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science (18: 177-196), is
also available in Michael Polanyi, Society, Economics and Philosophy,
Selected Papers, ed. with an introduction by R. T. Allen (New Brunswick, NJ
and London: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 225-247.
[3] Walter Mead has done a numerical analysis of the
literal and paraphrased elements found in both texts. See his essay forthcoming in Polanyiana, Vol 19:1-2 His analysis also suggests that de-emphasis
on the “necessity of commitment” that Polanyi identifies as a feature of The Tacit Dimension [see p. x in the
1966 edition and pp. xvii-xix in the 2009 edition and the 1964 “Preface” to the
Torchbook edition of Personal Knowledge,
xi] likely actually comes after the Terry Lectures but before the Duke Lectures and is
incorporated in The Tacit Dimension.
[4] See Marjorie Grene, The Knower and the Known (Berkeley: University of CA Press, 1966), 17, 18,
219-220, 241, and 250.
[5] Box 6, Folder 5 in Papers of Michael Polanyi, Special
Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago,
Illinois 60637 U.S.A.
[6] Thanks are also
due to Richard Gelwick, Marty Moleski, Walter Gulick, Walter Mead and Paul
Lewis for help with the project of putting the Duke Lectures on the web.
Duke Lectures of Michael Polanyi
February-March 1964
Lecture files are PDF files.
Lecture 1: “The Metaphysical
Reach of Science”
Lecture 2: “The Structure of
Tacit Knowing”
Lecture 3: “Commitment to
Science”
Lecture 4: “The Emergence of
Man”
Lecture 5: “Thought in Society.”