Rethinking What It Means to Know
Imagine trying to explain to someone how to ride a bicycle. You might describe the mechanics: balance, pedaling, steering. But no matter how detailed your explanation, they won’t truly grasp it until they get on the bike, wobble, and eventually find their rhythm.
This everyday experience points to something profound: there are things we know, but we struggle to put into words. Philosopher and scientist Michael Polanyi dedicated his life to exploring this idea, culminating in his masterpiece, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958). His key insight? All knowledge is personal.
In a world obsessed with objectivity and data-driven certainty, Polanyi’s work is a powerful reminder that knowing is not just about cold, hard facts, but about intuition, experience, and the deep, often unspoken connection between ourselves and what we understand.
Tacit Knowledge
Polanyi’s most famous concept is tacit knowledge. This is the kind of knowledge that is difficult—sometimes impossible—to articulate but is absolutely crucial to expertise and understanding.
Think about:
A skilled chess player who intuitively sees a brilliant move but can’t immediately explain why.
A master surgeon who makes a critical decision in an instant without consciously analyzing all the data.
A musician who feels when a note is out of place but may struggle to verbalize what exactly is wrong.
Polanyi argues that knowledge is not just about explicit information (like reading a manual) but also about the personal, embodied, and intuitive aspects of knowing. And yet, modern thinking has often ignored this dimension in favor of pure objectivity.
Is Objectivity an Illusion?
For centuries, Western philosophy has been driven by a “critical” tradition, aiming for absolute objectivity. The idea has been that true knowledge should be detached, rational, and free of personal bias.
Polanyi rejects this view. He argues that no knowledge is ever truly objective because:
All knowledge requires personal commitment – Even in science, researchers must believe in their theories before they are fully proven.
We always rely on unspoken frameworks – The way we interpret facts is shaped by prior experience, cultural context, and personal intuition.
Scientific discovery is not purely logical – The greatest breakthroughs, from Newton’s gravity to Einstein’s relativity, emerged not from strict logic but from a deep, intuitive sense of truth.
In Polanyi’s view, this means that certainty is not the gold standard of knowledge—trust is—that we must recognize that even the most rigorous scientific work involves personal judgment and interpretation.
Subsidiary and Focal Awareness
To understand how we integrate knowledge, Polanyi introduces the concepts of subsidiary awareness and focal awareness.
Subsidiary awareness is what we know but don’t focus on directly. For example, when typing on a keyboard, we don’t consciously think about the movement of each finger.
Focal awareness is where our attention is directed—like the words appearing on the screen as we type.
The two work together: we rely on tacit knowledge (subsidiary awareness) to make sense of explicit knowledge (focal awareness). Meaning emerges only when we integrate these layers of understanding.
This principle applies to everything from learning a language to becoming a skilled athlete. It explains why experience and practice matter so much: we are training our tacit knowledge.
Science as Human Endeavor
Polanyi’s views have major implications for how we think about science. Traditional perspectives often portray science as a purely objective pursuit, but he argues that scientific knowledge is deeply personal.
Many of the greatest scientific discoveries did not emerge from pure logic but from intuition and personal conviction. Scientists often sense the truth of an idea before they have full proof. This process—where belief precedes verification—is something Polanyi sees as essential to knowledge itself.
For instance:
Einstein’s theory of relativity began as a deeply personal insight, not just a set of equations.
The structure of DNA was revealed through an intuitive leap by Watson and Crick, before all the data were in.
The best scientists are often those who trust their instincts even when the evidence is incomplete.
Far from being a rigid system of rules, science is an art—an act of discovery that requires faith in one’s own insights.
Knowledge as Faith
Polanyi introduces the idea of the fiduciary program, where he argues that all knowledge involves some degree of faith. We trust in certain fundamental beliefs—about logic, about reality, about meaning—before we even begin the process of knowing.
This applies not only to science but also to ethics, art, and spirituality. The rigid demand for absolute certainty in modern thought is misguided because real knowledge requires a leap of faith.
Think about it:
When we accept a scientific theory, we are trusting in the expertise of scientists.
When we read a book, we trust in the author’s words before we fully understand their meaning.
When we learn a new skill, we must believe in the process before we master it.
Polanyi challenges us to embrace this trust—not as a weakness, but as an essential part of human knowing.
Indeed, in an era dominated by data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, Polanyi’s insights may be more relevant than ever. We often assume that the more information we gather, the closer we get to the truth. But Polanyi reminds us that knowledge is not just about information—it’s about meaning.
AI can process data, but can it know something the way a human does?
Big Data can predict trends, but can it understand the why behind them?
Science can measure reality, but can it capture the full depth of human experience?
Polanyi’s work forces us to rethink these questions. It invites us to recognize the value of intuition, the necessity of trust, and the deeply personal nature of knowledge itself.
Embracing a Post-Critical Mindset
So, what does Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge mean for us today? It means:
Recognizing that knowledge is not just facts, but personal commitment.
Valuing intuition and experience alongside logic.
Understanding that all learning involves trust—whether in science, art, or philosophy.
Polanyi’s message is clear: we must move beyond the illusion of pure objectivity and embrace the richness of personal knowing. Because, in the end, the most important truths in life are often the ones we know but cannot fully explain.