"But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography"
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Polanyi’s barb lands on a temptation scientists know well: if you just zoom in far enough, the whole world will finally explain itself. “Atomic topography” sounds seductively complete, like a map so detailed it becomes reality. Polanyi punctures that fantasy by pointing out that even physics - the discipline most associated with reductionism - can’t be cleanly “defined” from a mere inventory of atoms and their arrangement.
The intent is less anti-physics than anti-naivete. A topography is descriptive: positions, contours, local facts. Definition is conceptual: what counts as an object, a law, a measurement, an explanation. Polanyi is insisting that the move from microscopic description to macroscopic intelligibility requires choices that are not dictated by the atoms themselves. You need categories, boundary conditions, idealizations, and models. You need a scientist’s trained judgment about what matters. That’s the subtext: knowledge is not just accumulated; it’s organized, filtered, and interpreted.
Contextually, this sits squarely in Polanyi’s mid-century campaign against the era’s hardening faith in “objective” procedure - the notion that method could replace the knower. Coming out of the same intellectual weather as cybernetics, logical positivism, and the early computational dream, his line argues for emergence and tacit knowledge before those became fashionable keywords. It works because it’s a reminder disguised as a provocation: the smallest scale doesn’t automatically earn the final word. Even physics depends on meanings we supply, not just particles we list.
The intent is less anti-physics than anti-naivete. A topography is descriptive: positions, contours, local facts. Definition is conceptual: what counts as an object, a law, a measurement, an explanation. Polanyi is insisting that the move from microscopic description to macroscopic intelligibility requires choices that are not dictated by the atoms themselves. You need categories, boundary conditions, idealizations, and models. You need a scientist’s trained judgment about what matters. That’s the subtext: knowledge is not just accumulated; it’s organized, filtered, and interpreted.
Contextually, this sits squarely in Polanyi’s mid-century campaign against the era’s hardening faith in “objective” procedure - the notion that method could replace the knower. Coming out of the same intellectual weather as cybernetics, logical positivism, and the early computational dream, his line argues for emergence and tacit knowledge before those became fashionable keywords. It works because it’s a reminder disguised as a provocation: the smallest scale doesn’t automatically earn the final word. Even physics depends on meanings we supply, not just particles we list.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
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