"The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization"
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Polanyi is trying to rescue science from a tempting caricature: the lone genius, wandering the intellectual wilderness, accountable to no one but “the facts.” His move is slyer and more politically charged than it first appears. He grants scientists their cherished autonomy - “freely making their own choice of problems” - then immediately folds that freedom into a collective structure: a “closely knit organization.” The punchline is that independence and coordination aren’t opposites in real science; they’re the same mechanism viewed from different angles.
The intent is defensive. Writing in a century shadowed by total war, state planning, and ideological “expertise,” Polanyi argues that scientific knowledge can’t be centrally commanded without breaking the very process that produces it. Yet he also refuses the libertarian fantasy that science is just a marketplace of isolated minds. The subtext: science is a self-governing community with norms, gatekeepers, reputations, invisible hierarchies, and shared standards that quietly steer what counts as an important problem. “Personal judgment” isn’t purely personal; it’s trained, socialized, and constantly calibrated against peers.
Why the sentence works is its careful inversion. It reassures the scientist-reader that their autonomy is real, then reveals the hidden choreography beneath it: cooperation without a conductor. Polanyi is sketching a model of “spontaneous order” where coordination emerges from mutual criticism, citation, conferences, and the slow pressure of consensus - a politics of knowledge that looks apolitical only because it’s already institutionalized.
The intent is defensive. Writing in a century shadowed by total war, state planning, and ideological “expertise,” Polanyi argues that scientific knowledge can’t be centrally commanded without breaking the very process that produces it. Yet he also refuses the libertarian fantasy that science is just a marketplace of isolated minds. The subtext: science is a self-governing community with norms, gatekeepers, reputations, invisible hierarchies, and shared standards that quietly steer what counts as an important problem. “Personal judgment” isn’t purely personal; it’s trained, socialized, and constantly calibrated against peers.
Why the sentence works is its careful inversion. It reassures the scientist-reader that their autonomy is real, then reveals the hidden choreography beneath it: cooperation without a conductor. Polanyi is sketching a model of “spontaneous order” where coordination emerges from mutual criticism, citation, conferences, and the slow pressure of consensus - a politics of knowledge that looks apolitical only because it’s already institutionalized.
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| Topic | Science |
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