The Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
Michael
Polanyi
Knowing and Being
Mind, New Series, 70 (280)
October 1961, 458-470.
A FEW years ago a distinguished psychiatrist
demonstrated to his students a patient who was having a mild fit of some kind. Later the class discussed the question whether
this had been an epileptic or a hystero-epileptic
seizure. The matter was finally decided
by the psychiatrist: “Gentlemen”, he said, “you have seen a true epileptic
seizure. I cannot tell you how to
recognize it; you will learn this by more extensive experience.”
Clinical practitioners call the peculiar indescribable
appearance of a pathological condition its facies;
I shall call it a “ physiognomy “, so as to relate it to the delicately
varied expressions of the human face which we can likewise identify without
being able to tell quite how we recognize them. We may describe as a physiognomy also the
peculiar appearance of a species which can be recognized only “aesthetically” [1] and further include among physiognomies the
characteristics of wines and blends of tea which only experts can recognize.
Any effort to define a physiognomy more explicitly
will aim: (1) at identifying its particulars and (2) at describing the relation
between these particulars. I shall
exemplify these two complementary efforts by reference to some comprehensive
entities where the two can be observed separately.
(1) At the time when flying by aeroplane
was first developed, around 1914-18, traces of prehistoric settlements were
discovered from the air in fields over which many generations had walked
without noticing them. Though the aerial
photographs clearly revealed the outlines of the sites, the markings on the
ground which constituted these outlines frequently remained unrecognizable. Such sites are comprehensive entities that are
precisely traceable without mental effort from a distance, while the
identification of their particulars at close quarters presents great
difficulties. The unspecifiability
of particulars is here as complete as it was for a hystero-epileptic
fit, but with the difference that the relation of the unspecifiable
particulars is clearly definable, which it is not in case of a physiognomy.
Usually it is not impossible to identify some
particulars of a comprehensive entity, for example some symptoms of a
clinically diagnosed disease. But in
such cases another limitation of specifiability
becomes apparent, as Gestalt-psychology has amply taught
1
“Aesthetic
recognition” is illustrated by O. F. A. Pantin, Science
Progress, 42 (1954), 412.
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us. Specifiabiity remains incomplete in two ways. First, there is always a residue of
particulars left unspecified; and second, even when particulars can be
identified, isolation changes their appearance to some extent. Seen in isolation a jumping cat may appear to
change its colour from white to dark grey, but when a
window is included in the field of vision the cat is seen unchangingly the same
white or grey. It has happened in
Lancashire that a customer who ordered a shirting of green stripes on a white
ground refused delivery, for he found the ground was purple. Since the colour of
any patch of a surface varies with the context in which it is placed, coloured patterns are not specifiable in terms of their
isolated particulars. The “red patch”
generally used as a paradigm of a primary sense datum can never be
unambiguously identified as such.
(2) Now for the reverse effort which aims at
specifying the relations of particulars within a comprehensive entity. It is conspicuous in the case of topographic
anatomy. We can easily identify the
several organs, including blood vessels and nerve tracts in the human body
(which is the task of systematic anatomy), but their mutual relation inside the
body can be grasped only by a sustained effort of the imagination, based on the
partial aspects revealed by successive stages of dissection. Similar difficulties have to be overcome in
achieving an understanding of a geological topography and of the spatial
relation of the component parts of a complex machine. Even the regular structure of crystals may
present such problems. In 1923 H. Mark
and I established the atomic structure of white tin. Shortly after that we had a visit by Professor
van Arkel from Holland who claimed to have
established an entirely different structure. Eventually, it transpired that this structure
had the same arrangement of atoms as ours, but that he had described it along
lines forming an angle of 45° to those along which we had seen it. This trivial difference in viewing the atomic
arrangement had rendered it mutually unrecognizable to both parties, simply
because we lacked a sufficient understanding of the relationships involved in
the atomic arrangement. To this extent
any complex spatial arrangement of opaque objects is unspecifiable.
We can see then two complementary efforts aiming at
the elucidation of a comprehensive entity. One proceeds from a
recognition of a whole towards an identification of its particulacs, the other from the recognition of a group of
presumed particulars towards the grasping of their relation in the whole.
I have called these two efforts complementary since
they contribute jointly to the same final achievement, yet it is also true
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that each counteracts the other to some extent
at every consecutive step. Every time we
concentrate our attention on the particulars of a comprehensive entity, our
sense of its coherent existence is temporarily weakened; and every time we move
in the opposite direction towards a fuller awareness of the whole, the
particulars tend to become submerged in the whole. The concerted advantage of the two processes
arises from the fact that normally every dismemberment of a whole adds more to
its understanding than is lost through the concurrent weakening of its
comprehensive features, and again each new integration of the particulars adds
more to our understanding of them than it damages our understanding by somewhat
effacing their identity. Thus an
alteration of analysis and integration leads progressively to an ever deeper
understanding of a comprehensive entity.
Medicine offers readily an illustration of what I have
in mind here. A medical student deepens
his knowledge of a disease by learning a list of its symptoms with all their
variations, but only clinical practice can teach him to integrate the clues
observed on an individual patient to form a correct diagnosis of his illness,
rather than an erroneous diagnosis which is often more plausible.
There is a close analogy between the elucidation of
a comprehensive object and the mastering of a skill. A skill too is improved by alternate
dismemberment and integration. Sportsmen
like skaters, skiers, runners, swimmers; artists like dancers, pianists, or painters ; skilled craftsmen and
practitioners, all profit from motion-studies, followed by a skilful
incorporation of the isolated motions into a complete performance.
Moreover, there are limits to the specifiability
of skills and these are analogous to those which apply to the specification of
physiognomies and other comprehensive entities. The analysis of a skilful feat in terms of its
constituent motions remains always incomplete. There are notorious cases, like the
distinctive “touch” of a pianist, in which the analysis of a skill has long
been debated inconclusively; and common experience shows that no skill can be
acquired by learning its constituent motions separately. Moreover, here too isolation modifies the
particulars: their dynamic quality is lost. Indeed, the identification of the constituent
motions of a skill tends to paralyse its performance.
Only by turning our attention away from
the particulars and towards their joint purpose, can we restore in the isolated
motions the qualities required for achieving their purpose. Again, as in the case of knowing a
physiognomy, this act of integration is itself unspecifiable.
Imitation offers guidance to it, but in
the last resort we must rely on discovering for ourselves the right
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feel of a skilful feat. We alone can catch the knack of it; no teacher
can do this for us.
The structural kinship of the arts of knowing and
doing is indeed such that they are rarely exercised in isolation; we usually
meet a blend of the two. Medical
diagnosis combines them about equally. To
percuss a lung is as much a muscular feat as a
delicate discrimination of the sounds thus elicited. The palpation of a spleen or a kidney combines
a skilful kneading of the region with a trained sense for the peculiar feeling
of the organ’s resistance. It is
apposite therefore to include skilful feats among comprehensive entities. Though we may prefer to speak of understanding
a comprehensive object or situation and of mastering a skill, we do
use the two words nearly as synonyms. Actually, we speak equally of grasping a
subject or an art.
A peculiar combination of skilful doing and knowing is
present in the working of our sense organs. I have mentioned before the interaction of all
parts of the visual field in determining what we see. But it is our own active adjustment of our
pupils and lenses and of the convergence of our eyes, that fashion the two
retinal images on which this picture is based; and the perceived picture
depends on these actions once more as the messages received from the muscles
adjusting the eyes are incorporated by us in the qualities of the perceived
object. Nor is this all; our perception
is effectively co-determined also by messages from the internal ear, from the
muscles which keep our body and head in its position, as well as by an ample
range of memories. These internal data
both guide the reflexes of our eye-muscles in shaping our retinal images, and
control our evaluation in terms of perceptions of the sum total of relevant
stimuli. There is also clear evidence to
show that - as might be expected in the case of a skill - the capacity to see
objects is acquired by training.
Visual perception does present, therefore, the main
characteristics of a combined skilful doing and knowing. But there is also something
new here, namely the fact that a major part of the particulars shaping the
sight of an external object are internal actions and stimuli. Though our eye-muscles are subject to
intentional control and we might even be dimly aware of a strain in them, such
internal particulars are never clearly observable in themselves. And this unspecifiability
is not of the same kind as found in the traces of a site which can only be seen
jointly from the air; for the particulars of perception (other than smell and
taste) have the distinctive peculiarity of being projected from the interior of
the body into the space outside it.
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A similar projection takes place in the use of tools
and probes, and the process can be studied here more easily, since the stimuli
that are projected here can be fairly well observed in themselves. The relevant facts are well known. The rower puffing an oar feels the resistance
of the water; when using a paper-knife we feel the blade cutting the pages. The actual impact of the tool on our palm and
fingers is unspecifiable in the same sense in which
the muscular acts composing a skilful performance are unspecifiable;
we are aware of them in terms of the tool’s action on its object,
that is in the comprehensive entity into which we integrate them. But the impacts of a tool on our hands are
integrated in a way similar to that by which internal stimuli are integrated to
form our perceptions: the integrated stimuli are noticed at a distance removed
outward from the point where they impinge on us. In this sense impacts of a tool on our hands
function as internal stimuli, and a tool functions accordingly as an extension
of our hands. The same is true of a
probe used for exploring a cavity, or for a stick by which a blind man feels
his way. The impact made by a probe or
stick on our fingers is felt at the tip of the probe or stick, where it hits on
objects outside, and in this sense the probe or stick is an extension of our
fingers that grasp it.
The assimilation of a tool, a stick or a probe to our
body is achieved gradually, as its proper use is being learned and perfected. The more fully we master the use of an
instrument, the more precisely and discriminatingly will we localize at the farther
end of it the stimuli impinging on our body while grasping and handling the
instrument. This corresponds to the way
we learn skillfully to use our eyes to see external objects.
We have now established analogous structures in
several processes of knowing: namely, (1) the understanding of physiognomies,
(2) the performance of skills, (3) the proper use of sensory organs, and (4)
the mastery of tools and probes. In
order to deal jointly with this whole family we need a general terminology for
indicating the relation of a set of particulars to a comprehensive entity. The essential feature is throughout the fact
that particulars can be noticed in two different ways. We can be aware of them uncomprehendingly,
i.e. in themselves; or understandingly, in their participation in a
comprehensive entity. In the first case
we focus our attention on the isolated particulars, in the second our attention
is directed beyond them to the entity to which they contribute. In the first case therefore we may say that we
are aware of the particulars focally, in the second, that we notice them
subsidiarily in terms of their participation‘in a whole.
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These alternatives do not necessarily involve any
change in the degree of attention given to the particulars. When, after having first looked
uncomprehendingly at the symptoms of a patient, we hit on the diagnosis of his
illness, his symptoms become meaningful without becoming less noticeable. Focal and subsidiary awareness are definitely not
two degrees of attention but two kinds of attention given to the same
particulars. In the case of visual
attention we may speak of looking at the particulars in themselves, as
distinct from seeing them while looking at the context of which they
form part. But “seeing” and “looking at”
cannot be generally used instead of subsidiary and focal noticing.
We can formulate this difference in terms of meaning.
When we focus on a set of
particulars uncomprehendingly, they are relatively meaningless, compared with
their significance when noticed subsidiarily within
the comprehensive entity to which they contribute. As a result we have two kinds of meaning: one
exemplified by the particulars of a physiognomy, where the two things,
namely (a) the isolated particulars and (b) what they jointly
mean, are not clearly separated in space; and the other, exemplified by
visual perception and the use of tools and probes, where the uncomprehended particulars are inside our body or at its
surface, and what they mean extends into space outside. It may sometimes prove convenient to call the
first kind of meaning physiognostic and
the second telegnostie.
Our examples of unspecifiability
can now be recapitulated in these terms. When a prehistoric site is discovered from the
air we see the meaning of particulars which we cannot see in themselves.
On the other hand, the study of
topographic anatomy starts by seeing particulars in themselves
uncomprehendingly, and then proceeds to realize their spatial relation, which
represents their meaning, in the present sense of the term, e.g. to a
surgeon. In the first case unspecifiability impedes the analysis of a given meaning, in the second case it restricts the
discovery of an unknown meaning. In
either case the alternation of analysis and integration progressively deepens
both our insight into the meaning of a comprehensive entity in terms of its
particulars and the meaning of these particulars in terms of their joint
significance. When applied to the
performance of a skill, this alternation renders our muscular actions ever better
adjusted to their joint purpose.
We possess a supremely important system of telegnostic mean -ing in the
denotative meaning of words. A man’s
name, by itself a meaningless sound, acquires a meaning by being consistently
used as a pointer to the person whom it designates; exactly
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as the knocking of objects by a stick acquires
a meaning as we learn to use the stick skillfully for feeling our way in the
dark. The use of general denotative
terms involves the establishment of a physiognostic
meaning, namely the joint meaning of all the instances to which the general
term is intended to refer. We meet
meanings of analogous structure in the mastery of a skill, in the
resourcefulness with which a master handles every new and unprecedented
situation.
General conceptions claim a kind of foreknowledge
which, though never quite absent from the act of knowing, is more marked in
this case than in any other surveyed so far. This offers a convenient transition to the
process of discovery in which foreknowledge will be seen manifested even more
effectively. I shall lead on to this fact by showing first that all manner of
discovery proceeds by a see-saw of analysis and integration similar to that by
which our understanding of a comprehensive entity is progressively deepened. The two complementary movements are here a
search for the joint meaning of a set of particulars, alternating with a search
for the specification of their hitherto uncomprehended
meaning in terms of yet unknown particulars.
The process of empirical induction may appear to
present only the first of these two movements, since it proceeds from the
observation of particulars to the discovery of their relations fixed by
universal laws. But actually both
movements are involved, for advances towards generalization do alternate with
verification. The process of inductive
discovery is in fact an oscillation between movements of analysis and
integration in which, on balance, integration predominates.
Physics is largely based on such integrative
discoveries, but in the progress of biology it is mostly analysis that leads
the way. Discoveries aiming at a better
understanding of living beings accept for their starting point the existence of
plants and animals as complex entities, and usually proceed to analyse these in terms of their organs and the functions of
their organs, which are analysed in their turn in
terms of physics and chemistry. In biology
these particulars are specified as means to an end and this applies also to the
physical and chemical study of living beings. Physico-chemical
processes may enable plants and animals to function well or else may disturb
their functions, and they form the subject matter of biology only in so far as
they have a bearing on life in one of these two ways.
But biological analysis alternates of course with
integration and this may even predominate. New comprehensive entities
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may be established in the manner in which
Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, partly by the observation of
valves in veins, or when the process of evolution was established partly from palaeozoic data.
We must remember also that great advances have been
achieved in physics by pure deduction whenever surprising implications of
accepted theories were discovered. Indeed,
to an important degree all discovery is deductive. For no enquiry can succeed unless it starts
from a true, or at least partly true, conception of the nature of things. Such foreknowledge is indispensable and all discovery is but a step towards the verification of such
foreknowledge.
The structural analogy between knowledge and skill
allows us to expand our perspective from discovery to invention. Foreknowledge which guides discovery has its
counterpart in the purpose which guides the invention of a skill, or of a new
practical device. The most precious gift
of the inventor is his capacity to conceive a practical purpose which might
prove feasible. This is mostly the sole
inventive function of a research director, who entrusts to his assistants the
solution of the general problems set, or approved, by him. Agog with his problem, the inventor speculates
on the possibilities offered by the field of experience, and by his sustained
efforts to solve his problem brings about the emergence of its solution. Such is the heuristic power of a practicable
problem. It has been beautifully
described on an elementary level by Koehler for chimpanzees. He shows how a desire pondered upon by the
animal evokes a re-organization of its field of vision, revealing to it both
the instrument and the procedure for satisfying its desire. This is also how skills are required and
perfected; this how we learn to use tools or probes; and how we improve our
powers of sensory perception. We may add
that this is likewise the basic mechanism for solving a mathematical problem. The solution of a problem in mathematics is
discovered by casting around with a view to filling the gaps left open in a
situation which constitutes a solvable problem - exactly as a practical problem
is solved by an invention.
We can lend greater precision now to what has been
said earlier about the way induction is guided by our general conception of the
nature of things. Successful induction
can be conducted only in the light of a genuine problem. An inductive problem is an intimation of coherence
among hitherto uncomprehended particulars and the
problem is genuine to the extent to which this intimation is true. Such a surmise vaguely anticipates
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the evidence which will support it and guides
the mind engrossed by it to the discovery of this evidence. This usually proceeds
stepwise, the original problem and surmise being modified and corrected by each
new piece of evidence; a process which is repeated until eventually some
generalization is accepted as final.
To hit upon a problem is the first step to any
discovery and indeed to any creative act. To see a problem is to see something hidden
that may yet be accessible. The
knowledge of a problem is, therefore, like the knowing of unspecifiables,
a knowing of more than you can tell. But our awareness of unspecifiable
things, whether of particulars or of the coherence of particulars, is
intensified here to an exciting intimation of their hidden presence. It is an engrossing possession of incipient
knowledge which passionately strives to validate itself. Such is the heuristic power of a problem.
But we may yet say that what is usually called
knowledge is structurally similar to the knowledge of a problem. Knowledge is an activity which would be better
described as a process of knowing. Indeed,
as the scientist goes on enquiring into yet uncomprehended
experiences, so do those who accept his discoveries as established knowledge
keep applying this to ever changing situations, and to develop it each time a
step further. Research is an intensely
dynamic enquiring, while knowledge is a more quiet research. Both are ever on the move according to similar
principles towards a deeper understanding of what is already known.
A theory of knowledge must be applicable to both kinds
of knowing. Its function must be to
justify our reliance on our knowing (whether dynamic or quiet) in spite of its unspeciflable contents. I shall outline this matter by using as my
example the recognition of a disease by its physiognomy, which will have also
to stand for all the other cases of knowing already surveyed.
The knowing of a disease is doubly unspecifiable.
(1) We cannot identify, let alone
describe, a great number of the particulars which we are in fact noticing when
we diagnose a case of the disease. (2)
Though we can identify a case of the disease by its typical appearance, we
cannot describe it adequately, and there are four closely related reasons for
this. (a) We are ignorant (according to 1) of the unspecifiable
particulars which would enter into the description. (b) The relation
between the particulars - even if they could all be identified - could be
described only in vague terms which the expert alone would understand. (c) Our identification of a disease in
any one instance comprehends
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unspecifiably as its
particulars the whole range of cases which, in spite of their individual
differences, we have identified in the past, and (d) it relies on this
comprehension for the future identification of an unlimited number of further
cases which might differ from those known before in an infinite variety of
unexpected ways. This is its heuristic
function.
How can we justify such knowing? Clearly not in terms of its unspecifiable contents ranging over (1) and (2), (a), (b),
(c), (d). Any
justification of it must credit ourselves with unformalizable
powers of the kind that Kant acknowledged with reference to subsumptions
of the type (2c) or (2d), by calling these powers “an art hidden in the depth
of the human soul”. We must accredit in
particular our competence for comprehending unspecifiable
entities, which will yet reveal themselves in the future in an unlimited number
of unexpected ways.
This may seem absurd. To claim that we can know the unexpected may
appear self-contradictory. It would
indeed be self-contradictory if knowing included a capacity to specify what we
know. But if all knowledge is
fundamentally tacit, as it is if it rests on our subsidiary awareness of
particulars in terms of a comprehensive entity, then our knowledge may include
far more than we can tell. The true
meaning of the heliocentric system was discovered only by Newton, but it was
anticipated 140 years earlier by Copernicus.
We can account for this capacity of ours to know more
than we can tell if we believe in the presence of an external reality with
which we can establish contact. This I
do. I declare myself committed to the
belief in an external reality gradually accessible to knowing, and I regard all
true understanding as an intimation of such a reality which, being real, may yet reveal itself to our deepened understanding in
an indefinite range of unexpected manifestations. I accept the obligation to search for the
truth through my own intimations of reality, knowing that there is, and can be,
no strict rule by which my conclusions can be justified. My reference to reality legitimates my acts of
unspecifiable knowing, even while it duly keeps the
exercise of such acts within the bounds of a rational objectivity. For a claim to have made contact with reality
necessarily legislates both for myself and others with universal intent.
I must admit that I can fulfil
my obligation to serve the truth only to the extent of my natural abilities as
developed by my education. No one can
transcend his formative milieu very far and beyond this area he must rely on it
uncritically. I consider that this
matrix of my thought determines my personal calling.
467
It both offers me my opportunity for seeking the truth, and limits my
responsibility for arriving at my own conclusions.
This conception of knowledge as personal knowing
departs in two closely related respects from the ideal of a strictly
justifiable knowledge. It accredits
man’s capacity to aquire knowledge even though he
cannot specify the grounds of his knowing, and it accepts the fact that his
knowing is exercised within an accidentally given framework that is largely unspecifiable. These
two acceptances are correlated within the effort of integration which achieves
knowing. For this effort subsidiarily relies on the one hand on stimuli coming from
outside, from all parts of our body and from tools or instruments assimilated
to our body, and on the other hand on a wide range of linguistic pointers which
bring to bear our pre-conceptions - based on past experiences - on the
interpretation of our subject matter. The
structure of knowing, revealed by the limits of specifiability,
thus fuses our subsidiary awareness of the particulars belonging to our subject
matter, with the cultural background of our knowing.
To this extent knowing is an indwelling: that is, a
utilization of a framework for unfolding our understanding in accordance with
the indications and standards imposed by the framework. But any particular indwelling is a particular
form of mental existence. If an act of
knowing affects our choice between alternative frameworks, or modifies the
framework in which we dwell, it involves a change in our way of being. Since such existential choices would be
included in an act of knowing, they could be exercised competently, with
universal intent. Nor do similar
existential changes, undergone passively, impair the rationality of our
personal judgment. They merely affect
our calling. For while they modify our
opportunities for seeking the truth, they still leave us free to reach our own
conclusions within the limits granted by these opportunities. All thought is incarnate; it lives by the body
and by the favour of society. But it is not thought unless it strives for
truth, which leaves it free to act on its own responsibility, with universal
intent.
We have found that our subsidiary awareness of the
particulars of a comprehensive entity is fused, in our knowing of the entity,
with our subsidiary awareness of our own bodily and cultural being. Let me now attend to the effect exercised by
the subsidiary character of these particulars on the kind of being that we
ascribe to the entity known through them.
When we watch a man’s face and try to fathom his
thoughts we do not examine his several features in isolation, but view them
jointly as parts of his physiognomy. Thus we are aware
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of far more particulars, and relations between
particulars, than we could specify. Moreover,
even the particulars which we could identify would lose their meaning when seen
in isolation and would get lost among the irrelevant details of their
surroundings. It is generally
impossible, therefore, to keep track of a man’s mental manifestations, except
by watching them as pointers to the mind from which they originate. This is analogously true of any aggregate of unspecifiable particulars forming a comprehensive entity. But it is more pronounced in the traces of a
human mind than it is, say, in the traces of a prehistoric site, because a
human mind is actively at work in its own traces.
To show this I must go back to glance at the lower
levels of life. The moment we identify a
plant or animal we attribute an achievement to it. For we recognize it by its typical shape,
which it has achieved by growing up healthily. At the same time we will notice any
imperfections of its shape. Thus even when considering merely their shapes, living beings can
be identified only in terms that attribute success or failure to them as
individuals. On this morphological
level the centre of individuality is comparatively weak. But the manifestations of this centre become
steadily more accentuated as we successively ascend first to the vegetative
level of physiological functions, then to active, sentient and appetitive behaviour, thence to the level of intelligence and inventiveness,
finally reaching the level of the responsible human person. Each time we identify the existence of an
individual at one of these levels we thereby attribute to it a measure of
success or failure. The moment we
recognize a human being we attribute to him a measure of active, responsible
intelligence. We know a normal human
being as a person, and the particulars of his physiognomy gain a vivid
significance by being known in terms of this person.
At whatever level we consider a living being, the centre
of its individuality is real. For it is
always something we ascertain by comprehending the coherence of largely unspecifiable particulars, and which we yet expect to reveal
itself further by an indeterminate range of future manifestations. Thus the criteria of reality are fulfilled. The human mind in particular is real in this
sense, and indeed more real than the lower centres of individuality. For an intelligent person’s mind is expected
to reveal itself over a far wider range of indeterminate manifestations, than
the lower centres which control his growth or appetitive action.
The progression from lower to higher levels of
individuality involves a fundamental change in the relation between the
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observed individual and ourselves as
observers. When comprehending the lower
levels of life in an individual, we ascribe success or failure to it by
standards which we deem appropriate to its kind. Throughout the usual compass of biology, we
find this relation between the observer and his subject: he is always critical
of it. But as our study, ascending to
higher levels, reaches that of man, criticism becomes mutual; the subject of
our study now criticizes us, just as we criticize it. Nor is this the end of the progression: our
subject may ascend still further and become our master. We then become apprenticed to our subject and
learn to accept its criticism of ourselves.
We arrive here at a process of education that, as
such, is akin to the acceptance of our calling and which indeed, forms part of
it. For our cultural background is
determined to a considerable extent by the influence of a limited number of
men. Primitive cultures are transmitted
orally by a few authoritative persons in each succeeding generation. Our modern, highly articulate culture flows largely
from a small set of men whose works and deeds are revered and consulted for
guidance. The knowing of these great men
is an indwelling in the sense already defined. Our awareness of their works and deeds serves
us (to repeat my definition) as a framework for unfolding our understanding in
accordance with the indications and standards imposed by the framework.
This progressive transition is no mere sleight of
hand; it is firmly grounded in the co-extension of knowing and being. We can see this by descending gradually from
our educational dwelling in the works of great men to the biological study of
plants and animals at lower levels. At
no stage do we cease to participate in the life of the individual under
observation. For we comprehend a living
being at all levels by our subsidiary awareness of its particulars. These particulars are never observed in
themselves; we read them as manifestations of an individual. We rely on them as pointers, as we rely on a
probe or a written text, by making them parts of ourselves for reaching beyond
them. Thus our understanding of living
beings involves at all levels a measure of indwelling; our interest in life is
always convivial. There is no break
therefore in passing from biology to the acceptance of our cultural calling in
which we share the life of a human society, including the life of its
ancestors, the authors of our cultural heritage.
University of Oxford
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The Competitiveness of Nations
in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
April 2005