Michael Polanyi, Amartya Sen (contributor) · 1966 · EPUB · Calibre ID 6096
Resurfaced in The Probe and the Kestrel (2026-10-09).
Role in the triad
Dissenter from outside: attention as from-to integration that runs through the body; agrees with Weil on indirection, contradicts Murdoch on the senses
Why this book
Independent route (chemistry, perception, skill) to the same anti-existentialist demotion of the will; supplies the triad’s mechanism (proximal/distal) and the probe as counter-image to the kestrel.
Quotations
Verified against the book’s own text on the day of the reading.
- “I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell.” (ch. 1, ‘Tacit Knowing’)
- “in an act of tacit knowing we attend from something for attending to something else” (ch. 1)
- “By concentrating attention on his fingers, a pianist can temporarily paralyze his movement.” (ch. 1)
- “Our body is the ultimate instrument of all our external knowledge, whether intellectual or practical.” (ch. 1)
- “Thought can live only on grounds which we adopt in the service of a reality to which we submit.” (Introduction)
Themes
body · commitment · existentialism · indwelling · interiorization · pianist · probe · proximal/distal · tacit knowing