The Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
Michael
Polanyi
The
|
Content
Spontaneous
Coordination of Independent Initiatives
Market
as Co-ordination by Mutual Adjustment
Standards
of Professional Merit
Extrarterritoriality of Academic Science HHC: titles and added |
Minerva
Volume
1: 1962 , 54-74
Web copy adapted from
The
Polanyi Society
http://www.mwsc.edu/orgs/polanyi/.html
My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is
organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works
according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of
material goods is regulated. Much of
what I will have to say will be common knowledge among scientists, but I
believe that it will recast the subject from a novel point of view which can
both profit from and have a lesson for political and economic theory. For in the free cooperation of independent
scientists we shall find a highly simplified model of a free society, which
presents in isolation certain basic features of it that are more difficult to
identify within the comprehensive functions of a national body.
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. The point can be settled by considering the
opposite case where individuals are engaged in a joint task without being in
any way co-ordinated. A group of women shelling peas work at the
same task, but their individual efforts are not co-ordinated.
The same is true of a team of chess
players. This is shown by the fact that
the total amount of peas shelled and the total number of games won will not be
affected if the members of the group are isolated from each other. Consider by contrast the effect which a
complete isolation of scientists would have on the progress of science. Each scientist would go on for a while
developing problems derived from the information initially available to all. But these problems would soon be exhausted,
and in the absence of further information about the results achieved by others,
new problems of any value would cease to arise, and scientific progress would
come to a standstill.
This shows that the activities of scientists are in fact coordinated,
and it also reveals the principle of their co-ordination. This consists in the adjustment of the efforts
of each to the hitherto achieved results of the others. We may call this a
coordination by mutual adjustment of independent initiatives - of
initiatives which are co-ordinated because each takes
into account all the other initiap by
engaging a number of helpers; the question is in what manner these could be
best employed. Suppose we share out the
pieces of the jigsaw puzzle equally among the helpers and let each of them work
on his lot separately. It is easy to see
that this method, which would be quite appropriate to a number of women
shelling peas, would be totally ineffectual in this case, since few of the
pieces allocated to one particular assistant would be found to fit together. We could do a little better by providing
duplicates of all the pieces to each helper separately,
and eventually somehow bring together their several results. But even by this method the team would not
much surpass the performance of a single individual at his best. The only way the assistants can effectively
co-operate, and surpass by far what any single one of them could do, is to 1et
them work on putting the puzzle together in sight of the others so that every
time a piece of it is fitted in by one helper, all the others will immediately
watch out for the next step that becomes possible in consequence. Under this system, each helper will act on his
own initiative, by responding to the latest achievements the others, and the
completion of their joint task will be great accelerated. We have here in a nutshell the way in which a
series of independent initiatives are organized to a joint achievement by
mutually adjusting themselves at every successive stage to the situation
created by all the others who are acting likewise.
Such self-co-ordination of independent initiatives leads to a joint
result which is unpremeditated by any of those who bring it about. Their co-ordination is guided as by ‘an
invisible hand’ towards the joint discovery of a hidden system of things. Since its end-result is unknown, this kind of
co-operation can only advance stepwise, and the total performance will be the
best possible if each consecutive step is decided upon by the person most
competent to do so. We may imagine this
condition to be fulfilled for the fitting together of a jigsaw puzzle if each
helper watches out for any new opportunities arising along a particular section
of the hitherto completed patch of the puzzle, and also keeps an eye on a
particular lot of pieces, so as to fit them in wherever a chance presents
itself. The effectiveness of a group of
helpers will then exceed that of any isolated member, to the extent to which
some member of the group will always discover a new chance for adding a piece
to the puzzle more quickly than any one isolated person could have done by
himself.
Any attempt to organize the group of helpers under a single authority
would eliminate their independent initiatives and thus reduce their joint
effectiveness to that of the single person directing them from the centre. It would, in effect, paralyse
their cooperation.
Essentially the same is true for the advancement of science by
independent initiatives adjusting themselves consecutively to the results
achieved by all the others. So long as
each scientist keeps making the best contribution of which he is capable, and
on which no one could improve (except by abandoning the problem of his own
choice and thus causing an overall loss to the advancement of science), we may
affirm that the pursuit of science by independent self-co-ordinated
initiatives assures the most efficient possible organization of scientific
progress. And we may add, again, that
any authority which would undertake to direct the work of the scientist
centrally would bring the progress of science virtually to a standstill.
Market as Co-ordination by Mutual Adjustment
What I have said here about the highest possible co-ordination of
individual scientific efforts by a process of self-co-ordination may recall the
self-co-ordination achieved by producers and consumers operating in a market. It was, indeed, with this in mind that I spoke
of ‘the invisible hand’ guiding the co-ordination of independent initiatives to
a maximum advancement of science, just as Adam Smith invoked ‘the invisible
hand’ to describe the achievement of greatest joint material satisfaction when
independent producers and consumers are guided by the prices of goods in a
market. I am suggesting, in fact, that
the co-ordinating functions of the market are but a
special case of co-ordination by mutual adjustment. In the case of science, adjustment takes place
by taking note of the published results of other scientists; while in the case
of the market, mutual adjustment is mediated by a system of prices broadcasting
current exchange relations, which make supply meet demand.
But the system of prices ruling the market not only transmits
information in the light of which economic agents can mutually adjust their actions, it also provides them with an incentive to exercise
economy in terms of money. We shall see
that, by contrast, the scientist responding directly to the intellectual
situation created by the published results of other scientists is motivated by
current professional standards.
Yet in a wider sense of the term, the decisions of a scientist choosing
a problem and pursuing it to the exclusion of other possible avenues of inquiry
may be said to have an economic character. For his decisions are designed to produce the
highest possible result by the use of a limited stock of intellectual and
material resources. The scientist
fulfils this purpose by choosing a problem that is neither too hard nor too
easy for him. For to apply himself to a
problem that does not tax his faculties to the full is to waste some of his
faculties; while to attack a problem that is too hard for him would waste his
faculties altogether. The psychologist
K. Lewin has observed that one’s person never becomes
fully involved either in a problem that is much too hard, nor in one that is
much too easy. The line the scientist
must choose turns out, therefore, to be that of greatest ego-involvement; it is
the line of greatest excitement, sustaining the most intense attention and
effort of thought. The choice will be
conditioned to some extent by the resources available to the scientist in terms
of materials and assistants, but he will be ill-advised to choose his, problem
with a view to guaranteeing that none of these resource
be wasted. He should not hesitate to
incur such a loss, if it leads him to deeper and more important problems.
Standards of Professional Merit
This is where professional standards enter into the scientist’s
motivation. He assesses the depth of a
problem and the importance of its prospective solution primarily by the
standards of scientific merit accepted by the scientific community - though his
own work may demand these standards to be modified. Scientific merit depends on a number of
criteria which I shall enumerate here under three headings. These criteria are not altogether independent
of each other, but I cannot analyse here their mutual
relationship.
(1) The first criterion that a contribution to science must fulfil in order to be accepted is a sufficient degree of
plausibility. Scientific publications
are continuously beset by cranks, frauds and bunglers whose contributions must
be rejected if journals are not to be swamped by them. This censorship will not only eliminate
obvious absurdities but must often refuse publication merely because the
conclusions of a paper appear to be unsound in the light of current scientific
knowledge. It is indeed difficult even
to start an experimental inquiry if its problem is considered scientifically
unsound. Few laboratories would accept
today a student of extrasensory perception, and even a project for testing once
more the hereditary transmission of acquired characters would be severely
discouraged from the start. Besides,
even when all these obstacles have been overcome, and a paper has come out
signed by an author of high distinction in science, it may be totally
disregarded, simply for the reason that its results conflict sharply with the
current scientific opinion about the nature of things.
I shall illustrate this by an example which I have used elsewhere. [1] A
series of simple experiments were published in June 1947 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society by Lord
Rayleigh - a distinguished Fellow of the Society - purporting
to show that hydrogen atoms striking a metal wire transmit to it energies up to
a hundred electron volts. This, if true,
would have been far more revolutionary than the discovery of atomic fission by
Otto Hahn. Yet, when I asked physicists
what they thought about it, they only shrugged their shoulders. They could not find fault with the experiment
yet not one believed in its results, nor thought it worth while to repeat it. They just ignored it. A possible explanation of Lord Rayleigh’s experiments is given in my Personal Knowledge.[2] It appears that the physicists missed nothing
by disregarding these findings.
(2) The second criterion by which the merit of a contribution is
assessed may be described as its scientific value, a value that is composed of
the following three coefficients: (a) its accuracy (b) its systematic
importance, (c) the intrinsic interest of its subject-matter. You can see these three gradings
entering jointly into the value of a paper in physics compared with one in
biology. The inanimate things studied by
physics are much less interesting than the living beings which are the subject
of biology. But physics makes up by its
great accuracy and wide theoretical scope for the dullness of its subject,
while biology compensates for its lack of accuracy and theoretical beauty by
its exciting matter.
(3) A contribution of sufficient plausibility and of a given scientific
value may yet vary in respect of its originality; this is the third criterion
of scientific merit. The originality of
technical inventions is assessed, for the purpose of claiming a patent, in
terms of the degree of surprise which the invention would cause among those
familiar with the art. Similarly, the
originality of a discovery is assessed by the degree of surprise which its
communication should arouse among scientists. The unexpectedness of a discovery will overlap
with its systematic importance, yet the surprise caused by a discovery, which
causes us to admire its daring and ingenuity, is something different from this.
It pertains to the act of producing the
discovery. There are discoveries of the
highest daring and ingenuity, as for example the discovery of
Both the criteria of plausibility and of scientific value tend to
enforce conformity, while the value attached to originality encourages dissent.
This internal tension is essential in
guiding and motivating scientific work. The
professional standards of science must impose a framework of discipline and at
the same time encourage rebellion against it. They must demand that, in order to be taken
seriously, an investigation should largely conform to the currently predominant
beliefs about the nature of things, while allowing that in order to be original
it may to some extent go against these. Thus,
the authority of scientific opinion enforces the teachings of science in
general, for the very purpose of fostering their subversion in particular
points.
This dual function of professional standards in science is but the
logical outcome of the belief that scientific truth is an aspect of reality and
that the orthodoxy of science is taught as a guide that should enable the
novice eventually to make his own contacts with this reality. The authority of scientific standards is thus
exercised for the very purpose of providing those guided by it with independent
grounds for opposing it. The capacity to
renew itself by evoking and assimilating opposition to itself appears to be
logically inherent in the sources of the authority wielded by scientific
orthodoxy.
But who is it, exactly, who exercises the authority of this orthodoxy? I have mentioned scientific opinion as its
agent. But this raises a serious
problem. No single scientist has a sound
understanding of more than a tiny fraction of the total domain of science. How can an aggregate of such specialists
possibly form a joint opinion? How can
they possibly exercise jointly the delicate function of imposing a current
scientific view about the nature of things, and the current scientific
valuation of proposed contributions, even while encouraging an originality
which would modify this orthodoxy? In
seeking the answer to this question we shall discover yet another
organizational principle that is essential for the control of a multitude of
independent scientific initiatives. This
principle is based on the fact that, while scientists can admittedly exercise
competent judgment only over a small part of science, they can usually judge an
area adjoining their own special studies that is broad enough to include some
fields on which other scientists have specialized. We thus have a considerable degree of
overlapping between the areas over which a scientist can exercise a sound
critical judgment. And, of course, each
scientist who is a member of a group of overlapping competences will also be a
member of other groups of the same kind, so that the whole of science will be
covered by chains and networks of overlapping neighbourhoods.
Each link in these chains and networks
will establish agreement between the valuations made by scientists overlooking
the same overlapping fields, and so, from one overlapping neighbourhood
to the other, agreement will be established on the valuation of scientific
merit throughout all the domains of science. Indeed, through these overlapping neighbourhoods uniform standards of scientific merit will
prevail over the entire range of science, all the way from astronomy to
medicine. This network is the seat of
scientific opinion. Scientific opinion
is an opinion not held by any single human mind, but one which, split into
thousands of fragments, is held by a multitude of individuals, each of whom
endorses the others’ opinion at second hand, by relying on the consensual
chains which link him to all the others through a sequence of overlapping neighbourhoods.
Admittedly, scientific authority is not distributed evenly throughout
the body of scientists; some distinguished members of the profession
predominate over others of a more junior standing. But the authority of scientific opinion
remains essentially mutual; it is established between scientists, not above
them. Scientists exercise their
authority over each other. Admittedly,
the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over
the lay public. It controls thereby also
the process by which young men are trained to become members of the scientific
profession. But once the novice has
reached the grade of an independent scientist, there is no longer any superior
above him. His submission to scientific
opinion is entailed now in his joining a chain of mutual appreciations, within
which he is called upon to bear his equal share of responsibility for the
authority to which he submits.
Let me make it clear, even without going into detail, how great and
varied are the powers exercised by this authority. Appointments to positions in universities and
elsewhere, which offer opportunity for independent research, are filled in
accordance with the appreciation of candidates by scientific opinion. Referees reporting on papers submitted to
journals are charged with keeping out contributions which current scientific
opinion condemns as unsound, and scientific opinion is
in control, once more, over the issue of textbooks, as it can make or mar their
influence through reviews in scientific journals. Representatives of scientific opinion will
pounce upon newspaper articles or other popular literature which would venture
to spread views contrary to scientific opinion. The teaching of science in schools is
controlled likewise. And, indeed, the
whole outlook of man on the universe is conditioned by an implicit recognition
of the authority of scientific opinion.
I have mentioned earlier that the uniformity of scientific standards
throughout science makes possible the comparison between the value of
discoveries in fields as different as astronomy and medicine. This possibility is of great value for the
rational distribution of efforts and material resources throughout the various
branches of science. If the minimum
merit by which a contribution would be qualified for acceptance by journals
were much lower in one branch of science than in another, this would clearly
cause too much effort to be spent on the former branch as compared with the
latter. Such is in fact the principle
which underlies the rational distribution of grants for the pursuit of
research. Subsidies should be curtailed
in areas where their yields in terms of scientific merit tend to be low, and
should be channelled instead to the growing points of
science, where increased financial means may be expected to produce a work of
higher scientific value. It does not
matter for this purpose whether the money comes from a public authority or from
private sources, nor whether it is disbursed by a few sources or a large number
of benefactors. So long as each
allocation follows the guidance of scientific opinion, by giving preference to
the most promising scientists and subjects, the distribution of grants will
automatically yield the maximum advantage for the advancement of science as a
whole. It will do so, at any rate, to
the extent to which scientific opinion offers the best possible appreciation of
scientific merit and of the prospects for the further development of scientific
talent.
For scientific opinion may, of course, sometimes be mistaken,
and as a result unorthodox work of high originality and merit may be
discouraged or altogether suppressed for a time. But these risks have to be taken. Only the discipline imposed by an effective
scientific opinion can prevent the adulteration of science by cranks and
dabblers. In parts of the world where no
sound and authoritative scientific opinion is established, research stagnates
for lack of stimulus, while unsound reputations grow up based on commonplace
achievements or mere empty boasts. Politics
and business play havoc with appointments and the granting of subsidies for
research; journals are made unreadable by including much trash.
Moreover, only a strong and united scientific opinion imposing the
intrinsic value of scientific progress on society at large can elicit the
support of scientific inquiry by the general public. Only by securing popular respect for its own
authority can scientific opinion safeguard the complete independence of mature
scientists and the unhindered publicity of their results, which jointly assure
the spontaneous co-ordination of scientific efforts throughout the world. These are the principles of organization under
which the unprecedented advancement of science has been achieved in the
twentieth century. Though it is easy to
find flaws in their operation, they yet remain the only principles by which
this vast domain of collective creativity can be effectively promoted and co-ordinated.
During the last twenty to thirty years, there have been many
suggestions and pressures towards guiding the progress of scientific inquiry in
the direction of public welfare. I shall
speak mainly of those I have witnessed in
I appreciate the generous sentiments which actuate the aspiration of
guiding the progress of science into socially beneficent channels, but I hold
its aim to be impossible and indeed nonsensical.
An example will show what I mean by this impossibility. In January 1945, Lord Russell and I were
together on the BBC Brains Trust. We were asked about the possible technical
uses of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and neither of us could think of any. This was forty-years after the publication of
the theory and fifty years after the inception by Einstein of the work which
led to its discovery. It was fifty-eight
years after the Michelson-Morley experiment. But, actually, the technical application of
relativity, which neither Russell nor I could think of, was to be revealed
within a few months by the explosion of the first atomic bomb. For the energy of the explosion was released
at the expense of mass in accordance with the relativistic equation e = mc2 an
equation which was soon to be found splashed over the cover of Time magazine, as a token of its supreme
practical importance.
Perhaps Russell and I should have done better in foreseeing these
applications of relativity in January 1945, but it is obvious that Einstein
could not possibly take these future consequences into account when he started
on the problem which led to the discovery of relativity at the turn of the
century. For one thing, another dozen or
more major discoveries had yet to be made before relativity could be combined
with them to yield the technical process which opened the atomic age.
Any attempt at guiding scientific research towards a purpose other than
its own is an attempt to deflect it from the advancement of science. Emergencies may arise in which all scientists
willingly apply their gifts to tasks of public interest. It is conceivable that we may come to abhor
the progress of science and stop all scientific research, or at least whole
branches of it, as the Soviets stopped research in genetics for twenty-five
years. You can kill or mutilate the
advance of science, you cannot shape it. For it can advance only by
essentially unpredictable steps, pursuing problems of its own, and the
practical benefits of these advances will be incidental and hence doubly
unpredictable.
In saying this, I have not forgotten, but merely set aside, the vast
amount of scientific work currently conducted in industrial and governmental
laboratories. [3] In
describing here the autonomous growth of science, I have taken the relation of
science to technology fully into account.
But even those who accept the autonomy of scientific progress may feel
irked by allowing such an important process to go on without trying to control
the co-ordination of its fragmentary initiatives. The period of high aspirations following the
last war produced an event to illustrate the impracticability of this more
limited task.
The incident originated in the University Grants Committee, which sent
a memorandum to the Royal Society in the summer of 1945. The document, signed by Sir Charles Darwin,
requested the aid of the Royal Society to secure ‘The Balanced Development of
Science in the
The proposal excluded undergraduate studies and aimed at the higher
subjects that are taught through the pursuit of research. Its main concern was with the lack of
co-ordination between universities in taking up ‘rare’ subjects, ‘which call
for expert study at only a few places, or in some
cases perhaps only one’. This was linked
with the apprehension that appointments are filled according to the dictates of
fashion, as a result of which some subjects of greater importance are being
pursued with less vigour than others of lesser
importance. It proposed that a co-ordinating machinery should
be set up for levelling out these gaps and redundancies.
The Royal Society was asked to compile,
through its Sectional Committees covering the main divisions of science, lists
of subjects deserving preference in order to fill gaps. Such surveys were to be renewed in the future
to guide the University Grants Committee in maintaining balanced proportions of
scientific effort throughout all fields of inquiry.
Sir Charles Darwin’s proposal was circulated by the Secretaries of the
Royal Society and the members of the Sectional Committees along with a report of
previous discussions of proposals by the Council and other groups of Fellows. The report acknowledged that the co-ordination
of the pursuit of higher studies in the universities was defective (‘haphazard’)
and endorsed the project for periodic, most likely annual, surveys of gaps and
redundancies by the Royal Society. The
members of the Sectional Committees were asked to prepare, for consideration by
a forthcoming meeting of the Council, lists of subjects suffering from neglect.
Faced with this request, which I considered at the best pointless, I
wrote to the Physical Secretary (the late Sir Alfred Egerton)
to express my doubts. I argued that the
present practice of filling vacant chairs by the most eminent candidate that
the university can attract was the best safeguard for rational distribution of
efforts over rival lines of scientific research. As an example (which should appeal to Sir
Charles Darwin as a physicist) I recalled the successive appointments to the
chair of physics in
Sir Alfred Egerton’s response was
sympathetic, and, through him, my views were brought to the notice of the
members of Sectional Committees. Yet the
Committees met, and I duly took part in compiling a list of ‘neglected subjects’
in chemistry. The result, however,
appeared so vague and trivial (as I will illustrate by an example in a moment)
that I wrote to the Chairman of the Chemistry Committee that I would not
support the Committee’s recommendations if they should be submitted to the
Senate of my university.
However, my worries were to prove unnecessary. Already the view was spreading among the
Chairmen of the Sectional Committees ‘that a satisfactory condition in each
science would come about naturally, provided that each university always chose
the most distinguished leaders for its post, irrespective of his specialization’.
While others still expressed the fear
that this would make for an excessive pursuit of fashionable subjects, the
upshot was, at the best, inconclusive. Darwin
himself had, in fact, already declared the reports of the Sectional Committees ‘rather
disappointing’.
The whole action was brought to a close, one year after it had started,
with a circular letter to the Vice-Chancellors of the British universities
signed by Sir Alfred Egerton, as secretary, on behalf
of the Council of the Royal Society, a copy being sent to the University Grants
Committee. The circular included copies
of the reports received from the Sectional Committees and endorsed these in
general. But in the body of the letter
only a small number of these recommendations were specified as being of special
importance. This list contained seven
recommendations for the establishment of new schools of research, but said
nothing about the way these new schools should be co-ordinated
with existing activities all over the
I have not recorded this incident in order to expose its error. It is an important historical event. Most major principles of physics are founded
on the recognition of an impossibility, and no body of
scientists was better qualified than the Royal Society to demonstrate that a
central authority cannot effectively improve on the spontaneous emergence of
growing points in science. It has proved
that little more can, or need, be done towards the advancement of science than
to assist spontaneous movements towards new fields of distinguished discovery,
at the expense of fields that have become exhausted. Though special considerations may deviate from
it, this procedure must be acknowledged as the major principle for maintaining
a balanced development of scientific research. [4]
Let me recall yet another striking incident of the post-war period
which bears on these principles. I have
said that the distribution of subsidies to pure science should not depend on
the sources of money, whether they are public or private. This will hold to a considerable extent also
for subsidies given to universities as a whole. But after the war, when in
The universities entirely accept the view that the
Government has not only the right, but the duty, to satisfy itself that every
field of study which in the national interest ought to be cultivated in
In the view of the Vice-Chancellors,
therefore, the universities may properly be expected not only individually to
make proper use of the resources entrusted to them, but collectively to devise
and execute policies calculated to serve the national interest. And in that task, both individually and
collectively, they will be glad to have a greater measure of guidance from the
Government than, until quite recent days, they have been accustomed to
receive....
Hence the Vice-Chancellors would be glad
if the University Grants Committee were formally authorised
and equipped to undertake surveys of all main fields of university activity
designed to secure that as a whole universities are meeting the whole range of
national need for higher teaching and research....
We meet here
again with a passionate desire for accepting collective organization for
cultural activities, though these actually depend for their vigorous
development on the initiative of individuals adjusting themselves to the
advances of their rivals and guided by a cultural opinion in seeking support,
be it public or private. It is true that
competition between universities was getting increasingly concentrated on
gaining the approval of the Treasury, and that its outcome came to determine to
a considerable extent the framework within which the several universities could
operate. But the most important
administrative decisions, which determine the work of universities, as for
example the selection of candidates for new vacancies, remained free and not
arranged collectively by universities, but by competition between them. For they cannot be made
otherwise. The Vice-Chancellors’
memorandum has, in consequence, made no impression on the life of the
universities and is, by this time, pretty well forgotten by the few who had
ever seen it. [5]
Extrarterritoriality of Academic Science
We may sum up by saying that the movements for guiding science towards
a more direct service of the public interest, as well as for co-ordinating the pursuit of science more effectively from a
centre, have all petered out. Science
continues to be conducted in British universities as was done before the
movement for the social guidance of science ever started. And I believe that all scientific progress
achieved in the
And this is hardly surprising, since for the last three hundred years
the progress of science has increasingly controlled the outlook of man on the
universe, and has profoundly modified (for better and for worse) the accepted
meaning of human existence. Its
theoretic and philosophic influence was pervasive.
Those who think that the public is interested in science only as a
source of wealth and power are gravely misjudging the situation. There is no reason to suppose that an
electorate would be less inclined to support science for the purpose of
exploring the nature of things than were the private benefactors who previously
supported the universities. Universities
should have the courage to appeal to the electorate,
and to the public in general, on their own genuine grounds. Honesty should demand this at least. For the only justification for the pursuit of
scientific research in universities lies in the fact that the universities
provide an intimate communion for the formation of scientific opinion, free
from corrupting intrusions and distractions. For though scientific
discoveries eventually diffuse into all people’s thinking, the general public
cannot participate in the intellectual milieu in which discoveries are made.
Discovery comes only to a mind immersed
in its pursuit. For such work the
scientist needs a secluded place among like-minded colleagues who keenly share
his aims and sharply control his performances. The soil of academic science must be
exterritorial in order to secure its rule by scientific opinion.
The existence of this paramount authority, fostering, controlling and
protecting the pursuit of a free scientific inquiry, contradicts the generally
accepted opinion that modern science is founded on a total rejection of
authority. This view is rooted in a
sequence of important historical antecedents which we must acknowledge here. It is a fact that the Copernicans had to
struggle with the authority of Aristotle upheld by the Roman Church, and by the
Lutherans invoking the Bible; that Vesalius founded
the modern study of human anatomy by breaking the authority of Galen. Throughout the formative centuries of modern
science, the rejection of authority was its battle-cry; it was sounded by
Bacon, by Descartes and collectively by the founders of the Royal Society of
London. These great men were clearly
saying something that was profoundly true and important, but we should take
into account today the sense in which they have meant their rejection of
authority. They aimed at adversaries who
have since been defeated. And although
other adversaries may have arisen in their places, it is misleading to assert
that science is still based on the rejection of any kind of authority. The more widely the republic of science
extends over the globe, the more numerous become its members in each country,
and the greater the material resources at its command, the more there clearly
emerges the need for a strong and effective scientific authority to reign over
this republic. When we reject today the
interference of political or religious authorities with the pursuit of science,
we must do this in the name of the established scientific authority which
safeguards the pursuit of science.
Let it also be quite clear that what we have described as the function
of scientific authority go far beyond a mere confirmation of facts asserted by
science. For one thing, there are no
mere facts in science. A scientific fact
is one that has been accepted as such by scientific opinion, both on the
grounds of the evidence in favour of it and because
it appears sufficiently plausible in view of the current scientific conception
of the nature of things. Besides,
science is not a mere collection of facts, but a system of facts based on their
scientific interpretation. It is this
system that is endorsed by a scientific interest intrinsic to the system; a
distribution of interest established by the delicate value-judgments exercised
by scientific opinion in sifting and rewarding current contributions to
science. Science is what it is, in virtue
of the way in which scientific authority constantly eliminates, or else
recognizes at various levels of merit, contributions offered to science. In accepting the authority of science we
accept the totality of all these value-judgments.
Consider, also, the fact that these scientific evaluations exercised by
a multitude of scientists, each of whom is competent to assess only a tiny
fragment of current scientific work, so that no single person is responsible at
first hand for the announcements made by science at any time. And remember that each scientist originally
established himself as such by joining at some point a network of mutual
appreciation extending far beyond his own horizon. Each such acceptance appears then as a
submission to a vast range of value-judgments exercised over all the domains of
science, which the newly accepted citizen of science henceforth endorses,
although he knows hardly anything about their subject-matter. Thus, the standards of scientific merit are
seen to be transmitted from generation to generation by the affiliation of
individuals at a great variety of widely disparate points, in the same way as
artistic, moral or legal traditions are transmitted. We may conclude, therefore, that the
appreciation of scientific merit too is based on a tradition which succeeding
generations accept and develop as their own scientific
opinion. This conclusion gains important
support from the fact that the methods of scientific inquiry cannot be
explicitly formulated and hence can be transmitted only in the same ways as an
art, by the affiliation of apprentices to a master. The authority of science is essentially
traditional.
But this tradition upholds an authority which cultivates originality. Scientific opinion imposes an immense range of
authoritative pronouncements on the student of science, but at the same time it
grants the highest encouragement to dissent from them in some particular. While the whole machinery of scientific
institutions is engaged in suppressing apparent evidence as unsound, on the
ground that it contradicts the currently accepted view about the nature of
things, the same scientific authorities pay their highest homage to discoveries
which deeply modify the accepted view about the nature of things. It took eleven years for the quantum theory,
discovered by Planck in 1900, to gain final acceptance. Yet by the time another thirty years had
passed, Planck’s position in science was approaching that hitherto accorded
only to
I have said this here at the cost of some repetition, for it opens a
vista of analogies in other intellectual pursuits. The relation of originality to tradition in
science has its counterpart in modern literary culture, ‘Seldom does the word
[tradition] appear except in a phrase of censure,’ writes T.S. Eliot. [6] And he then tells how our
exclusive appreciation of originality conflicts with the true sources of
literary merit actually recognized by us:
We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference
from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order
to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a
poet without this prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but
the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his
ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. [7]
Eliot has also said, in Little Gidding, that ancestral ideas reveal their full scope
only much later, to their successors:
And
what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They
can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of
the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
And this is so in science: Copernicus and Kepler
told
At this point we meet a major problem of political theory: the question
whether a modern society can be bound by tradition. Faced with the outbreak of the French
Revolution, Edmund Burke denounced its attempt to refashion at one stroke all
the institutions of a great nation and predicted that this total break with
tradition must lead to a descent into despotism. In reply to this, Tom Paine passionately
proclaimed the right of absolute self-determination for every generation. The controversy has continued ever since. It has been revived in
The situation is strange. But
there must be some deep reason for it, since it is much the same as that which
we have described in the organization of science. This analogy seems indeed to reveal the reason
for this curious situation. Modern man
claims that he will believe nothing unless it is unassailable by doubt;
Descartes, Kant, John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell have unanimously taught
him this. They leave us no grounds for
accepting any tradition. But we see now
that science itself can be pursued and transmitted to succeeding generations
only within an elaborate system of traditional beliefs and values, just as
traditional beliefs have proved indispensable throughout the life of society. What can one do then? The dilemma is disposed of by continuing to
profess the right of absolute self-determination in political theory and
relying on the guidance of tradition in political practice.
But this dubious solution is unstable. A modem dynamic society, born of the French
Revolution, will not remain satisfied indefinitely with accepting, be it only de facto a traditional framework as its
guide and master. The French Revolution,
which, for the first time in history, had set up a government resolved on the
indefinite improvement of human society, is still present in us. Its most far-reaching aspirations were
embodied in the ideas of socialism, which rebelled against the whole structure
of society and demanded its total renewal. In the twentieth century this demand went into
action in
I have described how this movement evoked among many British scientists
a desire to give deliberate social purpose to the pursuit of science. It offended their social conscience that the
advancement of science, which affects the interests of society as a whole,
should be carried on by individual scientists pursuing their own personal
interests. They argued that all public
welfare must be safeguarded by public authorities and that scientific
activities should therefore be directed by the government in the interest of
the public. This reform should replace
by deliberate action towards a declared aim the present growth of scientific
knowledge intended as a whole by no one, and in fact not even known in its
totality, except quite dimly, to any single person. To demand the right of scientists to choose
their own problems appeared to them petty and unsocial, as against the right of
society deliberately to determine its own fate.
But have I not said that this movement has virtually petered out by
this time? Have not even the socialist
parties throughout
My answer is that you cannot base social wisdom on political
disillusion. The more sober mood of
public life today can be consolidated only if it is used as an opportunity for
establishing the principles of a free society on firmer grounds. What does our political and economic analysis
of the
It appears, at first sight, that I have assimilated the pursuit of
science to the market. But the emphasis
should be in the opposite direction. The
self-co-ordination of independent scientists embodies a higher principle, a
principle which is reduced to the mechanism of the market when applied to the
production and distribution of material goods.
Let me sketch out briefly this higher principle in more general terms. The
The
A free society may be seen to be bent in its entirety on exploring
self-improvement - every kind of self-improvement. This suggests a generalization of the
principles governing the
Since a dynamic orthodoxy claims to be a guide in search of truth, it
implicitly grants the right to opposition in the name of truth - truth being
taken to comprise here, for brevity, all manner of excellence that we recognize
as the ideal of self-improvement. The
freedom of the individual safeguarded by such a society is therefore-to use the
term of Hegel - of a positive kind. It
has no bearing on the right of men to do as they please; but assures them the
right to speak the truth as they know it. Such a society does not offer particularly
wide private freedoms. It is the
cultivation of public liberties that distinguishes a free society, as defined
here.
In this view of a free society, both its liberties and its servitudes
are determined by its striving for self-improvement, which in its turn is
determined by the intimations of truths yet to be revealed, calling on men to
reveal them.
This view transcends the conflict between Edmund Burke and Tom Paine. It rejects Paine’s demand for the absolute
self-determination of each generation, but does so for the sake of its own
ideal of unlimited human and social improvement. It accepts Burke’s thesis that freedom must be
rooted in tradition, but transposes it into a system cultivating radical
progress. It rejects the dream of a
society in which all will labour for a common
purpose, determined by the will of the people. For in the pursuit of excellence it offers no
part to the popular will and accepts instead a condition of society in which
the public interest is known only fragmentarily and is left to be achieved as
the outcome of individual initiatives aiming at fragmentary problems. Viewed through the eyes of socialism, this
ideal of a free society is conservative and fragmented, and hence adrift,
irresponsible, selfish, apparently chaotic. A free society conceived as a society of
explorers is open to these charges, in the sense that they do refer to
characteristic features of it. But if we
recognize that these features are indispensable to the pursuit of social
self-improvement, we may be prepared to accept them as perhaps less attractive
aspects of a noble enterprise.
These features are certainly characteristic of the proper cultivation
of science and are present throughout society as it pursues other kinds of
truth. They are, indeed, likely to
become ever more marked, as the intellectual and moral endeavours
to which society is dedicated enlarge in range and branch out into ever new
specialized directions. For this must
lead to further fragmentation of initiatives and thus increase resistance to
any deliberate total renewal of society.
1.
M. POLANYI, The Logic of
2.
M. POLANYI, Personal Knowledge,
3.
I have analysed the relation between academic and
industrial science, elsewhere in some detail, see Journal of the Institute of Metallurgy, 89 (1961), pp. 401 ff. Cf. Personal Knowledge, pp. 174-84.
4.
Here is the point at which this analysis of the principles by which funds are
to be distributed between different branches of science may have a lesson for
economic theory. It suggests a way in
which resources can be rationally distributed between any rival purposes that
cannot be valued in terms of money. All
cases of public expenditure serving purely collective interests are of this
kind. A comparison of such values by a
network of overlapping competences may offer a possibility for a true collective
assessment of the relative claims of thousands of government departments of
which no single person can know well more than a tiny fraction.
5.
I have never heard the memorandum mentioned in the
6.
T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays,