Gombrich and the Philosophies of Science of Popper and Polanyi

by Sheldon Richmond
Rodopi B.V.
Amsterdam and Atlanta, Georgia,
U.S.A., 1994. 152 pp.
$30.00/Hfl. 45.00. ISBN: 90-5183-618-X.

Reviewed by Istvan Hargittai

This book is Volume VI in the Series in the Philosophy of Karl R. Popper and Critical Rationalism (Series Editor Kurt Salamun). It is based on the author's doctoral dissertation in and of critical philosophy. It is a very ambitious project, to discuss the art philosophy of Gombrich using as tools the science philosophies of Karl Popper and Michael Polanyi. The author sets out to show that the critical theory of art of Gombrich derives from Karl Popper's philosophy while the study of aesthetics of Gombrich advocates Michael Polanyi's anti-critical philosophy. He concludes that Gombrich's anti-critical philosophy of aesthetics fails for the same reason that Polanyi's anti-critical philosophy of science fails.

These are heavy statements and there are also heavy twists in the discussion. The idea of confronting art philosophy with science philosophies is especially intriguing. I believe that a thorough review might be as long as the book which is remarkably short considering the magnitude of problems it discusses. However, the book is very readable and the questions it raises are very interesting. Given that the book is part of a series of Karl Popper's philosophy, it devotes considerable space to Michael Polanyi in addition to Popper. In this I see the main merit of the book. This is also where I would like to make some comments. First of all I am rather unhappy by the summary characterization of Polanyi's science philosophy and, in particular, by its characterization as a failure. According to Sheldon, Polanyi claims that even science is based on commitment, as opposed to questions and critical discussion. Polanyi has indeed called attention to the personal participation of the knower in all acts of understanding, but he also argued that this would not make our understanding subjective and stressed that knowing is objective.

That Polanyi's philosophy of science continues to be so useful for scientists may have a lot to do with his background as one of the preeminent physical chemists of the 1920s through the 1940s. Of his many-fold contributions, the most important is perhaps his work together with H. Eyring published in the "Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie" in 1931, presenting the first potential energy surface for a chemical reaction. See, also the book, M. Polanyi, "Atomic Reactions," Williams and Norgate, London, 1932.

Sheldon notes that "Polanyi was a chemist in his youth. As a chemist he had much trouble getting some of his theories accepted." This is a rather simplistic description of the scientist Polanyi prior to his becoming the philosopher Polanyi. In fact, Polanyi, who was born in 1891, got his medical doctor's diploma from the University of Budapest in 1914 just in time to serve in W.W.I as a medical doctor. Then he got his doctorate in physical chemistry in 1918 in Budapest. Following a mix of quiet and turbulent decades, he resigned his chair in physical chemistry at the University of Manchester in 1948, moved to the humanities, and got a professorial appointment at the same University without lecturing duties. At that time he was already 57. It is remarkable that he had so much originality and impact in his new field of epistemology. But his contributions to chemistry were Nobel Prize-level and he had difficulties in getting his theories accepted to the degree only that all true pioneering work faces. In Budapest he did some work with the future Nobel laureate George van Hevesy, in 1920 he went to Berlin at the invitation of Nobel laureate Fritz Haberr. One of his pupils was the future Nobel laureate in physics, Eugene Wigner with whom he published a paper in 1925 about association and dissociation containing quantum mechanical considerations at a time when quantum mechanics was just being born. He did also important work in adsorption phenomena, properties of materials, and X-ray analysis but his most lasting contributions were in reaction mechanisms. His transition to philosophy had been gradual with the breakpoint in 1948.

Polanyi's teachings on epistemology continue to be valid and have great utility for many scientists today. Sheldon's studies in confronting Polanyi's science philosophy with Gombrich's philosophy of aesthetics, whatever the conclusions, opens new perspectives in appreciating Polanyi's works in epistemology.