Abstract

The domination of our thought in the last few centuries by a concept of reason as critical, nonattached, and impersonal, rebuffing commitment, has generated the alienation of reason and freedom. This study seeks to address this problematic concept of reason, focusing on two areas in which the alienation of reason and freedom is especially manifest: in the seemingly failed project of making one's moral choices rationally, and in the self-doubt of the philosopher, moved to suspect even the commitment to rationality. In an attempt to develop a more satisfactory understanding of rationality, this study examines the thought of Michael Polanyi, since Polanyi's theory of personal knowing stresses the reliance of knowing upon commitment. ;The exploration of Polanyi's thought concentrates on the following points: Polanyi's perception of the alienation of reason and freedom in the form of moral and intellectual inversion; Polanyi's charge that methodic doubt is neither possible nor desirable; Polanyi's account of knowing as a reconstruction of tradition in the spirit of service to that which tradition imperfectly represents; The tacit element of all knowing, which renders knowing personal because of the knower's dwelling in the known; and The role of intellectual passion in knowing, which, again, renders knowing personal, though not subjective. ;Drawing on the analysis of knowing presented by Polanyi, this study depicts reason as a way of thinking which is in service to a reality evoked by thought, but a reality which acquires independence through our acknowledgement of its power to command us and to manifest itself in unforeseen ways. Such service necessarily involves reference to the community of thinkers and openness to correction. Thus, being rational involves a dynamic, intersubjectively conditioned being of oneself. This serves to heal the alienation of reason and freedom, both in the making of moral choices and in the choice of the philosophical life, since commitment is seen to serve as a dwelling place for intelligence