Polanyi Society 2020 Zoom Conference
9-11 June
The times and brief descriptions of all six zoom presentations are
listed below. Anyone interested can participate in any of these zoom
discussions, but you do need to register in order to set up a secure connection.
You will later be e-mailed a link for the specific session.
There is a zoom
presentation link on the Polanyi Society website (polanyisociety.org). The
paper for one session listed below is not yet posted but should be posted here
in a few days. If additional zoom presentations/discussions are scheduled, the
information about the sessions will be posted on polanyisociety.org as
soon as details are worked out.
If you wish to participate in any of the Zoom discussions, please send an email to both Gus Breytspraak (gus.breytspraak@ottawa.edu) and Phil Mullins (mullins@missouriwestern.edu).
11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Tuesday 9 June
2020
Discussion of Michael Polanyi’s “Economics Education” Film
with Gabor Biro
“Money Circles, Sensible Citizens and the Walt Disney of Economics” is a
21-minute talk (with PowerPoint slides) by Gabor Biro posted on YouTube at the
following address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0HT6QO7jOM
Biro, author of The Economic Thought
of Michael Polanyi (2019), provides details about Michael Polanyi’s
diagrammatic film on selected Keynesian ideas that Polanyi hoped would
transform society as well as economics in the thirties and forties.
11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Wednesday 10
June 2020
Polanyi declares that reason and
revelation are so different in kind that they cannot conflict.
Surprisingly, this denial of the theologico-political problem is the product of
acquiescence to the very presuppositions that are the central target of
Polanyi’s rejection of Cartesian systematic doubt. Fuller appreciation of
Socratic rationalism supports Polanyi’s project while demonstrating the
perennial salubrious tension between reason and revelation.
11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Thursday 11 June
2020
Robert Hyatt, “Trauma, Metaphor and Meaning”
Polanyian insights
into the ways meaning is created within the arts provides a coherent
perspective for understanding why and how the arts are useful in ameliorating
the devastating effects of trauma. Recent discoveries by humanistically
oriented practitioners of trauma therapy conform to, and helpfully extend,
Polanyi’s views of the relationship of mind and body.
Please download all
three components:
- B. Austin, “The Monster Within” (1-page poem)
- Robert Hyatt, “Polanyian Poetics: Commentary on ‘The Monster Within’” (3 pages)
- Robert Hyatt, “Polanyian Philosophical Resources for Mental Health Professionals Dealing with Trauma Related Pathologies” (9 ½ page essay)
12:15 p.m.
US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Thursday 11 June 2020
Charles
Lowney, "Body-Knowing
and Neural Networks: Is a Computer’s Ability to Learn Human Skills a
Victory for Reductionism?"
Harry Collins
believes that Collective Tacit Knowledge (CTK) is irreducible, but Somatic
Tacit Knowledge (STK) is, in principle, explicable and reducible. Polanyi, in
contrast, sees irreducibility in a process of tacit knowing
that extends from bodily skills right up through linguistic and social skills.
Using examples from Martial Arts, I first show how the body displays
intentionality and innovation that Collins sees only at the CTK level. This,
however, might not convince Collins because neural network computing machines
are able to perform skilful tasks we once thought irreducibly human, e.g.,
driving a car. I show how Polanyi's structure of tacit knowing and
learning is indeed modelled by these machines, but they also display
irreducibility.
11 a.m. US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Friday 12 June
2020
Phil Mullins, “Michael Polanyi’s ‘Social Capitalism’”
- Michael Polanyi, “Social Capitalism,” Time and Tide, 13 (April 13, 1946): 341-342.
- Phil Mullins, “Michael Polanyi’s ‘Social Capitalism’”
12:15 p.m.
US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Friday 12 June 2020
Walter Gulick, Gus
Breytspraak, and Phil Mullins, “Michael and Karl Polanyi”
Scholars interested in Michael Polanyi usually pay little
attention to Karl Polanyi’s abundant writing and vice versa. Should this
standoff end? These brothers read each other’s writings and communicated with
each other. They are not, of course, always on the same page, but neither are
they always “worlds apart.” This discussion aims to open up not only some
of the connections and disconnections between Michael’s and Karl’s thought, but
to explore how each has insights that complement the thought of the other.
- Karl Polanyi, “Our Obsolete Market Mentality,” Commentary 3 (1947): 109-117.
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