Péter Hartl

Th e volume has two parts: the fi rst (Knowing) is devoted to Polanyi’s theory of knowledge, the second (Being) includes essays about interpretations of his metaphysical views. Among the essays we can fi nd both analytical and historical interpretations. Th e authors come from diff erent nations and diff erent scholarly fi elds. Most of the them examine Polanyi’s views in both contexts, and attempted to give both philologically and philosophically reasonable interpretation of his complex and original views. Th e title of the book refers to a collection of papers of Michael Polanyi which was published with the same title in 1969.

In the present essay I investigate Polanyi’s main arguments for academic freedom. Academic and political freedom are closely related to each other: if state takes control over science, it will lead to the collapse of freedom itself in the whole society. His arguments against totalitarianism rely on his anti-positivist philosophy of science. He diagnoses totalitarianism as a denial of academic freedom which is based on a pragmatist view of science and instrumentalist interpretation of moral values. Polanyi’s idea of science is a spiritual, idealistic description of a community of free intellectuals who are passionately committed to seeking the truth and have an autonomous community with its own rules and autonomous direction. Seeking the truth for its own sake is the essential goal of science, which can be accomplished only if it remains free from political, ideological and economical influences. I will argue that Polanyi’s insights can still be relevant today, when science can becom...

Empirical examinations about cross-cultural variability of intuitions, the well-known publication of Stich and his colleagues criticizing thought-experiments and intuitions in philosophical debates, is still a challenge that faces analytical philosophers, as any systematic investigation of the methodology of philosophy must give answers to these basic questions: What is intuition? What role should intuitions play in philosophy? I present and examine the sceptical argument of experimental philosophers, and claim that experimental philosophers misunderstand the role of evidence in philosophy. My argument will utilize Goldman’s view, according to which intuitions give reliable (though not infallible) evidence about a person’s concepts, and this knowledge is valuable for further philosophical research as well. I will argue that the sceptical conclusions of experimental philosophers are harmless against this conception of philosophy, because even from a naturalist perspective certain kin...

This paper critically examines David Berman's theological lying interpretation of Hume and identifies two types of theological lying: the denial of atheism strategy and the pious Christian strategy. It is argued that neither reading successfully establishes an atheist interpretation of Hume. Moreover, circumstantial evidence shows that Hume's position was different from that of the atheists of his time. Attributions theological lying to Hume, therefore, are unwarranted and should be rejected, even if we grant that this literary technique was used in the early-modern era. Analysing other non-theistic readings of Hume is beyond the scope of this paper. However, given that Berman presents one of most elaborated atheist reinterpretations of Hume's affirmative theistic passages, the failure of Berman's analysis shows that rejecting these passages should not be the default interpretive approach, and it is reasonable to attribute to Hume a weak, indeterminate theism.