Alan Mandell

Michael Polanyi's Republic of Science: The Tacit Dimension

Michael Polanyi spent his long career thinking and writing about the workings of science and the scientific community. Moreover, he saw in the workings of that community the core principles and practices of the good political republic, as spelled out in his famous essay, ‘The Republic of Science’. There is, however, a tension between his political theory and his epistemological contribution, in particular his path-breaking writings about the tacit dimension in knowledge formation—or what he described as ‘personal knowledge’. On the one hand, his political essay supports a classical conservative position, while on the other, his theory of tacit knowledge anticipates much of the post-modern radical critique of long-standing Enlightenment assumptions about scientific objectivity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. This otherwise contradictory position can be understood by following Polanyis own epistemological prescription, namely by examining the underlying assumptions that constitute his own tacit knowledge. Polanyis personal history reveals the less-apparent assumptions tacitly underlying his republic of science. Polanyis own ‘fiduciary community’—in particular, his deep personal and intellectual ties to classical conservative theory, his association with Frederick von Hayek, and his membership in the neo-liberal Mont Pelerin Society—shaped his theoretical conceptualization of the so-called ‘republic of science’. In this way, Polanyis political contribution diverges from his own epistemological requirements, in a way that largely obscures important intellectual roots required to properly interpret his political thought.

Relegitimating Meritocracy: Educational Policy as Technocratic Strategy

The educational crisis is front-page news. Daily newspaper articles, television specials, and political campaign coverage regularly carry stories of blue-ribbon commission reports on the sad condition of American schools. During the 1980s, at least two dozen major reports have appeared. Each claims that the crisis of education is at the root of the troublesome 15 year decline in national industrial productivity and thus central to the countrys sliding competitive edge — particularly when compared with Japan and West Germany. The failure of the schools is even said to be reflected in the character of the population and the ingenuity of the American work force.

The neo-liberal transformation of the university

At the 11th International Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference at the University of Hull, UK (5–7 July 2016), we organized two panels dealing with ‘the neo-liberal transformation of the universi...

Tensions within the neoliberal university: sources of change and hope

ABSTRACT From all quarters, the attack on the university is deepening; its very legitimacy is regularly questioned. This reflection argues that while there are reasons to join such critical voices, some of which have effectively pointed to the ways in which higher education has been reduced to a pawn in a broader neoliberal advance, there are important critical tensions within the university that must be considered. By describing significant challenges in four dimensions – access, learning, teaching, and evaluating – this article argues that the new neoliberal realm remains contested terrain and that recognizing and working with the tensions provides opportunities for change and glimmers of hope for more participatory and democratic institutions of higher education.

Mountain out of a molehill

The world of books is in turmoil. Not a day goes by without one or another article speculating about how e-books are supplanting print (see, for example, Bosman 2010), whether writers will convert to twitter (see, for example, Carr 2010), or if the reading public is simply withering away. The conveniences of many books digitally available on one small lightweight device are ponderously weighed against various electronic inconveniences or changes in scholarly reading habits that necessarily follow (see, for example, Foster 2008). If e-books are cheaper to reproduce, who will profit from these new media (see, for example, Auletta 2010)? What if writers publish directly online and bypass the publishing industry entirely? Indeed, some speculate that styles of writing associated with books will eventually evolve into various forms of short, punctuated expression appropriate for computer screens or i-phones, visually-oriented communications, and over-multitasked readers. These issues are clearly relevant to universities with their historic dependence upon printed books, and to those faculty who write books to demonstrate competence, share new findings, and, incidentally for some, reap hefty textbook royalties. University presses, the only means by which most scholarly monographs are published, are increasingly at risk as university financial subsidies and university library markets dry up in today’s current economic environment.1 Faculty are thus forced to look for specialty publishers abroad (Contemporary Sociology 2010), revise their book-length monographs into journal-length articles (Waters 2000), or join the fight for name-recognition online. Adrift and uncertain about how this blast of change will inevitably transform the traditional academic landscape, we were somewhat surprised by Herminio Martins’ essay that criticizes the incivility of book reviews in sociology journals. It is not exactly that he is closing the barn door after the horses have left,2 but he might have at least noticed that the horses are very restive. Should we be worrying about the quality of academic book reviews when we may soon have no books to review at all, or – if books in some form or another do survive – when an entirely new wiki-based, free-for-all reviewing scenario may soon overwhelm us?3 That is not to say that the problem of incivility is not germane: clearly, it ripples through every aspect of our everyday lives (see, for example, Carter 1998b, or Leatherman 1996). But, in our opinion, it is not a major issue in the world of scholarly book reviews or within the even much smaller domain of sociology journals. Our own impression is that ‘rubbishing’ reviews in journals (also described by Martins 2010 as ‘acceptable academic blood-sport’) are actually quite rare. Indeed, our most vivid

Educational Policy as Technocratic Strategy: The Politics of Excellence

The educational crisis continues to be front-page news in the US. Daily, the media feature stories about the sad condition of America’s schools. Since the mid 1970s, dozens of publications appeared. Federal and state governments, philanthropic organizations, business groups, testing organizations, and individual research teams initiated studies and reported findings. While these reports differed in substance and specific recommendations, all claimed that the crisis of education is not only real, but carries manifold consequences for American society as a whole (Altbach et al., 1985, pp. 41–2).