Abstract
Central to Michael Polanyi's account of man and nature is the concept of emergence. Whether emergence in fact exists is a vehemently debated question to which Polanyi forcefully answers in the affirmative. As recently emphasized by Thomas Nagel, a pressing issue raised by emergence is whether or not the unprecedented capacity or property can be understood in terms of more basic elements that existed before. If so, it is, to borrow from Nagel's lexicon, "reductive." At the heart of this inquiry, then, is the question whether Polanyi's emergence is reductive. In pursuing this matter we pierce to the core of Polanyi's enduring contribution both to epistemology and philosophical anthropology as well as evolutionary theory. Key Words: Michael Polanyi, emergence, Thomas Nagel, reductionism, evolution