The Triadic Structure of Religious Consciousness in Polanyi

THE TRIADIC STRUCTURE OF RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IN POLANYI * IN THIS PAPER I would like to explore the implications of Michael Polanyi's conception of the structure of consciousness and tacit knowing for two closely related topics in the philosophy of religion: the existential character of religious enactment in ritual and contemplation and the hermeneutical and critical issues centering around the problem of the preconditions of conversion. My concern is methodological and phenomenological; I do not intend to give a full account of what Polanyi has to say on the .subject of religion. Rather, ignoring some of the more inadequate elements of his theory of religion, I would like to show how his critical distinction between focal and subsidiary awareness and his notion of a skillful act create the concept of a tacit triad and how this concept illuminates the operative structures of consciousness in general and religious consciousness in particular. Except by way of illustration I will make no intrusions into substantive issues of religion or theology. I will combine expository and argumentative elements in my analysis. Although I want to give a faithful account of what Polanyi has said on our topics of discussion, I shall also attempt to draw further implications that are not contained explicitly within Polanyi's own frame of reference. What follows is divided into three parts. In the first part I sketch what I call the tacit logic of the mind by means of a determination of the notion of a tacit triad and its relation to the problematic of self-integration. In part two I apply this logic in an analysis of the triadic structure of religious consciousness as found in * The Thomist regretfully notes the death of Professor Michael Polanyi on February flfl, 1976 in Northampton, England, at the age of .eighty-four. 393 394 ROBERT E. INNIS ritual and contemplation, including religious aesthetic perception . In part three I concentrate on certain aspects of the problem of conversion, understood in a rather broad sense. I. Meanings, Wholes, and Tacit Triads The foundation of Polanyi's analyses of consciousness and knowing is the distinction between focal and subsidiary awareness . This distinction is derived from some rather simple considerations and is found to be operative in all meaningful uses of consciousness. Polanyi's point of departure is the observation that we can be aware of something in two mutually exclusive ways. This fact becomes clear in any case of our awareness of wholes. To take an instance, our perception and recognition of a plane figure such as a line drawing of a face involves an integration of the lines into a coherent perceptual form. While the face-as a whole-lies at the focus of attention, we are aware of the lines, angles, and their directions in their bearing on the focus. We do not attend directly to the particular lines and their modifications but rely on them or use them as instrumental clues for solving what can be defined as a perceptual puzzle, that is, a set of particulars that we are trying to construe. Polanyi thinks we must consider the face as an emergent perceptual form which integrates the various features that make up the physiognomy as a whole. Technically, we are focally aware of the face but subsidiarily (i.e., instrumentally ) aware of the features.1 The subsidiary elements, the particulars of the perceptual form, function as vectors or pointers within the field of consciousness . We are conscious from them to something else. This from-to structure characterizes all meaningful use of consciousness according to Polanyi. 1 A full exposition of Polanyi's model of mind and consciousness can be found in my three papers: "Polanyi's Model of Mental Acts," The Nl!IW Scholasticmm, 47 (1973), pp. 147-78, "The Logic of Consciousness and the Mind-Body Problem in Polanyi," International Philosophical Quarterly, 13 (1973), pp. 81-98, and "Meaning, Thought and Language in Polanyi's Epistemology," Philosophy Today, 18 (1974)' pp. 47-67. RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IN POLANYI 395 All thought contains components of which we are subsidiarily aware in the focal content of our thinking, and all thought dwells in its subsidiaries, as if they were parts of our...