"To learn by example is to submit to authority. ...By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another. A society which wants to preserve a fund of personal knowledge must submit to tradition. ...Common Law ...is the most important system of strictly traditional activities."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
PolymathsPhilosophers from the United KingdomLogicians from the United KingdomPhilosophers from HungaryChemists from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 53-54
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michael Polanyi
15 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michael Polanyi →
Related Quotes
"When order is achieved among human beings by allowing them to interact with each other on their own initiative — subj…"
"Comprehension is neither an arbitrary act nor a passive experience, but a responsible act claiming universal validity…"
"Ever since [Copernicus], writers eager to drive the lesson home have urged us [...] to abandon all sentimenta…"
"The confidence placed in physical theory owes much to its possessing the same kind of excellence from which pure geom…"
"The term 'simplicity' functions then merely as a disguise for another meaning than its own. It is used for smuggling …"
"The descriptive sciences rely on skill and connoisseurship. At all these points the act of knowing includes an apprai…"
"No sincere assertion of fact is essentially unaccompanied by feelings of intellectual satisfaction or of a persuasive…"
"In a strict usage the same symbol should never represent the act of sincerely asserting something and the content of …"
"Whitehead and Russell ... translate \vdash p imples q into the words 'it is asserted that p implies q'. But the p…"
"The correct reading of \vdash p written down by me in good faith is therefore 'I believe p', or some other words …"