The tacit-explicit connection: Polanyian integrative philosophy and a Neo-Polanyian medical epistemology.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach to clinical practice aiming to resolve the dilemma of choosing between a mechanistic and a phenomenological model. The approach is an extension of Polanyi's epistemology. Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), devised an epistemology of science which overcomes the problem of detachment, inherent in the "mechanistic" approach, and resolves the problem of subjectivity troubling phenomenologists. His epistemology is known as Personal Knowledge. An extension of this epistemology, a Neo-Polanyian proposal, is offered as a more successful model for clinical practice than previous suggestions addressing the dilemma.