Polanyian Educational Dimensions of Mill's Mental Crisis |
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| Authors: | JON M FENNELL |
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| Institution: | Correspondence: Jon M. Fennell, Professor Emeritus, Hillsdale College, 5180 N. Brookfield Place, Boise, Idaho 83713, USA. |
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| Abstract: | In Chapter V of his autobiography, John Stuart Mill describes the ‘crisis in my mental history’ that cast this brilliant mind into profound gloom at age 20. Mill makes clear that his plight had everything to do with the extraordinary analytical and critical education imparted to him by his father. That which prompts Mill's deep distress, as well as that which is necessary in order to escape it, are the central concern of Michael Polanyi's monumental Personal Knowledge. The thesis of this essay is that Polanyi in his book offers a penetrating analysis of the disorder from which Mill suffered and, even more significantly, Polanyi explains more perceptively than does Mill himself what is required in order to resolve the mental crisis and establish what both authors refer to as ‘balance’ of mind. |
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