This is an obituary notice for Harry Prosch, the American philosopher who collaborated with Michael Polanyi to publish Meaning in 1975.

This essay traces the history of Harry Prosch’s work with Michael Polanyi. It analyzes the Prosch-Polanyi archival correspondence as well as other correspondence records in an effort to make clear the scope and nature of Prosch’s work in their collaboration on Meaning, a book published under both names at a late stage of Polanyi’s life when his mental capacities were diminished.

This article explores Polanyi’s views on religion. Reviewing the debate on his understanding of religion, which originated in Richard Gelwick and Harry Prosch’s conflicting readings of Polanyi on the theme, the article proposes that there are ambiguities within his writings on the theme which cannot be resolved. There is a weakness in Polanyi’s work on religion which reflcets his limited experience of religious practices and theological traditions. Nevertheless, his insight that religious knowledge is rooted in the practices of religious worship is one from which theology has much to learn.

My own ongoing reflection on the Polanyian understanding of knowing leads me to recommend that we help people acknowledge and reaccredit authority as a key feature of all human knowing. This recommendation I support in this essay by showing the following. First, I argue that reliance on authority is unavoidable. The Polanyian model, along with the complementary insights of a few others, and reflection on human experience, together show that human knowledge is what it is only by virtue of its normative component. Such normativity, I argue, requires persons as mentors and as recipients. Second, I describe some of the ins and outs of responsible reliance on authority in a way that I hope will make it a more palatable and delightful prospect, and will encourage its skillful employment. I believe that this message offers much needed epistemological therapy for philosophy and ordinary people today.