The Material and the Immaterial in a Post-Critical Platonist Metaphysics

In this chapter I examine Michael Polanyi’s somewhat controversial field theory, arguing that Polanyi gives full ontological status to the potential and that this requires an affirmation of the existence of uninstantiated universals. Thus Polanyi’s field theory explicitly and implicitly entails a Platonist position on the existence of Forms insofar as it insists on rational principles as a necessary precursor to the emergence of material entities. Polanyi’s approach to universals is canvased and reconciled with Plato’s by arguing that universals are comprehensive entities. I introduce the nomenclature of Primordial Forms, which are those Forms or Universals which must necessarily be instantiated for physical, sensible reality to be actualized.