Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an eminent theorist across the fields of philosophy, physical chemistry and economics. Elected to the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his contributions to research in the social sciences, and his theories on positivism and knowledge, are of critical academic importance. The three lectures included in this comprehensive volume, first published in 1959, argue for Polanyi's principle of 'tacit knowing' as a fundamental component of knowledge. They were intended to accompany Polanyi's earlier work, Personal Knowledge, and as a tribute to the philosophical and educational work of Lord A. D. Lindsay.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an eminent theorist across the fields of philosophy, physical chemistry and economics. Elected to the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his contributions to research in the social sciences, and his theories on positivism and knowledge, are of critical academic importance. The three lectures included in this comprehensive volume, first published in 1959, argue for Polanyi's principle of 'tacit knowing' as a fundamental component of knowledge. They were intended to accompany Polanyi's earlier work, Personal Knowledge, and as a tribute to the philosophical and educational work of Lord A. D. Lindsay.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that "we can know more than we can tell,"" writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. "The Tacit Dimension" argues that tacit knowledge--tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments--is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

"Polanyi's work deserves serious attention. . . . This is a] compact presentation of some of the essentials of his thought."--"Review of Metaphysics"

"Polanyi's work is still relevant today and a closer examination of this theory that all knowledge has personal and tacit elements . . . can be used to support and refute a variety of widely held approaches to knowledge management."--"Electronic Journal of Knowledge"

"The reissuing of this remarkable book give us a new opportunity to see how far-reaching--and foundational--Michael Polanyi's ideas are, on some of the age-old questions in philosophy."--Amartya Sen, from the new Foreword

In its concern with science as an essentially human enterprise, Science, Faith and Society makes an original and challenging contribution to the philosophy of science. On its appearance in 1946 the book quickly became the focus of controversy. Polanyi aims to show that science must be understood as a community of inquirers held together by a common faith; science, he argues, is not the use of "scientific method" but rather consists in a discipline imposed by scientists on themselves in the interests of discovering an objective, impersonal truth. That such truth exists and can be found is part of the scientists' faith. Polanyi maintains that both authoritarianism and scepticism, attacking this faith, are attacking science itself.

Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors. With the assistance of Harry Prosch, Polanyi goes beyond his earlier critique of scientific "objectivity" to investigate meaning as founded upon the imaginative and creative faculties.
Establishing that science is an inherently normative form of knowledge and that society gives meaning to science instead of being given the "truth" by science, Polanyi contends here that the foundation of meaning is the creative imagination. Largely through metaphorical expression in poetry, art, myth, and religion, the imagination is used to synthesize the otherwise chaotic and disparate elements of life. To Polanyi these integrations stand with those of science as equally valid modes of knowledge. He hopes this view of the foundation of meaning will restore validity to the traditional ideas that were undercut by modern science. Polanyi also outlines the general conditions of a free society that encourage varied approaches to truth, and includes an illuminating discussion of how to restore, to modern minds, the "possibility" for the acceptance of religion.

Because of the difficulty posed by the contrast between the search for truth and truth itself, Michael Polanyi believes that we must alter the foundation of epistemology to include as essential to the very nature of mind, the kind of groping that constitutes the recognition of a problem.
This collection of essays, assembled by Marjorie Grene, exemplifies the development of Polanyi's theory of knowledge which was first presented in Science, Faith, and Society and later systematized in Personal Knowledge. Polanyi believes that the dilemma of the modern mind arises from the peculiar relation between the positivist claim for total objectivity in scientific knowledge and the unprecedented moral dynamism characterizing the social and political aspirations of the last century. The first part of Knowing and Being deals with this theme. Part two develops Polanyi's idea that centralization is incompatible with the life of science as well as his views on the role of tradition and authority in science. The essays on tacit knowing in Part Three proceed directly from his preoccupation with the nature of scientific discovery and reveal a pervasive substructure of all intelligent behavior. Polanyi believes that all knowing involves movement from internal clues to external evidence. Therefore, to explain the process of knowing, we must develop a theory of the nature of living things in general, including an account of that aspect of living things we call mind. Part Four elaborates upon this theme.

A chemist and member of a family renowned for its learning in several disciplines, Michael Polanyi experienced first-hand the horrors of totalitarian government and worldwide war. Consequently there is a singular weight to Polanyi's challenge to advocates of centrally planned scientific inquiry or the centrally planned implementation of scientific discovery. He argued that organizations--or governments--based solely on the methods of science threaten to foreclose a full human knowledge of the mysteries of existence and therefore pose a direct threat not only to academic freedom but to social and political liberty. The very triumphs of science in the modern era, Polanyi believed, at least affect and sometimes threaten liberty: "Our discovery and acceptance of scientific knowledge is a commitment to certain beliefs which we hold, but which others may refuse to share." This fateful interrelationship between science and liberty in our time is given supreme and elegant reflection in "The Logic of Liberty."Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an internationally renowned scientist, philosopher, "Personal Knowledge" and"The Tacit Dimension."Stuart D. Warner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Roosevelt University, Chicago.

International Library Of Sociology And Social Reconstruction.

International Library Of Sociology And Social Reconstruction.

UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM RIDDELL MEMORIAL LECTURES Eighteenth Series SCIENCE, FAITH AND SOCIETY BY MICHAEL POLANYI GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON 1946 CONTENTS L Science and Reality .... 7 II. Authority and Conscience ... 28 III. Dedication or Servitude ... 49 APPENDIX 1. Premisses of Science . . . . 71 2. Significance of New Observations ... 75 3. Correspondence with Observation . . 78 SCIENCE, FAITH AND SOCIETY I SHALL re-examine here the suppositions underlying our belief in science and propose to show that they are more extensive than is usually thought. They will appear to co extend with the entire spiritual foundations of man and to go to the very root of his social existence. Hence, I will urge, our belief in science should be regarded as a token of much wider convictions. I SCIENCE AND REALITY What is the nature of science Given any amount of experience, can scientific propositions be derived from it by the application of some explicit rules of procedure Let us limit ourselves for the sake of simplicity to the exact sciences and conveniently assume that all relevant experience is given us in the form of numerical measurements so that we are presented with a list of figures representing positions, masses, times, velocities, wavelengths, etc., from which we have to derive some mathematical law of nature. Could we do that by the application of definite operations Certainly not. Granted for the sake of argument that we could discover somehow which of the figures can be connected so that one group determines the other there would be an infinite number of mathematical functions available for the representation of the former in terms of the latter. There are many formsof mathematical series such as power series, harmonic series, etc. each of which can be used in an infinite variety of fashions to approxi mate the existing relationship between any given set of numeri cal data to any desired degree. Never yet has a definite rule been laid down by which any particular mathematical function can be recognized, among the infinite number of those offering themselves for choice, as the one which expresses a natural law. It is true that each of the infinite number of available functions will, in general, lead to a different prediction when 8 SCIENCE, FAITH AND SOCIETY applied to new observations, but this does not provide the requisite test for making a selection among them. If we pick out those which predict rightly, we still have an infinite number on our hands. The situation is in fact only changed by the addition of a few more data namely, the predicted data to those from which we had originally started. We are not brought appreciably nearer towards definitely selecting any particular function from the infinite number of those available. Now, I am not suggesting that it is impossible to find natural laws but only that this is not done, and cannot be done, by applying some explicitly known operation to the given evidence of measurements. And to bring my argument a little closer to the actual experience of science, I shall now restate it as follows. We ask Could a mathematical function connecting observable instrument readings ever constitute what we are accustomed to regard as a natural law in science For example, if we were to state our knowledge concerning the path of a planet in these terms That setting certain telescopes at certain angles at certaintimes a luminous disc of a certain size will be observed does that properly express a natural law of planetary motion No it is obvious that such a prediction is not equiva lent to a proposition concerning planetary motion...

Michael Polanyi was a polymath who primarily studied medicine and chemistry. Precisely because of Polanyi's work in the physical sciences, his writings have a unique dimension not found in other advocates of the market and too infrequently found even in philosophers of science. Society, Economics, and Philosophy represents the full range of his interests outside of his scientific work: economics, politics, society, philosophy of science, religion and positivist obstacles to it, and art. Polanyi was a powerful critic of totalitarianism and of the deficiencies of the usual defences of freedom which helped to prepare the way for it. Freedom, he argued, can be based only upon truth and dedication to transcendent ideals, not upon scepticism, utilitarianism, and the liberty of doing merely as one pleases. More radically than even von Mises and Hayek, Polanyi showed that an industrial economy can operate only "polycentrically," that central planning is logically impossible, and that what was called by that name in the Soviet Union was in reality no such thing. Likewise, scientific research can proceed, not by a central plan, but only by the spontaneous self-adjustment of separate initiatives to discover a common reality.

A chemist and member of a family renowned for its learning in several disciplines, Michael Polanyi experienced first-hand the horrors of totalitarian government and worldwide war. Consequently there is a singular weight to Polanyi's challenge to advocates of centrally planned scientific inquiry or the centrally planned implementation of scientific discovery. He argued that organizations--or governments--based solely on the methods of science threaten to foreclose a full human knowledge of the mysteries of existence and therefore pose a direct threat not only to academic freedom but to social and political liberty. The very triumphs of science in the modern era, Polanyi believed, at least affect and sometimes threaten liberty: "Our discovery and acceptance of scientific knowledge is a commitment to certain beliefs which we hold, but which others may refuse to share." This fateful interrelationship between science and liberty in our time is given supreme and elegant reflection in "The Logic of Liberty."Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an internationally renowned scientist, philosopher, "Personal Knowledge" and"The Tacit Dimension."Stuart D. Warner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Roosevelt University, Chicago.