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Michael Polanyi Biography

Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi, FRS (11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism supplies a false account of knowing, which if taken seriously undermines humanity's highest achievements.

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Michael Polanyi Quotes

I hold that the propositions embodied in natural science are not derived by any definite rule from the data of experience, and that they can neither be verified nor falsified by experience according to any definite rule.

Data, Falsified, Natural, Propositions

No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry.

Chemistry, Determined, Fully, Inanimate Objects, Law, Laws

My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of material goods is regulated.

Community, Goods, Principles, Scientists, Titles

But the system of prices ruling the market not only transmits information in the light of which economic agents can mutually adjust their actions, it also provides them with an incentive to exercise economy in terms of money.

Actions, Agents, Exercise, Light, Market, Prices

Our reliance on the validity of a scientific conclusion depends ultimately on a judgment of coherence; and as there can exist no strict criterion for coherence, our judgment of it must always remain a qualitative, nonformal, tacit, personal judgment.

Coherence, Criteria, Judgment, Reliance, Scientific, Strict

I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.

Activities, Communication, Feelings, Intellectual, Like

To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case, we will be able to see that absolute moral renewal could be attempted only by an absolute power and that a tyrannous force such as this must destroy the whole moral life of man, not renew it.

Attempted, Force, Men, Reform, Structure, Trying

The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.

Evidence, Hands, Knowledge, People, Science

We do not accept a religion because it offers us certain rewards. The only thing that a religion can offer us is to be just what it, in itself, is: a greater meaning in ourselves, in our lives, and in our grasp of the nature of things. . . a religion exists for us only if, like a piece of poetry, it carries us away. It is not in any sense a 'hypothesis.

Accept, Accepting, Like, Pieces, Rewards, Things

Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence.

Exercise, Framework, Intelligence, Principles, Responsibility, Setting

The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.

Book, Dna, Ideas, Paper, Physics, Reduced

A free society is regarded as one that does not engage, on principle, in attempting to control what people find meaningful, and a totalitarian society is regarded as one that does, on principle, attempt such control.

Attempt, Meaningful, People, Principles

And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.

Achievement, Chemistry, Mechanisms, Physics, Thing

While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.

Knowledge, Learning, Management, Tacit, Understood, Unthinkable

So long as we use a certain language, all questions that we can ask will have to be formulated in it and will thereby confirm the theory of the universe which is implied in the vocabulary and structure of the language.

Confirm, Long, Universe, Use, Vocabulary

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.

Belief, Enlightenment, Explicitly, Process

But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.

Atomic, Defined, Physics, Topography

Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.

Acts, Creative, Existence, Provide, Theories, Theory Of Evolution

Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.

Gathering Data, Knowing, Participation, Personal, Principles, Universal

Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness.

Acceptance, Belief, Course, Manifests, Use

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