Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T11:29:40.178Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the Duties of Intellectuals to Truth: The Life and Work of Chemist-Philosopher Michael Polanyi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

S. R. Jha
Affiliation:
Philosophy of Education Research Center, Harvard University

Abstract

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) is placed in the ongoing Enlightenment-reform tradition as one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to correct the gravest internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment project of radical criticism: scientific detachment and moral nihilism in conflict with humanist values. He held that radical criticism leads not to truth but to destructive doubt. Only the inclusion of the “personal element,” the judicial attitude of reasonable doubt and the acknowledgment of belief in the regulative principle of truth can overcome this end. Freedom — to reason, to criticize the method of doubt, and freedom of scientific thinking — is a precondition to reach truth. His epistemology of nonsubjective personal knowledge has redefined scientific knowing and objectivity as grounded in tacit knowing. Debate is continuing on objectivity and freedom versus the social duty of science. Polanyi's Hungarian correspondence highlights his commitment to truth and the contemporary cultural-political situation of Jewish intellectuals.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Archival Sources

Sidney Hook Papers. Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, California.Google Scholar
Michael Polanyi Papers. Special Collections, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago. Permission for citations granted by Dr. John Polanyi.Google Scholar
Karl Popper Papers. Hoover Institute Archives, Stanford University, California. Quotations by permission of the Estate of Sir Karl Popper.Google Scholar
Brodbeck, , May. 1960. Reviews. American Sociological Review, August.Google Scholar
Cash, John M. 1977. Correspondence Index, “Guide to the Papers of Michael Polanyi.” Special Collections, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Collins, F. Howard. 1901. Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, 5th ed., with a preface by Herbert Spencer. London: Williams & Norgate.Google Scholar
Collins, H. M. 1974. “The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks.” Science Studies (now Social Studies of Science) 4 (2) (April): 165–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Congdon, Lee. 1991. Exile and Social Thought: Hungarian Intellectuals in Germany and Austria, 1919–1933. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Earl. 1992. “Integrating Fuzzy Logic into Neural Nets.” AI Expert 7 (6):42.Google Scholar
Darwin, , Charles, . [1859] 1958. Conclusion to The Origin of Species. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Dobbs, B. T. 1990. Alchemical Death and Resurrection: The Significance of Alchemy in the Age of Newton. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Libraries.Google Scholar
Earle, William 1959. Book Reviews. Science 129 (27 March).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebenstein, William. 1951. Great Political Thinkers. NewYork: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.Google Scholar
Einstein, Albert. 1950. “Physics and Reality: General Considerations Concerning the Method of Science.” In Out of My Later Years. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Eliade, Mircea. 1961. Images and Symbols. Harvill Press.Google Scholar
Fermi, Laura. 1968. Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe 1930–41. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Festschrift in Honor of Edward Shils. 1996. Edited by Shattock, Michael. Minerva 34 (1) (Spring).Google Scholar
Festschrift: The Logic of Personal Knowledge. 1961. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Floud, Jean. 1996. “Edward Shils (1910–1995).” In Festschrift … 1996.Google Scholar
Foster, Claude R. Jr,. 1980. “Historical Antecedents: Why the Holocaust?” in Reflections on the Holocaust: Historical, Philosophical, and Educational Dimensions. Special edition of Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, edited by Lambert, Richard D., 450 (July): 119.Google Scholar
Gelwick, Richard. 1977. The Way of Discovery. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gluck, Mary. 1985. Georg Lukacs and His Generation, 1900–1918. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Marjorie, Grene, ed. 1969. Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi. Selected essays 1958–1968. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Haberer, Joseph. 1969. “German Science in the Weimar Republic.” In Politics and the Community of Science. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood Russell. 1958. Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Charles, Hartshorne, and Paul, Weiss, eds. 1960. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Volume 1: Principles of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holton, Gerald, Hasok, Chang, and Edward, Jurkowitz. 1996. “How a Scientific Discovery Is Made: A Case History,” American Scientist 84 (4) (July–August):364–75.Google Scholar
Hook, Sidney. 1987. Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Hooker, C. A., Penfold, H. B., and Evans, R. J.. 1992. “Control, Connectionism and Cognition: Towards a New Regulatory Paradigm.” British Journal of Philosophy of Science 43:517–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ignotus, Paul. 1961. “The Hungary of Michael Polanyi.” In The Logic of Personal Knowledge [Festschrift]. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
James, William. 1910. The Principles of Psychology. London: Harvill Press.Google Scholar
Jha, S. R. 1995. “Michael Polanyi's Integrative Philosophy.” Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Jha, S. R. 1997. “A New Interpretation of Michael Polanyi's Theory of Tacit Knowing: Integrative Philosophy with ‘Intellectual Passions’.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 28 (4):611–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Jeffrey Alan. 1990. The Kaiser's Chemists: Science and Modernization in Imperial Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, William M. 1972. The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848–1938. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. [1929] 1965. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Kemp-Smith, N.. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1970 Preface to Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Translation of vol. 4 of the Konigliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften edition by Ellington, James New York: Library of Liberal Arts. Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Kecskemeti, Paul. 1952. Meaning, Communication and Value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. [1962] 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. 1963. “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research.” In part 4 of Scientific Change: Symposium on the History of Science, 1961, edited by Crombie, A. C., 347–81. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Lakatos, Imre. 1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laqueur, Walter. 1996. “Anti-Communism Abroad: Memoir of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.” Partisan Review 63 (2): 188204.Google Scholar
Lilge, Frederick. 1948. The Abuse of Learning. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lossky, Nicholas. 1951. History of Russian Philosophy. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Lukacs, John. 1988. Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Mackinnon, , Edward, S. J. 1959. Book review, Modern Schoolman, May.Google Scholar
McCagg, William O. 1972. Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary. New York: East European Quarterly, Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Montefiore, Alan 1966.“Fact, Value and Ideology. “In British Analytical Philosophy, edited by Williams, Bernard, and Alan, Montefiore, 179203. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick 1990. “War.” Chap. 2 in On the Law of Nations.Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nye, Mary Joe 1993. “Philosophies of Chemistry since the Eighteenth Century.” In Chemical Sciences in the Modern World, edited by Seymour, H. Mauskopf. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Passmore, John 1985. Recent Philosophers. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1936a. USSR Economics: Fundamental Data, System and Spirit. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1936b. “The Value of the Inexact.” Philosophy of Science 3 (2)(April):233–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1938. “Genetics in the USSR.” Modern Quarterly 1 (4) (October).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. [1940] 1975a. The Contempt of Freedom. New York: Arno Press. Originally published by Watts, London.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael [1940] 1975b. “Rights and Duties of Science (1939).” In Polanyi [1940] 1975a.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. [1940] 1975c. “Truth and Propaganda (1936).” In Polanyi [1940] 1975a,9116.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1943a. “The English and the Continent.” Political Quarterly 14(4) (October– December):372–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1943b. “Jewish Problems.” Political Quarterly 14 (1) (Jan.–March): 3345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1944. “Patent Reform.” Review of Economic Studies 11(2) (Summer):6176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1946. Science, Faith and Society. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1951. “American Political Test.” Letter to the Editor. Manchester Guardian, March 3.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. [1951] 1980a. The Logic of Liberty: Reflections and Rejoinders. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. [1951] 1980b. “Social Message of Pure Science (1945).” In Polanyi [1951] 1980a.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1953. “Pure and Applied Sciences and their Appropriate Forms of Organization.” In Societyfor Freedom in Science, Occasional Pamphlet 14 (December).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1955. “On Liberalism and Liberty,” Encounter 4 (3) (March):2934.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1956. “The Magic of Marxism.” Encounter 7 (6) (December):517.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. [1958] 1962. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1959. The Study of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael 1963. “Commentaries on Part Four by Michael Polanyi.” In Scientjfic Change: Symposium on the History of Science, 1961, edited by Crombie, A. C. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1966a. “Polanyi's Logic: A Response.”Encounter 27 (3) (September):92.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1966b. The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1967. “The Creative Imagination,” Triquarterly 8 (Winter): 111–23.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1970. “What Is Painting?The American Scholar 39 (4) (Autumn):655–69.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1975. “Personal Quotes.” In World Authors, 1950–1970, edited by Wakeman, John, 1151. New York: H. W. Wilson.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1945. Open Society and Its Enemies. Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato; vol. 2: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1962. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Prigogine, Ilya. 1980. From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Richard. 1986. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Royce, Josiah. 1904. Herbert Spencer: An Estimate and Review. New York: Fox, Duffield.Google Scholar
James, Schmidt, ed. 1996. What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fred, Schwartz, ed. 1974. Scientific Thought and Social Reality: Essays by Michael Polanyi. Selected essays 1945–65. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Shandle, Jack. 1993. “Neural Networks Are Ready for Prime Time.” Electronic Design 41 (4) (18 February): 51.Google Scholar
Shattock, Michael. 1996. Foreword to Festschrift … 1996:23.Google Scholar
Shils, Edward. 1972. The Intellectuals and the Powers and Other Essays. Selected Papers of Shils. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shils, Edward. 1991. “Robert Maynard Hutchins.” In Remembering the University of Chicago: Teachers, Scientists, and Scholars, edited by Shils, E.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simmons, E. J. 1965. “Tolstoy — My Hero Is Truth.” In Introduction to Russian Realism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sisa, Stephen. 1983. The Spirit of Hungary: A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture, 2nd ed. Toronto, Ontario: A Wintario Project, The Rakoczi Foundation.Google Scholar
Spiro, Rand J., et al. 1989. “Multiple Analogies for Complex Concepts: Antidotes for Analogy-Induced Misconception in Advanced Knowledge Acquisition.” In Similarity and Analogical Reasoning, edited by Vosniadou, Stella and Ortony, Andrew, 498531. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanfield, J. R. 1986. The Economic Thought of Karl Polanyi: Lives and Livelihood. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, Rod. 1994. “Fuzzy Cognitive Maps Model Social Systems.” AI Expert 9 (7) (July): 1923.Google Scholar
Vezer, Erzsebet. 1990. “The Polanyi Family.” In Life and Work of Karl Polanyi, edited by Polanyi-Levitt, Kari. Montreal: Black Rose Books.Google Scholar
Werskey, Gary. 1988. The Visible College: A Collective Biography of the British Scientists and Socialists of the 1930's. London: Free Association Book.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Mildred S. 1933. “The Jews in the Third Reich.” Foreign Policy Report 9 (16) (11 October): 174–84.Google Scholar
Westfall, Richard S. [1971] 1977. The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
White, Morton. [1955] 1964. “The Decline and Fall of the Absolute.” In The Twentieth-Century Philosophers: The Age of Analysis. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Wigner, E. P. and Hodgkin, R. A.. 1977. “Michael Polanyi.” In Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 23, 437–45. London: The Royal Society.Google Scholar
Wistrich, Robert S. 1989. The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph. New York: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckerman, Harriet, and Merton, Robert K.. 1979. “Patterns of Evaluation in Science: Institutionalisation, Structure and Functions of the Referee System.” In The Scientific Journal, vol. 2, edited by Meadows, A. J.. London: Aslib Reader Series.Google Scholar