Michael Polanyi
Full Name and Common Aliases
Michael Polanyi was born as Mihály Pollányi, later adopting the anglicized name Michael Polanyi.
Birth and Death Dates
He was born on March 11, 1891, in Fünfkirchen, Austria-Hungary (now known as Pécs, Hungary) and passed away on February 22, 1976, in Manchester, England.
Nationality and Profession(s)
Polanyi held Austrian, British, and Hungarian nationalities throughout his life. He was a polymath and excelled in multiple fields: chemist, physical chemist, theoretical chemist, biophysicist, social theorist, economist, and philosopher.
Early Life and Background
Michael Polanyi was born into a family of intellectuals. His father, Mihály Pollányi, was an engineer and inventor who later became a professor at the University of Budapest. Polanyi's mother, Ilona Wekerle Pollányi, came from a wealthy merchant family. He grew up in Fünfkirchen (now Pécs) and attended the local Reformed School. Polanyi showed early promise as an intellectual and was especially drawn to mathematics and science.
Major Accomplishments
Polanyi made significant contributions in several fields:
As a chemist, he co-discovered hydrogen bonds, which are crucial for understanding water's unique properties.
His work on adsorption (the process by which molecules adhere to surfaces) shed light on the behavior of materials at the molecular level.
Polanyi also made groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of chemical equilibrium, particularly in the context of thermodynamics.Notable Works or Actions
Some notable works include:
"The Logic of Liberty" (1951) - a philosophical treatise exploring the concept of personal freedom and its relationship with the scientific method.
"Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy" (1958) - an influential book examining the role of tacit knowledge in human understanding.
Polanyi was also a prolific writer, publishing numerous papers on chemistry, physics, and philosophy. His work had a profound impact on various disciplines, from chemistry to economics and beyond.
Impact and Legacy
Michael Polanyi's legacy is multifaceted:
His work on hydrogen bonds has far-reaching implications for understanding the behavior of water in various contexts.
The concept of tacit knowledge, which he introduced, revolutionized our understanding of how humans acquire and apply knowledge.
As a philosopher, Polanyi's ideas about personal freedom and individual agency continue to influence contemporary debates on politics and economics.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Michael Polanyi is widely remembered for his:
Interdisciplinary approach, which integrated insights from chemistry, physics, philosophy, and social theory.
Visionary ideas about the nature of knowledge and its relationship to human understanding.
* Influence on various fields, including science, philosophy, economics, and politics.
His quotes often highlight the importance of individual agency, personal freedom, and the limits of scientific inquiry.
Quotes by Michael Polanyi
This difference between a probability statement on the one hand, and the probability of a statement, or the degree of belief in a statement on the other, may seem elusive, but is actually quite obvious.
In so far as a theory cannot be tested by experience – or appears not capable of being so tested – it ought to be revised so that its predictions are restricted to observable magnitudes.
Polanyi writes that there exists unspecifiable and unarticulated knowledge among scientists that is not susceptible to language and usually is dismissed in philosophy of science.
Christianity sedulously fosters, and in a sense permanently satisfies, man’s craving for mental dissatisfaction by offering him the comfort of a crucified God.
Personal Knowledge. The two words may seem to contradict each other: for true knowledge is deemed impersonal, universally established, objective. But the seeming contradiction is resolved by modifying the conception of knowing.
The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.
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.
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.
