Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi PDF Author: Mark T. Mitchell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684516811
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
The polymath Michael Polanyi first made his mark as a physical chemist, but his interests gradually shifted to economics, politics, and philosophy, in which field he would ultimately propose a revolutionary theory of knowledge that grew out of his firsthand experience with both the scientific method and political totalitarianism. In this sixth entry in ISI Books’ Library of Modern Thinkers’ series, Mark T. Mitchell reveals how Polanyi came to recognize that the roots of the modern political and spiritual crisis lay in an errant conception of knowledge that served to foreclose any possibility of making meaningful statements about truth, goodness, or beauty. Polanyi’s theory of knowledge as ineluctably personal but also grounded in reality is not merely of historical interest, writes Mitchell, for it proposes an attractive alternative for anyone who would reject both the hubris of modern rationalism and the ultimately nihilistic implications of academic postmodernism.

Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi PDF Author: Mark T. Mitchell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684516811
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 123

Get Book Here

Book Description
The polymath Michael Polanyi first made his mark as a physical chemist, but his interests gradually shifted to economics, politics, and philosophy, in which field he would ultimately propose a revolutionary theory of knowledge that grew out of his firsthand experience with both the scientific method and political totalitarianism. In this sixth entry in ISI Books’ Library of Modern Thinkers’ series, Mark T. Mitchell reveals how Polanyi came to recognize that the roots of the modern political and spiritual crisis lay in an errant conception of knowledge that served to foreclose any possibility of making meaningful statements about truth, goodness, or beauty. Polanyi’s theory of knowledge as ineluctably personal but also grounded in reality is not merely of historical interest, writes Mitchell, for it proposes an attractive alternative for anyone who would reject both the hubris of modern rationalism and the ultimately nihilistic implications of academic postmodernism.

Meaning

Meaning PDF Author: Michael Polanyi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022611161X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
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.

The Tacit Dimension

The Tacit Dimension PDF Author: Michael Polanyi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226672980
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
"The Tacit Dimension" argues that tacit knowledge -tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments- is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. This volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

Personal Knowledge

Personal Knowledge PDF Author: Michael Polanyi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134746091
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
First published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Michael Polanyi and His Generation

Michael Polanyi and His Generation PDF Author: Mary Jo Nye
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226610659
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
In Michael Polanyi and His Generation, Mary Jo Nye investigates the role that Michael Polanyi and several of his contemporaries played in the emergence of the social turn in the philosophy of science. This turn involved seeing science as a socially based enterprise that does not rely on empiricism and reason alone but on social communities, behavioral norms, and personal commitments. Nye argues that the roots of the social turn are to be found in the scientific culture and political events of Europe in the 1930s, when scientific intellectuals struggled to defend the universal status of scientific knowledge and to justify public support for science in an era of economic catastrophe, Stalinism and Fascism, and increased demands for applications of science to industry and social welfare. At the center of this struggle was Polanyi, who Nye contends was one of the first advocates of this new conception of science. Nye reconstructs Polanyi’s scientific and political milieus in Budapest, Berlin, and Manchester from the 1910s to the 1950s and explains how he and other natural scientists and social scientists of his generation—including J. D. Bernal, Ludwik Fleck, Karl Mannheim, and Robert K. Merton—and the next, such as Thomas Kuhn, forged a politically charged philosophy of science, one that newly emphasized the social construction of science.

Science, Faith and Society

Science, Faith and Society PDF Author: Michael Polanyi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022616344X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
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.

The Economic Thought of Michael Polanyi

The Economic Thought of Michael Polanyi PDF Author: Gábor Biró
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000094251
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Michael Polanyi is most famous for his work in chemistry and the philosophy of science, but in the 1930s and 1940s he made an important contribution to economics. Drawing on rich archival materials on Polanyi and his correspondents, Gábor Biró explores their competing worldviews and their struggles to popularise their visions of the economy, economic expertise and democracy. Special focus is given to Polanyi’s pioneering economics film and postmodern ideas. This volume will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of the history of economics, philosophy of science, and science and technology studies.

Personal Knowledge

Personal Knowledge PDF Author: Michael Polanyi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Everyman Revived

Everyman Revived PDF Author: Lady Drusilla Scott
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802840790
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book has been done in a way and in a style that makes for very easy reading and understanding, even by those who have not been familiar with the deep changes going on in science. This is a fine piece of communication to the wider public and will be widely received.-The Reverend Professor T.F. Torrance.

Contact with Reality

Contact with Reality PDF Author: Esther Lightcap Meek
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498239838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Is knowledge discovered, or just invented? Can we ever get outside ourselves to know how reality is in itself, independent of us? Philosophical realism raises the question whether in our knowing we connect with an independent reality--or only connect with our own mental constructs. Far from being a silly parlor game, the question impacts our lives concretely and deeply. Modern Western culture has been infected with antirealism and the doubt, skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, and atheism that attends it--not to mention distrust and arbitrary (mis)use of reality. Premier scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi stepped aside from research to offer an innovative account of knowing that takes its cue from how discovery actually happens. Polanyi defied the antirealism of the twentieth century, sounding a ringing note of hope in his repeated claim that in discovery, we know we have made contact with reality because "we have a sense of the possibility of indeterminate future manifestations." And that sense marks contact with reality, because it is the way reality is: abundant, generous, and fraught with as-yet-unnameable possibilities. This book examines that distinctive claim, contrasting it to the wider philosophical discussions regarding realism and antirealism in the recent decades. It shows why Polanyi's outlook is superior, and why that matters, not just to scientific discoverers, but to us all.