Quotes by Michael Polanyi

About Michael Polanyi:

Michael Polanyi 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 our highest achievements as human beings.
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These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science.

Michael Polanyi

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 ex...

Michael Polanyi

A steady recognition that the evils which prevent the fullness of moral development are precisely the elements which are also the source of the power that gives existence to whatever moral accomplishments we see about us may eventually lead us to a t...

Michael Polanyi

Admittedly, scientific authority is not distributed evenly throughout the body of scientists; some distinguished members of the profession predominate over others of a more junior standing.

Michael Polanyi

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.

Michael Polanyi

But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.

Michael Polanyi

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 regulat...

Michael Polanyi

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

Michael Polanyi

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

Michael Polanyi

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.

Michael Polanyi

The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.

Michael Polanyi

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

Michael Polanyi

We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography.

Michael Polanyi

It was the merit of Gestalt psychology to make us aware of the remarkable performance involved in perceiving shapes. Take, for example, a ball or an egg: we can see their shapes at a glance. Yet suppose that instead of the impression made on our eye ...

Michael Polanyi

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.

Michael Polanyi

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 knowle...

Michael Polanyi

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

Michael Polanyi

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

Michael Polanyi

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.

Michael Polanyi

Moreover, only a strong and united scientific opinion imposing the intrinsic value of scientific progress on society at large can elicit the support of scientific inquiry by the general public.

Michael Polanyi

Author Bio

  • NameMichael Polanyi
  • DescriptionHungarian-British polymath
  • BornMarch 11, 1891
  • DiedFebruary 22, 1976
  • CountryHungary
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Economist; Chemist
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society