Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi was "a world-class physical chemist who turned to philosophy at the height of his scientific career because he was dismayed at the abuses and restrictions that materialist philosophy, especially in its Marxist guise, was inflicting on scientific research. The influential approach to the philosophy of science he articulated in response to this crisis was thoroughly non-reductive in character. He illustrated how philosophical, religious, psychological, sociological, and scientific concerns interact to affect each other's development, arguing that each perspective is essential and that none can be reduced to any other. Polanyi extended this multi-leveled analysis into his discussion of complexity in nature, arguing, for example, that the sort of complexity exhibited in biology could never be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry. The information content of a biological whole exceeds that of the sum of its parts." Source: the now-defunct Michael Polanyi Center.

Links

• biography in about 3,000 words by Phil Mullins, Editor of the Polanyi Journal Tradition and Discovery
• His book, Personal Knowledge Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (ISBN 0226672883)
• Polanyi Society home page
• Polanyi resources at erraticimpact.com
• Tacit Knowing, Truthful Knowing: The Life and Thought of Michael Polanyi, by Mars Hill Audio
• Polanyiana, Volume 8, Number 1-2. Appears to be produced in Budapest.
• Related Web pages found by Google