Abstract
Rich in insights, groundbreaking in its interpretations, Personal Knowledge deserves to be better known. Modestly contributing to this end, the present paper explains why teachers addressing the nature of science should spend time on Polanyi. Outlining his intellectual career (from medicine to the cutting edge of chemical research, to the analysis of science and society), his ideas on education of scientists, on research and knowledge are then examined. Much of what he found in science – personal knowledge, intellectual passion, faith, trust, tacit understanding, method rules embodied in practice but seldom amenable to formulation – contradicted the ‘orthodox’ understanding of it. He presaged Kuhn, Feyerabend, and the constructivists, yet insisted that science produces true knowledge about reality. Tension between tradition and innovation characterizes Polanyi's thought, as it does Polanyian scientific research.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Barnes, B.: 1985, About Science, Blackwell, Oxford.
Bernal, J.: 1939, The Social Function of Science, G. Routledge & Sons, London.
Drucker, P.: 1979, Adventures of a Bystander, Heinemann, London.
Feyerabend, P.: 1975, Against Method, New Left Books, London.
Gelwick, R.: 1977, The Way of Discovery, Oxford University Press, New York.
Hodgkin, R.: 1976, Born Curious, John Wiley & Sons, London.
Hodgkin, R.: 1985, Playing and Exploring, Methuen, London.
Hoyningen-Huene, P.: 1993, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Knorr-Cetina, K.: 1981, The Manufacture of Knowledge, Pergamon, Oxford.
Kuhn, T.: 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Latour, B. & Woolgar, S.: 1979, Laboratory Life, Sage, Beverly Hills.
MacIntyre, A.: 1980, ‘Epistemological Crises, Drammatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science’, in G. Gutting (ed.), Paradigms and Revolutions, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 54-74.
Matthews, M.: 1998, ‘Foreword and Introduction’, in W. F. McComas (ed.), The Nature of Science in Science Eduction, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, xi-xxi.
Merton, R.: 1973, The Sociology of Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Polanyi, M.: 1936, U.S.S.R. Economics, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Polanyi, M.: 1940, The Contempt of Freedom, Watts, London.
Polanyi, M.: 1946, Science, Faith and Society, Oxford University Press, London.
Polanyi, M.: 1951, The Logic of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Polanyi, M.: 1958, Personal Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Polanyi, M.: 1964, ‘Background and Prospect’, in Science, Faith and Society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 7-19.
Polanyi, M.: 1966, The Tacit Dimension, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Polanyi, M. & Prosch, H.: 1975, Meaning, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Ravetz, J.: 1973, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Ryle, G.: 1963, The Concept of Mind, Peregrine Books, Harmondsworth.
Scott, D.: 1995, Everyman Revived, Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids.
Torrance, T.: 1980, ‘The Place of Michael Polanyi in the Modern Philosophy of Science’, Ethics in Science and Medicine 7, 57-95.
Werskey, G.: 1978, The Visible College, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Whewell, W.: 1840, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, John W. Parker, London.
Wigner, E. & Hodgkin R.: 1977, ‘Michael Polanyi’, in Bibliographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 23, Dec., Royal Society, London, 413-448.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jacobs, S. Michael Polanyi on the Education and Knowledge of Scientists. Science & Education 9, 309–320 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008729129597
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008729129597