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Bretislav Friedrich

MICHAEL POLANYI (1891-1976):

THE LIFE OF THE MIND
INTRODUCTION Among the protagonists of chemical reaction dynamics were
Polanyi’s son John Polanyi as well as Dudley Herschbach who,
Michael Polanyi was a polymath widely acclaimed for his work along with Yuan Lee, would share the 1986 Nobel prize in
in areas as diverse as physical chemistry, economics, patent chemistry “for their contributions concerning the dynamics of
law, sociology of science, and philosophy, as well as for his ac- chemical elementary processes.”
tivism as a public intellectual. He left behind a legacy that has
been examined in countless articles published in the periodi- Here is how John Polanyi characterized his father:[2] “Michael,
cals of the three Polanyi societies1 and elsewhere as well as in in his intellectual endeavors, cultivated the position of an out-
over a dozen monographs. sider. He worked for years as an amateur [scientist], in the spare
time from his profession of medicine. Later he would be an am-
Even Polanyi’s work in physical chemistry alone had an uncom- ateur economist, an amateur on patent law (on which subject
monly broad scope, ranging from the study of the structure of he published, and testified before a Committee of the House
cellulose (whose macromolecular character Polanyi anticipat- of Lords in the UK) and, most conspicuously, an amateur phi-
ed in 1921) to the structure and properties of crystals (in par- losopher. What did all this amateurism mean? Many things. A
ticular crystal defects) to adsorption of gases (physisorption) to gentlemanly disdain for the professional. A belief in the special
heterogeneous catalysis (the Horiuti-Polanyi mechanism of hy- ability of the outsider to see beyond cant and convention. Per-
drogenation) to chemical kinetics, his foremost preoccupation. haps a romantic admiration for the lonely cow-boy.”
With his mutually “trusting but critical”[1] team of young theo-
rists, which included Eugene Wigner, Fritz London, and Henry And Eugene Wigner, Michael Polanyi’s former PhD student, not-
Eyring, see Figure 1, Polanyi laid the foundations for kinetic ed in his own Nobel presentation:[3] “[Michael Polanyi] taught
theory consistent with quantum mechanics and foreshadowed me, among other things, that science begins when a body of
chemical reaction dynamics, which would only see the light of phenomena is available which shows some coherence and
day in the early 1960s in North America. regularities, that science consists in assimilating these regu-

Fig. 1: Michael Polanyi and the members of his “trusting but critical” team of theorists at the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin.
From left to right: Michael Polanyi, Eugene Wigner (1902-1995), Fritz London (1900-1954), and Henry Eyring (1901-1981).

1
Prof. Dr. Bretislav Friedrich The Polanyi Society publishes Tradition & Discovery (since 1972); The
Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Michael Polanyi Liberal Philosophical Association publishes Polanyiana
Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany (since 1992); The Society for Post-Critical and Personalist Studies was
Tel: [+49] (0)30 8413-5739, Fax: [+49] (0)30 8413-5603 formed in 2004, and took over the publication of Appraisal (in 1996).
E-Mail: [Link]@[Link]

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larities and in creating concepts which permit expressing these by Hungary’s leading poets, novelists, painters, and scholars.
regularities in a natural way. He also taught me that it is this Michael, who was a student at the elite Minta Gymnasium4
method of science rather than the concepts themselves (such was contributing to the household budget by tutoring his fellow
as energy) which should be applied to other fields of learning.” students. He graduated from Minta in 1909 and entered the
medical school in Budapest the same year, earning his medical
Recently, Dudley Herschbach, who had met Michael Polanyi on diploma in 1913. A timeline of Michael Polanyi’s life and work
about half a dozen occasions, added the following characteri- is shown in Figure 2.
zation:[4] “No one else impressed me as living ‘the life of the
mind’ so intensely [as Michael Polanyi did].” As the historian and journalist Paul Ignotus put it:[1] “From his
background [Michael Polanyi] inherited the limitless liberality
Below I aim to outline how much worth-living Michael Polanyi’s of mind, the simultaneity of personal and technical interests
life of the mind had been. and the ability to coordinate them in behavior as well as in phi-
losophy.” Eugene Wigner and R.A. Hodgkin add:[1] “Perhaps
there was another quality which Polanyi acquired from those
BUDAPEST: 1891-1913 early years – the capacity to reflect on the workings of his mind
and body, to make sense of his actions and what befell him.”
Michael Polanyi was born on 12 March 1891 into a well-to-
do Jewish family in Budapest at a time when its emancipated Polanyi himself would say late in life that it was science that
Jewish community was thriving.2 His father, Mihaly Pollacsek, was the pole star that had been inspiring him since his child-
was an ETH-educated railroad engineer who became one of hood.[5]
the major players in the development of Hungary’s advanced
railroad system. His mother, Cecile, nee Wohl, was the daugh-
ter of the chief rabbi of Wilna (Vilnius). The couple moved to 2
Jews in Hungary were equal before the law to Christians since 1867. In
Budapest in 1890 and in 1904 Magyarized the family name 1900, about 5% of Hungary’s population was Jewish. However in Buda-
of their five children (but not their own) to Polanyi.3 The father pest, a city of 733,000, the fraction was about 20%. There was no ghetto
declared bankruptcy in 1899 after a flood washed away a in Budapest. Ref. 5, pp. 4-5.
railroad line he had developed and died in 1905, leaving the 3
The mother spoke German to her children.
family in a precarious financial situation. However, despite the 4
About 35% of high-school (Gymnasium) students in pre-WWI Budapest
odds, the mother was able to hold a weekly salon frequented were Jewish. Cited in Ref. 5, p. 107.

Year Age

1890 Born in Budapest as the youngest of five children of Mihaly and Cecile Pollacsek 0

Father loses family fortune

1900 10
Parents Magyarize the family name of their children (although not their own) to Polanyi
Father dies; mother holds a salon in Budapest frequented by Hungary’s leading poets, novelists, painters and scholars
Graduates from Mirta Gymnasium and enters Medical School in Budapest
1910 Writes his first scientific paper, of medical interest 20
Receives his medical diploma; begins his studies of physical chemistry at the TH Karlsruhe; starts writing papers on thermodynamics
Writes his PhD thesis on adsorption (physisorption)
Defends his PhD thesis at the University of Budapest; converts to Catholicism; returns to Karlsruhe; becomes interested in reaction rates
1920 Lands a research position at the KWI for Fiber Chemistry in Berlin; works on X-ray analysis of crystal structure 30
Marries Magda Kemeny in Berlin
Appointed Head of the Department of Chemical Kinetics at the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry; Habilitation at Berlin University
Extraordinarius at the TH Charlottenburg and Member of the KWI
1930 London’s theory of dispersion forces vindicates Polanyi’s theory of phyisisorption
Lays the conceptual foundations of the chemical reaction rate theory consistent with quantum mechanics 40
Emigrates from Germany to England; assumes chair in chemistry at the University of Manchester

1940 50
Elected member of the Royal Society
Personal Chair in Social Studies at the University of Manchester; publishes Full Employment and Free Trade
1950 60
Gives Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen

Publishes his magnum opus Personal Knowledge; moves to Merton College, Oxford, as Senior Research Fellow
1960 70
Terry Lectures at Yale
Publishes Tacit Dimension
Publishes Knowing and Being
1970 80
Dies in Northampton at age 84

Fig. 2: Timeline of Michael Polanyi’s life and work.

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EN ROUTE TO BERLIN: 1913-1920 receive the Nobel prize for his work in surface chemistry. While
Langmuir modeled adsorption on the basis of molecules at-
Michael Polanyi wrote his first scientific papers (on thermody- taching to individual and equivalent adsorption sites and form-
namics) when he was a high-school student. His first three pub- ing a layer no more than one atom or molecule thick, Polanyi
lished scientific papers dealt with medical topics and the first posited an attractive force between the adsorbate molecules
of them was written during his first year at the medical school and the surface, characterized by an empirically derived poten-
when he was nineteen. However, the subsequent three papers tial function, and not necessarily saturated by the adsorption
that Polanyi wrote before receiving his medical degree were of a single layer of atoms or molecules. Polanyi commented:[8]
on thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and elicited the “Whose fate is better, mine or Langmuir’s? My theory is abso-
attention of, among others, Albert Einstein. It was also in 1913 lutely right but not accepted. Langmuir’s theory is wrong but
that he entered the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe as a very famous ... Langmuir is better off.” However, in 1930, Fritz
student of chemistry under Georg Bredig, whom he had visited London was able to show that the hypothetical attractive po-
already a year earlier and who had encouraged him to publish tential that Polanyi had posited was the result of dispersion
his scientific ideas. In Karlsruhe, Polanyi expanded his range of forces,[9] a corollary of quantum mechanics. In subsequent
interests to include adsorption and chemical kinetics. years, Polanyi’s description came to be favored for many cases
of physisorption; whereas, Langmuir’s model remains relevant
Following the outbreak of World War I, Polanyi was drafted by for many cases of chemisorption.
the Austro-Hungarian military where he served as a medical
officer until his invalidation in 1916. While on a sick leave, Within a year of his arrival at Haber’s institute, Polanyi also re-
he wrote a PhD thesis on the theory of adsorption of gases turned to working on chemical kinetics, a topic that had occu-
on solids, which he defended at the University of Budapest in pied his attention intermittently but deeply since at least 1920
1919. The post WWI turmoil in Hungary that included the Bela and that would earn him enduring scientific recognition. Over
Kun-led communist revolution and the anti-Semitic Miklos Hor- the next nine years, Polanyi and his collaborators at Haber’s
thy-led counter-revolution forced Michael Polanyi to leave Hun- KWI would advance both the experimental and the theoretical
gary in 1919, whence he returned to Karlsruhe. study of reaction kinetics. In his 1920 paper,[10] Polanyi noted
that existing kinetic theories could not be quite correct, as the
ratio of forward to backward reaction rates failed to yield the
WEIMAR BERLIN: 1920-1933 equilibrium constants obtained from thermodynamics. At this
time, Polanyi also conceived of the idea of studying chemical
In September of 1920 Polanyi landed a position at the Kaiser reactions rates via collisions in atomic or molecular beams.[1]
Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Fiber Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem, However, instead he developed, in collaboration with Hans
whose director was the Austrian biochemist Reginald Oliver Beutler, and later with Stefan von Bogdandy and Hans von
Herzog. At that time Herzog’s KWI was still housed primarily in Hartel, the highly-dilute flame technique, pioneered by Haber
rooms rented from Fritz Haber’s KWI for Physical Chemistry and and Walter Zisch,[11] into a powerful tool for studying reaction
Electrochemistry.5 Although Herzog offered him considerable rates via chemiluminescence.[12]
freedom in choosing topics of research, Polanyi’s interests fit
better in Haber’s institute. Following negotiations about fund- On the theoretical side, Polanyi collaborated with Eugene Wign-
ing, the transfer from Faradayweg 16 to Faradayweg 4 became er, who completed a dissertation (“Formation and Decay of
official in September 1923.6 In the Spring of the same year, Molecules, Statistical Mechanics, and Reaction Rates”[13])
Polanyi completed his Habilitation at the Berlin University1 and at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg under Polanyi’s
received an appointment as Privatdozent at the Technische supervision in 1925. Wigner first joined Polanyi while the lat-
Hochschule Chralottenburg (today’s Technische Universität ter was still at the KWI for Fiber Chemistry, where Wigner also
Berlin), which was upgraded in 1926 to Extraordinarius.[6] worked with Hermann Mark and later as an assistant to Karl
Weissenberg, pursuing research on the use of symmetry groups
When he joined Haber’s KWI, as head7, 8 of the Department of in crystal structure analysis, but continued working with Polanyi
Chemical Kinetics, Polanyi was in the midst of writing a series on chemical kinetics as well. In addition, the Polanyi group was
of articles on the use of X-ray diffraction relevant for the under- aided in its theory endeavors by Fritz London,9 whose many con-
standing of plasticity, crystals under stress and crystal defects.
However, Polanyi divided his attention between multiple lines
of research, including industrial research and consulting that 5
An X-ray apparatus was set up in the basement of Haber’s directorial villa
helped him supplement his salary from the KWI and the Tech- next to the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Elecrochemistry.
nische Hochschule. Notably, Polanyi kept returning to the topic 6
Polanyi occupied rooms on the 3rd floor of the main building.
of his dissertation research, gas adsorption. He even gave a 7
Wigner and Hodgkin, Ref. 1: “[Haber] directed his Institute somewhat
presentation of his work on this subject at Haber’s Colloquium from a distance; one rarely saw him and he rarely attended the scientific
in 1921. Later he said:[7] “Professionally, I survived the oc- conferences. Hence the departmental heads had to make most of their
casion only by the skin of my teeth.” In attendance were Fritz decisions by themselves.”
Haber, Albert Einstein and numerous experts on adsorption 8
Michael Polanyi: “Few scientists can do good work with more than a doz-
who at that time all opposed Polanyi’s model of adsorption. Po- en personal collaborators,” Ref. 5, p. 204.
lanyi’s ideas on adsorption differed markedly from those of the 9
Fritz London was Erwin Schrödinger’s assistant at the Berlin University at
American physical chemist, Irving Langmuir, who would later the time.

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tributions to physics included developing one of the first quan- tion between the nuclear and electronic motions, known today
tum mechanical accounts of the covalent chemical bond,[14] in as the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.[20] Thus London’s
collaboration with Walter Heitler. Wigner and London, together tackling of the H3 system breathed new life into Svante Arrhe-
with Hans Beutler, brought to the reaction kinetics research a nius’s 1889 concept of activation energy, by reinterpreting it
facility with quantum mechanics, especially its more advanced as the summit-to-be-conquered between the electronic eigene-
mathematical methods, that Polanyi lacked. nergy valleys of the reactants and products, see Figure 3.[21]
The rate at which the ball makes its transit over the summit
In 1925, in a rejoinder to a paper in which Max Born and James – and hence the rate of the reaction – was evaluated in 1932
Franck argued that it would be nearly impossible for a collision in Polanyi’s group by Hans Pelzer and Wigner,[22} who made
of molecules to trigger a chemical reaction, Polanyi and Wign- use of statistical mechanics and the London-Eyring-Polanyi
er succeeded to resolve the discrepancy between forward and semi-empirical potential energy surface.12 This was the first
reverse reaction rates for the case of two-body capture and its take on the “transition-state” or “activated complex” theory of
reverse, one-body decay, by invoking an argument that bore chemical reactions, which would be developed by Eyring and
an uncanny similarity to the uncertainty relation between en- his collaborators at Princeton and Polanyi and Meredith Evans
ergy and time.[15]10 The Polanyi-Wigner article was followed at Manchester in 1935, and later refined by others.[23]
by a series of papers by Hans Beutler examining in detail the
quantum mechanics of inelastic collisions of gaseous atoms Another prominent visitor-turned-key-collaborator of Polanyi’s
and molecules that lead to electronic excitation; these were was the Tokyo-University-trained physical chemist Juro Horiuti.
written in part in collaboration with Polanyi and in part with In the spring of 1933, Horiuti joined the Polanyi group from
Eugene Rabinowitsch. Starting from a general study of atom- Arnold Eucken’s laboratory, where he had been doing research
ic collisions by Hartmut Kallmann and Fritz London, Beutler on Raman spectra. When he arrived at Haber’s KWI, he began
and his colleagues treated in detail the kinds of collisions they research with Polanyi on heavy water. Their collaboration then
thought most likely to contribute to chemical reactions and turned to studies of hydrogen exchange reactions and even-
chemiluminescence.[16] But the most enduring theoretical tually resulted in the first descriptions of the Horiuti-Polanyi
achievement of the Polanyi group would depend pivotally upon mechanism of hydrogenation of alkenes. This research marked
the help of one of the KWI’s many visiting foreign scholars. the beginning of Horiuti’s life-long interest in catalysis and
electrochemistry, and to date the Horiuti-Polanyi mechanism
In 1929, Henry Eyring, arrived in Berlin with a National Re- remains a preferred model for the hydrogenation of hydrocar-
search Council Fellowship to work with Max Bodenstein at the bons at solid surfaces. But the culmination of this research
Berlin University; however, because of Bodenstein’s absence came only in 1934 after Horiuti followed Polanyi to Manchester
(he was attending a meeting overseas), Eyring, on the recom- in August of 1933.[24]
mendation of a savvy colleague,11 joined Polanyi instead.[17]
Eyring was a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, A farewell photo of the members of Polanyi’s department taken
and had spent the preceding two years as a junior faculty at shortly before its dissolution is shown in Figure 4.
the University of Wisconsin. Eyring initially worked with Polanyi
on the highly-dilute flame experiments, but Polanyi soon invited
Eyring to work with him on the problem of chemical activation MANCHESTER AND OXFORD: 1933-1976
energy from the perspective offered by London’s recent work
on the dynamics of chemical reactions. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, before the rise of the Nazis
to power, Polanyi received several attractive offers, most notably
In their landmark 1931 paper on the subject,[18] Eyring and from the German University in Prague (in 1928), the University
Polanyi relied upon the research of Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer, of Szeged (in 1929) and the University of Manchester (in 1932).
Paul Harteck and Adalbert and Ladislaus Farkas on the sim- In particular the last offer, which came at a time when the Great
plest chemical exchange reaction, H + H2 ⇔ H2 + H, which Depression was taking a devastating toll on Germany,13 proved
Adalbert Farkas had posited as the mechanism for the inter- tempting, as it entailed a start-up fund, a new building, and com-
conversion of ortho- and para-hydrogen.[19] Eyring’s and Po- mitment to support eight to ten personnel. In a letter to Polanyi
lanyi’s paper established a visual metaphor for looking at the from June 1932, Haber advised:[25] “[I]f I received this call in
process of making and breaking of chemical bonds which, for
thermal and hyperthermal reactions, prevails until this day: a 10
ball, representing the configuration of the constituent atoms’ Wigner and Hodgkin: “It is characteristic of Polanyi’s modesty that it re-
quired considerable persuasion to induce him to have his name associat-
nuclei, rolls on the potential energy surface, given by the ei- ed with the article.” Ref. 1.
genenergy of the atoms’ electrons. En route from the valley of 11
Alexander Frumkin, a visitor from Moscow at the University of Wisconsin.
the reactants to the valley of the products, the ball follows a
12
path restricted by the reaction’s energy disposal. Or, as Eyring The pragmatic semi-empirical method, introduced by Polanyi and Eyring,
made use of spectroscopically determined dissociation energies of the con-
and Polanyi put it: “… the chemical initial and final state are
stituent diatomic molecule (i.e., H2 in the case of the H+H2 exchange reac-
two minima of energy which are separated by a chain of energy tion) in order to boost the accuracy of the potential energy surface.
mountains. [...] Among all possible paths [across the moun- 13
The national funding for the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft was cut by
tains], the reaction path is the one which leads over the lowest 30% between 1930-1931 and 1932-1933. The personnel at Haber’s insti-
pass, whose energy elevation determines the activation energy tute had been reduced from sixty five in 1931 to forty two in January 1932
of the reaction.”[18] This view of the reaction entails a separa- and would be cut further to thirty six in April 1932. Ref. 5, p. 67.

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Fig. 3: Excerpt from Ref. 18 (1931) showing the potential energy surface of the H + H2 ⇔ H2 + H reaction for a collinear collision geometry as considered by
Henry Eyring and Michael Polanyi (the London-Eyring-Polanyi potential energy surface). The arrow follows the minimum energy path from the reactant valley
via a saddle point area (dashed) to the product valley.

your situation, which I see as extremely honorable and advan-

tageous, I would accept it.” But, on January 13, 1933, Polanyi
declined. In a draft letter, he wrote:[26] “Although I first arrived
in Germany in my later years, I nonetheless am rooted here with
the greater part of my being. Even if I wanted to leave here, in
order to secure greater latitude in my professional work, this de-
cision would be especially difficult for me at the present moment
when Germany endured such hard times. One would reluctantly
give up a community which finds itself in such difficulties, when
one has shared earlier in the good times.”

However, Polanyi’s Berlin years, of which Wigner said,[27] “I

doubt [Polanyi] was ever again as happy as he had been in
Berlin,” did come to an end once the Nazis rose to power, on
30 January 1933, and Polanyi was forced to emigrate from
Germany; he left in August of 1933. He found a new academic
home at the University of Manchester after all, however under
conditions much less advantageous than spelled out in the de-
clined 1932 offer.14 In Manchester, where he held the chair
made famous by John Dalton, Polanyi published about forty
Fig. 4: Farewell photo of the already reduced department of Michael Polanyi
at the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, 1933. First row
from the left: Herr Hille, Irene Sackur, unknown, Akexander Szabo. Second
row from the left: Michael Polanyi, Juro Horiuti (?). Third row from the left:
14
Frau Gehrte (janitor), Frau Weissenberg (secretary). Fourth row from the left: There was also a brewing opposition in the senior ranks of the English
Kurt Hauschild (lab assistant), Erika Cremer. academia to hiring a foreigner instead of an Englishman.

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percent of his overall scientific output, including his “activated Grene,15 see Figure 6, Polanyi toiled on Personal Knowledge, his
complex” theory, see Figure 5. This despite the modest working philosophical magnum opus, at least since delivering his 1951-
conditions there; as Polanyi once jokingly explained to a visitor, 1952 Gifford Lectures. Interestingly, the University of Chicago,
his “laboratory’s floor … was so weak and unstable that they under its liberal president Robert Maynard Hutchins, was inter-
had to make instrument readings by first standing on the right ested in Polanyi the philosopher and public intellectual as well
foot, then on the left foot, and then taking the average.”[28] and offered him in 1951 a chair in social philosophy. Polanyi de-
cided to accept, but couldn’t because he was denied a U.S. visa,
Age based on absurd McCarthyite allegations of his association with
communists. In 1959, Polanyi moved from Manchester to Merton
20 30 40 50 60 70 80
College, Oxford, as a Senior Research Fellow.
20

15
Number of Publications

Science

10
Fig. 6: Michael Polanyi in Manchester and his two key collaborators there:
Meredith Evans (1904-1952) and Marjorie Grene (1910-2009).

Economy/Philosophy
By Polanyi’s own account, “The principal purpose of [Personal
Knowledge (1958)[31] and of its abridged and more accessi-
5
ble variant, The Tacit Dimension (1966)[32]] is to achieve a
frame of mind in which I may hold firmly to what I believe to
be true, even though I know that it might conceivably be false.
… I’m trying to convince myself.”[33] The starting point of Po-
lanyi’s project, conceived ambitiously as a new epistemology,
0
was that “we can know more than we can tell” and that “all
knowledge is grounded in [such] tacit knowing.”[34] Polanyi’s
1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
favorite example is the “art of recognizing a characteristic ap-
Year pearance by unspecifiable particulars … We practice it every
day when watching the delicately varied expressions of the
Fig. 5: Timeline of Michael Polanyi’s publication activities (resulting in a to-
tal of 356 publications). Over a half of his science papers were produced human face, and recognizing its moods without being able to
with collaborators (about sixty of them). Based on Ref. 1. identify, except quite vaguely, the signs by which we do so.”[35]
And Polanyi adds that the most “striking concrete example of
With the deterioration of the political climate in the 1930s Europe, an experience” that relies on tacit knowing is simply “the expe-
the “twice-exiled” Polanyi embarked on a mission which would rience of seeing a problem, as a scientist sees it in his pursuit
gradually claim most of his attention: standing up for political and of discovery.” He also notes that “If we succeeded in focusing
economic freedom in general and for academic freedom in par- our attention completely on the elements of a skill, its perfor-
ticular. Mary Jo Nye notes that[29] “the freedom of research that mance would be paralyzed altogether.”[35]
[Polanyi] had experienced in a tightly networked community of
world-class colleagues within the tree-lined precincts of Dahlem Another, more sociological element of Polanyi’s philosophy, is
[a.k.a. ‘the German Oxford’] became an induplicable but ideal- concerned with the transfer of scientific knowledge from teach-
ized memory that formed the foundation for his later writings on er to pupil:[36] “the master chooses the problems, selects a
the nature of scientific life and scientific achievement. The loss of technique, reacts to clues and difficulties, and keeps speculat-
his Berlin scientific community and gradually of his own scientif- ing all the time. It is a system of apprenticeship rooted in tacit
ic productivity led to later reflections on the social conditions of knowledge that often cannot be articulated and constitutes
scientific work and on the difficulty of transplanting established a tradition passed from mentor to apprentice.”16 At the same
traditions in new terrain.” The University of Manchester, “was time, personal knowledge is not subjective, as it establishes
not deterred by suspicions that Polanyi could never be more, ac- contact with reality in “anticipating an indeterminate range of
ademically speaking, than an amateur philosopher. … Was not yet unknown true implications.”[37] Polanyi spoke of “intellec-
Polanyi, in the strict academic sense, an amateur in everything
except his early skills in medicine? And could anyone quarrel with
the result?”[30] and created a chair in “Social Studies” for him in 15
Marjorie Grene was Polanyi’s assistant in 1951, funded by the Rockefel-
1948. What made this appointment even more audacious was ler Foundation.
that Polanyi would need ten more years to write his first major 16
Cf. Erwin Chargaff: “[modes of scientific thought and practice] live in the
work outside of physical chemistry. Aided by philosopher Marjorie womb of a particular language and civilization.” Cited in Ref. 5, p. 84.

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tual passions” as constituents of the personal engagement EPILOG

that is needed for scientific work.
As Mary Jo Nye has pointed out,[44] Polanyi “and other natural
Personal Knowledge is permeated with historical examples scientists and social scientists of his generation – including
none of which, however, came from Polanyi’s own research. John D. Bernal, Ludwik Fleck, Karl Mannheim, and Robert K.
One of the examples stands out, namely Einstein’s work on Merton – and the next – notably Thomas Kuhn – arrived at a
special relativity: from the fact that Einstein did not cite in his strong new conception of science as a socially based enter-
1905 paper on the subject the Michelson-Morley experiment, prise that does not rely on empiricism and reason alone, but
Polanyi concluded that Einstein’s theory was conceived “on the on social communities, behavioral norms, and personal com-
basis of pure speculation, rationally intuited by Einstein before mitments that ultimately strengthen rather than weaken the
he had ever heard about [the experiment].” In 1992, summa- growth of scientific knowledge.”
rizing his research under the heading ‘An Experimental Proof of
Tacit Knowledge,’ the physicist and historian of science Gerald Polanyi’s last student, Paul Craig Roberts, who joined Polanyi
Holton showed that Polanyi had been essentially right.[38] at Merton College, strengthens Nye’s argument by pointing to
the centrality of Polanyi’s concerns for the intangibles, in par-
Polanyi’s philosophical writings have not become as well ticular for “thought as an independent, self-governing force,”
known as those of his contemporaries, Karl Popper (whose banished, in Polanyi’s view, by modern skepticism.[45] This is,
logical empiricist characterizations of science as a system of according to Polanyi, where positivist empiricism and the moral
detached objectivity were anathema to Polanyi) or Thomas skepticism of the 20th century met to spell disaster. Polanyi’s
Kuhn (with whom Polanyi agreed on key issues and whom he remedy, which echoes his maxim “The freedom of a subjec-
inspired). Stefania Ruzsits Jha points out that “Polanyi’s choice tive person to do as he pleases is overruled by the freedom of
of language seems to be the greatest barrier to understanding the responsible person to do as he must,”[46] articulated in
his works, especially his philosophy of science.”[39] Mary Jo Personal Knowledge, is a “Western Commonwealth” in which
Nye aptly adds that,[40] “When Polanyi abandoned his work in “all people of the West will have to undergo some assimila-
physical chemistry in order to launch a crusade on behalf of a tion towards a more uniform type of man.” Its basis will be the
liberal and humane science in a free society, he did so without “rule of law, equal citizenship and a religion rather similar to
having experienced the apprenticeship and mentorship in so- early Christianity with its admixture of Greek philosophy.”[47]
cial science and philosophy that he knew were necessary for Against the backdrop of WWI, in 1917, Polanyi argued that[48]
membership in a discipline.” “national sovereignties must be eliminated, and a European
state established that is united by a system of law and order
As Mary Jo Nye further showed in her Polanyi biography,[41] and by a European army.” Does all this ring a bell? Are we there
“Polanyi’s truly original ideas in philosophy of science occurred yet or at least getting there? If so, it may be another experimen-
in [his] explicitly political writings that appeared well before the tal proof of Michael Polanyi’s theory of knowledge.
publication … of [Personal Knowledge].” Polanyi developed his
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