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Michael Polanyi | |
|---|---|
 Polanyi in England, 1933. | |
| Born | Pollacsek Mihály (1891-03-11)11 March 1891 |
| Died | 22 February 1976(1976-02-22) (aged 84) Northampton, England |
| Alma mater | Technische Hochschule University of Budapest |
| Known for | Polanyi's paradox Polanyi's sphere Polanyi potential theory Bell–Evans–Polanyi principle Eyring–Polanyi equation Flow plasticity theory Transition state theory Harpoon reaction Tacit knowledge Post-critical |
| Spouse | Magda Kemeny |
| Children | 2, includingJohn |
| Relatives |
|
| Awards | Gifford Lectures(1951–1952) Fellow of the Royal Society(1944) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physical chemistry Social studies |
| Institutions | Kaiser Wilhelm Institute University of Manchester Merton College, Oxford |
| Thesis | Adsorption of Gases by a Solid Non-Volatile Adsorbent (1917) |
| Doctoral advisor | Gusztáv Buchböck [hu] |
Michael PolanyiFRS[1] (/poʊˈlænji/poh-LAN-yee;Hungarian:Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British[2]polymath, who made important theoretical contributions tophysical chemistry,economics, andphilosophy. He argued thatpositivism is a false account ofknowing.
His wide-ranging research inphysical science includedchemical kinetics,x-ray diffraction, andadsorption of gases. He pioneered the theory offibre diffraction analysis in 1921, and thedislocation theory of plastic deformation ofductile metals and other materials in 1934. He emigrated toGermany, in 1926 becoming a chemistry professor at theKaiser Wilhelm Institute inBerlin, and then in 1933 toEngland, becoming first a chemistry professor, and then a social sciences professor at theUniversity of Manchester. Two of his students won theNobel Prize, as didhis son. In 1944 Polanyi was elected to theRoyal Society.
The contributions which Polanyi made to the social sciences include the concept of a polycentric spontaneous order and his rejection of a value neutral conception of liberty. They were developed in the context of his opposition tocentral planning.[3]
Polanyi, born Mihály Pollacsek in Budapest, was the fifth child of Mihály and Cecília Pollacsek (born asCecília Wohl), secular Jews fromUngvár (then in Hungary but now in Ukraine) andWilno, thenRussian Empire, respectively. His father's family were entrepreneurs, while his mother's father, Osher Leyzerovich Vol, was the senior teacher of Jewish history at theVilna rabbinic seminary.[citation needed] The family moved to Budapest andMagyarized their surname to Polányi. His father built much of the Hungarian railway system, but lost most of his fortune in 1899 when bad weather caused a railway building project to go over budget. He died in 1905. Cecília Polányi established a salon that was well known among Budapest's intellectuals, and which continued until her death in 1939. His older brother wasKarl Polanyi, the political economist and anthropologist, and his niece wasEva Zeisel, a world-renowned ceramist.[4]
In 1908, Polanyi graduated the teacher-training secondary school, theMinta Gymnasium. He then studied medicine at the University of Budapest, obtaining his medical diploma in 1914.[5] He was an active member of theGalileo Circle. With the support ofIgnác Pfeifer [de;hu], professor of chemistry at theRoyal Joseph University of Budapest, he obtained a scholarship to study chemistry at theTechnische Hochschule inKarlsruhe, Germany. In theFirst World War, he served in theAustro-Hungarian army as a medical officer, and was sent to theSerbian front. While on sick-leave in 1916, he wrote a PhD thesis onadsorption. His research was encouraged byAlbert Einstein and supervised byGusztáv Buchböck [hu], and in 1919 theRoyal University of Pest awarded him a doctorate.
In October 1918,Mihály Károlyi established theHungarian Democratic Republic, and Polanyi became Secretary to the Minister of Health. When the Communists seized power in March 1919, he returned to medicine. When theHungarian Soviet Republic was overthrown, Polanyi emigrated to Karlsruhe in Germany, and was invited byFritz Haber to join theKaiser Wilhelm Institut für Faserstoffchemie (fiber chemistry) in Berlin. A Christian since 1913, in a Roman Catholic ceremony he married Magda Elizabeth Kemeny.[6] In 1926 he became the professorial head of department of the Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (now theFritz Haber Institute). In 1929, Magda gave birth to their sonJohn, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1986. Their other son,George Polanyi, who predeceased him, became a well-known economist.
His experience ofrunaway inflation and high unemployment inWeimar Germany led Polanyi to become interested in economics. With the coming to power in 1933 of theNazi party, he accepted a chair in physical chemistry at the University of Manchester. Whilst there he was elected to membership of theManchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1934.[7] Two of his pupils,Eugene Wigner andMelvin Calvin, went on to win the Nobel Prize. Because of his increasing interest in the social sciences, Manchester University created a new chair inSocial Science (1948–58) for him.
Polanyi was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on theNazis'Special Search List, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to theGestapo.
From June 1944 to 1947, Polanyi participated in the activities ofThe Moot, a Christian discussion circle concerned with shaping the post-war society, at the invitation ofKarl Mannheim andJ. H. Oldham.[8]
In 1944 Polanyi was elected a member of theRoyal Society,[1] and on his retirement from the University of Manchester in 1958 he was elected a senior research fellow atMerton College, Oxford.[9] In 1962 he was elected a foreign honorary member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[10]
Polanyi's scientific interests were extremely diverse, including work inchemical kinetics,x-ray diffraction, and theadsorption of gases at solid surfaces. He is also well known for thepotential theory of adsorption, which was disputed for quite some time. In 1921, he laid the mathematical foundation offibre diffraction analysis. In 1934, Polanyi, at about the same time asG. I. Taylor andEgon Orowan, realised that theplasticdeformation ofductile materials could be explained in terms of the theory ofdislocations developed byVito Volterra in 1905. The insight was critical in developing the field ofsolid mechanics.
In 1936, as a consequence of an invitation to give lectures for the Ministry of Heavy Industry in theUSSR, Polanyi metBukharin, who told him that in socialist societies all scientific research is directed to accord with the needs of the latestFive Year Plan. Polanyi noted what had happened to the study ofgenetics in the Soviet Union once the doctrines ofTrofim Lysenko had gained the backing of the State. Demands in Britain, for example by the MarxistJohn Desmond Bernal, for centrally planned scientific research led Polanyi to defend the claim that science requires free debate. Together withJohn Baker, he founded the influentialSociety for Freedom in Science.
In a series of articles, re-published inThe Contempt of Freedom (1940) andThe Logic of Liberty (1951), Polanyi claimed that co-operation amongst scientists is analogous to the wayagents co-ordinate themselves within afree market. Just as consumers in a free market determine the value of products, science is aspontaneous order that arises as a consequence of open debate amongst specialists. Science (contrary to the claims of Bukharin) flourishes when scientists have the liberty to pursue truth as an end in itself:[11]
[S]cientists, 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.
Such self-co-ordination of independent initiatives leads to a joint result which is unpremeditated by any of those who bring it about.
Any attempt to organize the group ... under a single authority would eliminate their independent initiatives, and thus reduce their joint effectiveness to that of the single person directing them from the centre. It would, in effect, paralyse their co-operation.
He derived the phrasespontaneous order fromGestalt psychology, and it was adopted by theclassical liberal economistFriederich Hayek, although the concept can be traced back to at leastAdam Smith. Polanyi unlike Hayek argued that there are higher and lower forms of spontaneous order, and he asserted that defending scientific inquiry onutilitarian orsceptical grounds undermined the practice of science. He extends this into a general claim about free societies. Polanyi defends a free society not on the negative grounds that we ought to respect "private liberties", but on the positive grounds that "public liberties" facilitate our pursuit of spiritual ends.
According to Polanyi, a free society that strives to be value-neutral undermines its own justification. But it is not enough for the members of a free society to believe that ideals such as truth, justice, and beauty, are not simply subjective, they also have to accept that they transcend our ability to wholly capture them. The non-subjectivity of values must be combined with acceptance that all knowing is fallible.
InFull Employment and Free Trade (1948) Polanyi analyses the way money circulates around an economy, and in amonetarist analysis that, according toPaul Craig Roberts, was thirty years ahead of its time, he argues that a free market economy should not be left to be wholly self-adjusting. Acentral bank should attempt to moderate economic booms/busts via a strict/loose monetary policy.
In 1940, he produced a film, "Unemployment and money. The principles involved", perhaps the first film about economics.[12] The film defended a version of Keynesianism, neutral Keynesianism, that advised the State to use budget deficit and tax reductions to increase the amount of money in the circulation in times of economic hardship but did not seek direct investment or engage in public works.[13]
In his bookScience, Faith and Society (1946), Polanyi set out his opposition to apositivist account of science, noting that among other things it ignores the role personal commitments play in the practice of science. Polanyi gave theGifford Lectures in 1951–52 at Aberdeen, and a revised version of his lectures were later published asPersonal Knowledge (1958). In this book Polanyi claims that all knowledge claims (including those that derive from rules) rely on personal judgments.[14] He denies that ascientific method can yield truth mechanically. All knowing, no matter how formalised, relies upon commitments. Polanyi argued that the assumptions that underliecritical philosophy are not only false, they undermine the commitments that motivate our highest achievements. He advocates afiduciarypost-critical approach, in which we recognise that we believe more than we can know, and know more than we can say.
A knower does not stand apart from the universe, but participates personally within it. Our intellectual skills are driven by passionate commitments that motivate discovery and validation. According to Polanyi, a great scientist not only identifies patterns, but also asks significant questions likely to lead to a successful resolution. Innovators risk theirreputation by committing to ahypothesis. Polanyi cites the example ofCopernicus, who declared that theEarth revolves around the Sun. He claims that Copernicus arrived at the Earth's true relation to the Sun not as a consequence of following a method, but via "the greater intellectual satisfaction he derived from the celestial panorama as seen from the Sun instead of the Earth."[15] His writings on the practice of science influencedThomas Kuhn andPaul Feyerabend.
Polanyi rejected the claim byBritish Empiricists that experience can be reduced intosense data, but he also rejects the notion that "indwelling" within (sometimes incompatible) interpretative frameworks traps us within them. Our tacit awareness connects us, albeit fallibly, withreality. It supplies us with the context within which our articulations have meaning. Contrary to the views of his colleague and friendAlan Turing, whose work at theVictoria University of Manchester prepared the way for thefirst modern computer, he denied thatminds arereducible to collections of rules. His work influenced the critique byHubert Dreyfus of "First Generation"artificial intelligence.
It was while writingPersonal Knowledge that he identified the "structure oftacit knowing". He viewed it as his most important discovery. He claimed that we experience the world by integrating our subsidiary awareness into a focal awareness. In his later work, for example hisTerry Lectures, later published asThe Tacit Dimension (1966), he distinguishes between thephenomenological,instrumental,semantic, andontological aspects of tacit knowing, as discussed (but not necessarily identified as such) in his previous writing.
In "Life's irreducible structure" (1968),[16] Polanyi argues that the information contained in theDNAmolecule is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. Although a DNA molecule cannot exist without physical properties, these properties are constrained by higher-levelordering principles. In "Transcendence and Self-transcendence" (1970),[17] Polanyi criticises themechanisticworld view that modern science inherited fromGalileo.
Polanyi advocatesemergence i.e. the claim that there are several levels of reality and ofcausality. He relies on the assumption thatboundary conditions supplydegrees of freedom that, instead of being random, are determined by higher-level realities, whose properties are dependent on but distinct from the lower level from which they emerge. An example of a higher-level reality functioning as a downward causal force is consciousness –intentionality – generating meanings –intensionality.
Mind is a higher-level expression of the capacity of living organisms fordiscrimination. Our pursuit of self-set ideals such as truth and justice transform our understanding of the world. Thereductionistic attempt to reduce higher-level realities into lower-level realities generates what Polanyi calls a moral inversion, in which the higher is rejected with moral passion. Polanyi identifies it as a pathology of the modern mind and traces its origins to a falseconception of knowledge; although it is relatively harmless in the formal sciences, that pathology generatesnihilism in the humanities. Polanyi consideredMarxism an example of moral inversion. The State, on the grounds of an appeal to the logic of history, uses its coercive powers in ways that disregard any appeals tomorality.[18]
Tacit knowledge, as distinct from explicit knowledge, is an influential term developed by Polanyi inThe Tacit Dimension[19] to describe among other things the ability to do something without necessarily being able to articulate it: for example, being able to ride a bicycle or play a musical instrument without being able to fully explain the details of how it happens. He claims that not only do practical skills rely upon tacit awareness, all perception and meaning is rendered possible by agents relying upon their tacit awareness. Every consciousness has a subsidiary and a focal awareness, and this distinction also has an ontological dimension, because a lower and a higher dimension is how emergence takes place.
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| Preceded by | President of theManchester Literary and Philosophical Society 1944–46 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Godfrey W. Armitage | President of theManchester Statistical Society 1950–51 | Succeeded by Dr F. C. Toy |
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