Polanyi, Michael (1891-1976)

Hungarian born physical chemist who came to the University of Manchester in England in 1933. In 1947 he moved from the faculty of science to the faculty of humanities where he developed his philosophy of science and of society. Polanyi argued that knowledge was neither objective nor subjective but personal in that all knowledge required the commitment of the knower to some community of knowers. He also developed the idea of "tacit knowledge," knowledge that was incapable of full explicit express, which underlies all explicit knowledge. Two of his dictums are: We say more than we know that we say. We know more than we can say that we know.

Contributed by: Dr. James Miller