Science, Faith, and Society

Author: (British) Michael Polanyi
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-07-01
Features: As an outstanding scientist and philosopher of 20th-century Europe, Michael Polanyi (1891—1976) triggered a fundamental transformation in modern epistemology with his renowned tacit cognition theory and humane philosophy of science. Science, Faith, and Society is a collection based on the lectures Polanyi delivered at the University of Durham in the UK in 1946, which is his first systematic work on the philosophy of science and can be considered the beginning of Polanyi's philosophical career. In this work, Polanyi first outlined the overall framework of his philosophy and laid some foundational groundwork for his major work, Personal Knowledge. The series of lectures summarized Polanyi's scientific perspective, including the nature and characteristics of scientific discovery and the correct path to discovery, and for the first time placed the issue of scientific objectivity within a broader context. This made people realize the need to reconsider certain issues within this broader context, which became the starting point for Polanyi's theory of knowledge.