All Michael Polanyi Quotes
- The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs… Acknowledged
- And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations… Achievement
- No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry. Chemistry
- We cannot ultimately specify the grounds (either metaphysical or logical or empirical) upon which we hold that our knowledge is true. Being committed to such… Believe
- I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell, Fact
- The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith. Articles
- While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or… All
- Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence. Beings
- Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing. Gathering Data
- But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography. Atomic
- Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness. Acceptance
- Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence. Acts
- Admittedly, scientific authority is not distributed evenly throughout the body of scientists; some distinguished members of the profession predominate over others of a more junior… Admittedly
- Admittedly, the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over the lay public. It controls thereby also the process by… Admittedly
- But the system of prices ruling the market not only transmits information in the light of which economic agents can mutually adjust their actions, it… Action
- I hold that the propositions embodied in natural science are not derived by any definite rule from the data of experience, and that they can… According
- I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our… Activities
- My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and… According
- So long as we use a certain language, all questions that we can ask will have to be formulated in it and will thereby confirm… All
- The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own… Choice
- These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific… Art
- We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography. Additional
- We know more than we can tell. Funny
- To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case,… Able
- We do not accept a religion because it offers us certain rewards. The only thing that a religion can offer us is to be just… Accept