Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy by Michael Polanyi

Perhaps no book of the last half of the twentieth century has been more influential in the philosophy of science than Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge. A clarion call opposing the view that science is purely “neutral” or “objective,” the Hungarian chemist and philosopher argues for the legitimacy of “personal knowledge.” “I have shown,” Polanyi writes, “that into every act of knowing there enters a passionate contribution of the person knowing what is being known, and that this coefficient is no mere imperfection but a vital component of his knowledge.” All scientific knowledge involves the participation of the knower in knowing, Polanyi claims, not in order to relativize truth, but to acknowledge the place of the mind in self-criticism based on its continual encounter with objective reality. Theologians such as T. F. Torrance have since seen the wealth of possibilities in Polanyi’s work for articulating a Christian theology that, for example, sees in worship an integral dynamic of theological knowledge.

428 pp. paper $25.00

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