Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy

The Study of Man. By Michael Polanyi. Price, 1. 75. Pp. 102. University of Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Ave. , Chicago 37, 1959. One subtitle to Polanyi's challenging and fascinating book might beThe Evolution and Natural History of Error, for Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline. According to Polanyi not only is this a radical and important error, but it is harmful to the objectives of science itself. Another subtitle could beFarewell to Detachment, for in place of cold objectivity he develops the idea that science is necessarily intensely personal. It is a human endeavor and human point of view which cannot be divorced from nor uprooted out of the human matrix from which it arises and in which it works. For a good while