Michael Polanyi Quotes

We know more than we can tell.

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.

We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography.

The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.

I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell.

Discoveries are made by pursuing possibilities suggested by existing knowledge.

Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.

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 in terms of physics and chemistry.

But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.

Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence.

Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.

No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry.

Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness.

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 standing.