Michael Polanyi was an eminent physical chemist, economist, and philosopher. This book explains how the many diverse topics that concerned him belong together as essential elements in his effort to play physician to “the sickness of the modern mind.” Using both published and unpublished writings, Prosch critically evaluates Polanyi’s efforts and examines the value of his work as philosophy. The book contains a complete bibliography of Polanyi’s humanistic publications and all of his earlier works.
Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors. With the assistance of Harry Prosch, Polanyi goes beyond his earlier critique of scientific "objectivity" to investigate meaning as founded upon the imaginative and creative faculties. Establishing that science is an inherently normative form of knowledge and that society gives meaning to science instead of being given the "truth" by science, Polanyi contends here that the foundation of meaning is the creative imagination. Largely through metaphorical expression in poetry, art, myth, and religion, the imagination is used to synthesize the otherwise chaotic and disparate elements of life. To Polanyi these integrations stand with those of science as equally valid modes of knowledge. He hopes this view of the foundation of meaning will restore validity to the traditional ideas that were undercut by modern science. Polanyi also outlines the general conditions of a free society that encourage varied approaches to truth, and includes an illuminating discussion of how to restore, to modern minds, the "possibility" for the acceptance of religion.
Michael Polanyi was an eminent physical chemist, economist, and philosopher. This book explains how the many diverse topics that concerned him belong together as essential elements in his effort to play physician to "the sickness of the modern mind." Using both published and unpublished writings, Prosch critically evaluates Polanyi's efforts and examines the value of his work as philosophy. The book contains a complete bibliography of Polanyi's humanistic publications and all of his earlier works.
Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors. With the assistance of Harry Prosch, Polanyi goes beyond his earlier critique of scientific "objectivity" to investigate meaning as founded upon the imaginative and creative faculties. Establishing that science is an inherently normative form of knowledge and that society gives meaning to science instead of being given the "truth" by science, Polanyi contends here that the foundation of meaning is the creative imagination. Largely through metaphorical expression in poetry, art, myth, and religion, the imagination is used to synthesize the otherwise chaotic and disparate elements of life. To Polanyi these integrations stand with those of science as equally valid modes of knowledge. He hopes this view of the foundation of meaning will restore validity to the traditional ideas that were undercut by modern science. Polanyi also outlines the general conditions of a free society that encourage varied approaches to truth, and includes an illuminating discussion of how to restore, to modern minds, the possibility for the acceptance of religion.
Much of what humans know we cannot say. And much of what we do we cannot describe. For example, how do we know how to ride a bike when we can’t explain how we do it? Abilities like this were called “tacit knowledge” by physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, but here Harry Collins analyzes the term, and the behavior, in much greater detail, often departing from Polanyi’s treatment. In Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, Collins develops a common conceptual language to bridge the concept’s disparate domains by explaining explicit knowledge and classifying tacit knowledge. Collins then teases apart the three very different meanings, which, until now, all fell under the umbrella of Polanyi’s term: relational tacit knowledge (things we could describe in principle if someone put effort into describing them), somatic tacit knowledge (things our bodies can do but we cannot describe how, like balancing on a bike), and collective tacit knowledge (knowledge we draw that is the property of society, such as the rules for language). Thus, bicycle riding consists of some somatic tacit knowledge and some collective tacit knowledge, such as the knowledge that allows us to navigate in traffic. The intermixing of the three kinds of tacit knowledge has led to confusion in the past; Collins’s book will at last unravel the complexities of the idea. Tacit knowledge drives everything from language, science, education, and management to sport, bicycle riding, art, and our interaction with technology. In Collins’s able hands, it also functions at last as a framework for understanding human behavior in a range of disciplines.
This book serves to update knowledge about light with the help of new actual data derived from the easily reproducible experiments described therein. They form the basis of a new theory that interprets up-to-date verifiable information according to the various speeds of the lights involved. In view of recent rapid advances in technology, one may be surprised to learn that at least two of the basic tenets of optics are over a thousand years old, namely the law of reflection, over two millennia old, and the law of reciprocity, which has not changed for over a thousand years. The aim of this treatise is to update our knowledge about light with the help of new actual data derived from easily reproducible experiments. Since light is in space and requires time for its motion, these terms are defined as the basis of actual new observations. Similarly, the second chapter furnishes a brief historical background. The chapter "Light Speed in Media" reports relevant new and old experiments with up-to-date interpretations while "Speeds in Space" examines anew light's general motions in space.
In view of recent rapid advances in technology, one may be surprised to learn that at least two of the basic tenets of optics are over a thousand years old, namely the law of reflection and the law of reciprocity. This book serves to update existing knowledge about light with the help of new actual data derived from easily reproducible experiments. They form the basis of a new theory which interprets up-to-date, verifiable information according to the various speeds of the lights involved. Since light is in Space and requires Time for its Motion these terms are defined as the basis of the new observations detailed in the book. The second chapter furnishes a brief historical background, which is followed by chapters on optokinetics, dealing with the actual new laboratory data, and optokinematics, examining light’s general motions in space.
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