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Concept
Michael Polanyi
Summary
Michael Polanyi (poʊˈlænji ; Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism is a false account of knowing.
His wide-ranging research in physical science included chemical kinetics, x-ray diffraction, and adsorption of gases. He pioneered the theory of fibre diffraction analysis in 1921, and the dislocation theory of plastic deformation of ductile metals and other materials in 1934. He emigrated to Germany, in 1926 becoming a chemistry professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and then in 1933 to England, becoming first a chemistry professor, and then a social sciences professor at the University of Manchester. Two of his pupils, and his son John Charles Polanyi won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. In 1944 Polanyi was elected to the Royal Society.
The contributions which Polanyi made to the social sciences include the concept of a polycentric spontaneous order and his rejection of a value neutral conception of liberty. They were developed in the context of his opposition to central planning.
Polanyi, born Mihály Pollacsek in Budapest, was the fifth child of Mihály and Cecília Pollacsek (born as Cecília Wohl), secular Jews from Ungvár (then in Hungary but now in Ukraine) and Wilno, then Russian Empire, respectively. His father's family were entrepreneurs, while his mother's father, Osher Leyzerovich Vol, was the senior teacher of Jewish history at the Vilna rabbinic seminary. The family moved to Budapest and Magyarized their surname to Polányi. His father built much of the Hungarian railway system, but lost most of his fortune in 1899 when bad weather caused a railway building project to go over budget. He died in 1905. Cecília Polányi established a salon that was well known among Budapest's intellectuals, and which continued until her death in 1939. His older brother was Karl Polanyi, the political economist and anthropologist, and his niece was Eva Zeisel, a world-renowned ceramist.
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