Historical sources of science-as-social-practice: Michael Polanyi's Berlin

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 409-434

  Nye, Mary Jo ^a  

^a OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34248370605     PISSN: 08909997     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hsps.2007.37.2.409     Document Type: Article

References (202)

1. For examples of studies of science as practice, Andrew Pickering, ed. Science as practice and culture (Chicago, 1992)
2. and Jed Z. Buchwald, ed. Scientific practice: Theories and stories of doing physics (Chicago, 1995).
3. Also, Stephen Turner, The social theory of practice: Tradition, tacit knowledge and presupposition (Chicago, 1994).
4. For an excellent summary and critique, see Terry Shinn and Pascal Ragouet, Controverses sur la science: Pour une sociologie transversaliste de l'activité (Paris, 2005).
5. Frederic Grinnell, The scientific attitude (2nd edn., New York, 1992) [1st edn., 1987], 2.
6. Also see H. Otto Sibum, "Les gestes de la mesure: Joule, les pratiques de la brasserie et la science," Annales histoire, sciences sociales (Jul-Oct 1998), 53, nos. 4-5, 745-774, esp. 745;
7. and Sibum, "Reworking the mechanical value of heat: Instruments of precision and gestures of accuracy in early Victorian England," Studies in history and philosophy of science, 26 (1995), 73-106.
8. Steven Shapin and Arnold Thackray, "Prosopography as a research tool in history of science: The British scientific community, 1700-1900," History of science, 12 (1974), 1-28.
9. Lewis Pyenson, "'Who the guys were': Prosopography in the history of science," History of science, 15 (1977), 155-188.
10. David Hollinger, "Science as a weapon in Kulturkämpfe in the United States during and after World War II," 155-174,
11. and "The defense of democracy and Robert K. Merton's formulation of the scientific ethos," 80-96 in Science, Jews, and secular culture: Studies in mid-twentieth century American intellectual history (Princeton, 1996).
12. Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn: A philosophical history for our times (Chicago, 2000)
13. and Steve Fuller, Kuhn vs. Popper: The struggle for the soul of science (New York, 2004).
14. More broadly, Greta Jones, Science, politics and the cold war (London, 1988)
15. and Frances Stonor Saunders, The cultural cold war: The CIA and the world of arts and letters (New York, 1999).
16. Hollinger (ref. 4), 112-114, 168-172;
17. Jan Golinski, Making natural knowledge: Constructivism and the history of science (Cambridge, 1998), 5, 13-27.
18. Ludwig Fleck, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatachen: Einführung in die lehre von Denkstil und Denkkollectiv (Basel, 1935);
19. Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton, eds., Genesis and development of a scientific fact, trans. Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn, with foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn (Chicago, 1979).
20. See Robert Cohen and Thomas Schnelle, eds., Cognition and fact: Materials on Ludwig Fleck (Dordrecht, 1986). Thomas Kuhn first read Fleck's work in 1949 or 1950. It is not clear that Polanyi read Fleck until the 1950s, if then, when Fleck seems to have sent him an autographed copy of his book.
21. Michael Polanyi, Science, faith and society (Oxford, 1946);
22. Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy (Chicago, 1962);
23. also see The tacit dimension (Garden City, 1966).
24. For references to Polanyi in the literature of science studies, see Charles Thorpe, "Science against modernism: The relevance of the social theory of Michael Polanyi," British journal of sociology, 52 (2001), 19-35, on 19-20.
25. Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Intellectual mastery of nature: Theoretical physics from Ohm to Einstein, vol. 1, The torch of mathematics 1800-1870, vol. 2, The now mighty theoretical physics 1870-1925 (Chicago, 1986).
26. See Steven Turner, "Justus Liebig versus Prussian chemistry: Reflections on early institute-building in Germany," HSPS, 13 (1982), 129-162.
27. Also, Christoph Meinel, "Theory or practice? The eighteenth-century debate on the scientific status of chemistry," Ambix, 30 (1983), 121-132.
28. See Fritz Ringer, Education and society in modern Europe (Bloomington, 1978);
29. George Weisz, "The academic elite and the movement to reform higher education 1850-1885" (Ph.D. dissertation, SUNY at Stony Brook, 1976)
30. Harvey Becher, "William Whewell and Cambridge mathematics," HSPS, 11 (1980), 1-48;
31. Gerrylynn K. Robert, "The liberally-educated chemist: Chemistry in the Cambridge natural sciences tripos, 1851-1914," HSPS, 11 (1980), 157-183;
32. Andrew Warwick, "Exercising the student body: Mathematics and athleticism in Victorian Cambridge," in Christopher Lawrence and Steven Shapin, eds. Science incarnate: Historical embodiments of natural knowledge (Chicago, 1998), 288-326, esp. 293-295;
33. Lewis Pyenson, Neohumanism and the persistence of pure mathematics in Wilhelmian Germany, American Philosophical Society, Memoirs, 150 (Philadelphia, 1983).
34. William Whewell, The philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history (2nd edn., London, 1847);
35. Ernst Mach, The science of mechanics: A critical and historical account of its development, trans. Thomas J. McCormmach (4th edn., Chicago, 1919);
36. Heinrich Hertz, Principles of mechanics, trans. D.E. Jones and F.T. Walley (London, 1899);
37. Pierre Duhem, The aim and structure of physical theory, trans. Philip P. Wiener (Princeton, 1954);
38. Henri Poincaré, The foundations of science, trans. George B. Halsted (New York, 1913).
39. Matthew Arnold, A French Eton. Higher schools and universities in France. Higher schools and universities in Germany, vol. 12, Works (London, 1904), 249-256.
40. See Alan J. Rocke, Nationalizing science: Adolphe Wurtz and the battle for French chemistry (Cambridge, 2000).
41. For physics in general, see Paul Forman, J.L. Heilbron, and Spencer Weart, Physics 'circa' 1900: Personnel, funding, and productivity of the academic establishments, vol. 5, HSPS (1975), 1-185;
42. for France, Terry Shinn, "The French Science Faculty system 1808-1914: Institutional change and research potential," HSPS, 10 (1979), 271-332;
43. Robert Fox and George Weisz, eds., The organization of science and technology in France, 1808-1914 (Cambridge, 1980);
44. and Mary Jo Nye, Science in the provinces: Scientific communities and provincial leadership in France, 1860-1930 (Berkeley, 1986);
45. for Germany, Karl-Heinz Manegold, Universität, Technische Hochschule und Industrie (Berlin, 1970);
46. and Peter Borscheid, Naturwissenschaft, Staat und Industrie in Baden (1848-1914) (Stuttgart, 1976);
47. Kathryn M. Olesko, Physics as a calling: Discipline and practice in the Königsberg seminar for physics (Ithaca, 1991);
48. for Great Britain, Michael Sanderson, The universities and British industry, 1850-1970 (London, 1972),
49. Colin Divall, "Education for design and production: Professional organization, employers, and the study of chemical engineering in British universities, 1922-1976," Technology and culture, 35 (1994), 258-288.
50. These included BASF (Badische und Soda-Fabrik), Höchst, Bayer, and AGFA (Aktiengesellschaft für Anilinfabrikation).
51. See Mary Jo Nye, Before big science: The pursuit of modern chemistry and physics 1800-1940 (Cambridge, 1999), 2-5, 139.
52. Max Weber, "Science as a vocation," in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and ed., From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (London, 1948), 129-156, on 134.
53. Quoted in Diana Kormos Barkan, Walther Nernst and the transition to modern physical science (Cambridge, 1999), 226.
54. Russell McCormmach, Night thoughts of a classical physicist (New York, 1983), quote on 113, also see 99, 100-101, 95.
55. John Heilbron's portrait of the responsibilities of Max Planck in Berlin is similarly daunting. See John Heilbron, The dilemmas of an upright man: Max Planck as spokesman for German science (Berkeley, 1986).
56. McCormmach (ref. 19), 112.
57. Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel laureate, German, Jew (Philadelphia, 2004), 113.
58. Interview of Michael Polanyi with Thomas Kuhn, 15 Feb 1962 in Berkeley, Sources for the History of Quantum Physics, American Institute of Physics; and William Taussig Scott, "At the wheel of the world: The life and times of Michael Polanyi," Tradition and discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical, 25 (1998-1999), 10-25, on 17.
59. On Polanyi's life, especially the early years, see Wigner and Hodgkin. And Gábor Palló, "Michael Polányi's early years in science," Bulletin for the history of chemistry, 21 (1998), 39-43.
60. On the name change, Scott (ref. 22), 17.
61. Polanyi received a formal certificate of baptism from Vienna, where the baptism was registered. Regarding the certificate, letter to Michael Polanyi (Misi) from Károly Pollacsek (Uncle Karl), Vienna, 7 Jan 1920, MPP: Box 1, folder 6. Comments to Mannheim, quoted in Endre J. Nagy, "After brotherhood's golden age: Karl and Michael Polanyi," in Kenneth McRobbie, ed., Humanity, society and commitment: On Karl Polanyi (Montreal, 1993), 81-112, on 87, from letter from Michael Polanyi to Karl Mannheim, in English, 14 Apr 1944 (also see MPP, 4: 11).
62. On Tolstoy, also see Max Weber (ref. 17), 143.
63. For Tolstoy's commitment to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, but not to the divinity of Christ, as well as his struggle for belief, see A confession of faith and other religious writings, trans. with introduction by Jane Kentish (London, 1987).
64. Pállo (ref. 22), 42.
65. See also Gabor Pallo, Polányi Mihály és a kriptonlátmpa," Fizikai Szemle (1996), #9, 311-316.
66. Before his 1920 appointment, he had briefly served as an assistant to Warburg in the KWG's Institute for Biology in 1914. Michael Polanyi, "Curriculum vitae," composed June 1933, MPP, 2:12. Of great utility is John M. Cash, Guide to the papers of Michael Polanyi (Chicago, 1977).
67. Also, Wigner and Hodgkin, 413-415. On his earliest employment at the KWI, letter from Michael Polanyi to Dr. Telschow at the Max-Planck Gesellschaft (Göttingen), 27 June 1952, MPG, PA Polanyi 4, L:1952 B:07. For a bibliography of Polanyi's publications, see references cited at the headnote.
68. Michael Polanyi, "Eine neue thermodynamische Folgerung aus der Quantenhypothese," Verhandlungen der deutschen physikalischen Gesellschaft, 15 (1913), 156-161, esp. 157;
69. and "Neue thermodynamische Folgerungen aus der Quantenhypothese," Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, 83 (1913), 339-369,
70. discussed in William T. Scott, "Michael Polanyi's creativity in chemistry," 279-307 in Rutherford Aris, et al., eds., Springs of scientific creativity (Minneapolis, 1983), 282-283.
71. See also Wigner and Hodgkin, 416.
72. Letters from Polanyi to Alfred Reis, 11 Dec 1912;
73. Georg Bredig to Polanyi, 1 Feb 1913;
74. Georg Bredig to Polanyi 12 Feb 1913 (MPP, 1:2).
75. More than 30 years later Percy Bridgmann wrote Polanyi that he was surprised to have just learned of this work and thought it unfortunate that it had escaped general notice: Letter from Percy Bridgman to Polanyi, 19 Dec 1946 (MPP, 5:2). 1946 was the year in which Bridgman, who had just received the Nobel Prize in Physics, gave a lecture at the Boston AAAS meeting titled "Scientists and Social Responsibility" reiterating his opposition to making science a servant of the state and arguing that the scientific community is a model for all democratic societies. See S.S. Schweber, In the shadow of the bomb: Bethe, Oppenheimer and the moral responsibility of the scientist (Princeton, 2000), 6.
76. Michael Polanyi, "Autobiographical notes, 1966" ms. for Midcentury authors (MPP: 38.8).
77. Michael Polanyi, "Adsorption von Gasen (Dämpfen) durch ein festes nichtpflüchtiges Adsorbens," Verhandlungen der physikalischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, 18 (1916), 55-80.
78. See Scott (ref. 26), 283;
79. Wigner and Hodgkin, 417.
80. Fritz London and Michael Polanyi, "Ueber de atomtheoretische Deutung der Adsorptionskräfte," Die Naturwissenschaften, 18 (1930), 1099-1100.
81. Irving Langmuir, "The constitution and fundamental properties of solids and liquids. I. Solids," and II. "Liquids," Journal of the American Chemical Society, 38 (1916), 2221-2295; 39 (1917), 1848-1906.
82. On Langmuir, see George Gaines, "Irving Langmuir (1881-1957)," in Laylin K. James, ed., Nobel laureates in chemistry, 1901-1993 (Washington, D.C., 1993), 205-210.
83. On Polanyi and adsorption theory, see Mary Jo Nye, "At the boundaries: Michael Polanyi's work on surfaces and the solid state," in Carsten Reinhardt, ed., Chemical sciences in the twentieth century (Weinheim, 2001), 246-257;
84. and "Michael Polanyi's theory of surface adsorption: How premature?" in Ernest B. Hook, ed., Prematurity in scientific discovery (Berkeley, 2002), 151-163.
85. Haber's interest in chemiluminescence in the early 1920s was one of the starting points for Polanyi's work with dilute flames. Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber: Chemiker, Nobelpreisträger Deutscher Jude (Weinheim, 1994), 475.
86. See Henry Eyring, "Physical chemistry: The past 100 years," Chemical and engineering news, 54 (1976): 88-104, on 90-93;
87. and Jeffry L.Ramsey, "Between the fundamental and the phenomenological: The challenge of 'semi-empirical' methods," Philosophy of science, 64 (1997), 627-653.
88. Also see Mary Jo Nye, "Working tools for theoretical chemistry: Polanyi, Eyring, and debates on the semi-empirical method," Chemical heritage, 23 (Sep 2005), 25.
89. Henry Eyring and Michael Polanyi, "On the calculation of the energy of activation," Naturwissenschaften, 18 (1930), 914-915;
90. Henry Eyring and Michael Polanyi, "Ueber einfache Gasreaktionen," Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, B12 (1931), 279-311.
91. Eckart Henning and Marion Kazemi, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Berichte und Mitteilungen: Dahlem - Domain of science (Munich, 1998), 52;
92. and Herman [or Hermann, in earlier publications] F. Mark, From small organic molecules to large: A century of progress (Washington, D.C., 1993), 20.
93. Interview of Eugene P. Wigner with Thomas S. Kuhn, 21 Nov-4 Dec 1963, Session II, 3 Dec 1963, p. 5 in transcripts in Sources for History of Quantum Physics, AIP Niels Bohr Library.
94. His correspondence in the early 1920s includes frequent exchanges with industrial firms about the manufacture of hydrogen and nitrogen, the fabrication of lanolin, and the design of electrical lamps. Letter to Polanyi from Aktien Gesellchaft für Betriebsökonomie (signed Arthur), dated 22 Apr 1920, 18 May 1920 (MMP, 1:8). Letter to Polanyi from patent division of Badische-Anilin and Soda Fabrik (BASF), 20 Jul 1920; Letter to Polanyi from Philips Glühlampenfabriken Aktien Gesellschaft, Eindhoven, Holland, 30 Jul 1921 (MPP, 1:15). Letter to Polanyi from Vereinigte Glühlampen und Electricitäts-Actien Gesellschaft, Budapest, 15 May 1923 (MPP, 1: 19).
95. Barkan (ref. 18), esp. ix-x, 93-116.
96. Also, Stoltzenberg (ref. 21)
97. and Margit Szöllösi-Janze, Fritz Haber 1868-1934 (Munich, 1998).
98. Also, on Haber, Fritz Stern, "Together and apart: Fritz Haber and Albert Einstein," 59-164 in Einstein's German world (Princeton, 1999), esp. 80, 82, 85-87, 88, 108-111.
99. David Cahan, An institute for an empire: The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt 1871-1918 (Cambridge, 1989);
100. Jeffrey Alan Johnson, The Kaiser's chemists: Science and modernization in imperial Germany (Chapel Hill, 1990);
101. Carola Sachse and Mark Walker, eds., Politics and science in wartime: Comparative international perspectives on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute vol. 20, Osiris (Chicago, 2005).
102. Michael Polanyi, "My time with x-rays and crystals" (1962), 97-104 in Marjorie Grene, ed., Knowing and being: Essays by Michael Polanyi (Chicago, 1969), 97.
103. On his collaboration with R.O. Herzog and Willi Jancke, see E.E. Hellner and P.P. Ewald, "Schools and regional development: Germany" in P.P. Ewald, ed., Fifty years of x-ray diffraction (Utrecht, 1962), 456-468, on 461-462.
104. And, R.O. Herzog and W. Jancke, "Roentgenspektrographische Beobactungen an Zellulose," ZP 3 (1920), 196-198;
105. R.O. Herzog, Willi Jancke, and M. Polanyi, "Roentgenspektrographische Beobactungen an Zellulose II," ZP 3 (1920), 343-348.
106. See Yasu Furukawa, Hermann Staudinger and the emergence of the macromolecular concept," Historia scientiarum (1982), 1-18, on 7-9;
107. also, Polanyi (ref. 38), 99.
108. On Polanyi and x-ray crystallography, see Mary Jo Nye, "Laboratory practice and the physical chemistry of Michael Polanyi," in F. L. Holmes and Trevor Levere, ed., Instruments and experimentation in the history of chemistry (Cambridge, 2000), 367-400.
109. Scott (ref. 26), 288;
110. Hermann Mark, "Recollections of Dahlem and Ludwigshafen," in Ewald (ref. 38), 603-607, on 603.
111. Eugene Wigner, The recollections of Eugene P. Wigner as told to Andrew Szanton (New York, 1992), 78-80.
112. See Scott (ref. 26), 291;
113. Mark (ref. 34), 25;
114. and Hellner and Ewald in Ewald (ref. 28), 462.
115. Scott (1983), 292.
116. Michael Polanyi, "Ueber eine Art von Gitterstörung, die einem Kristal plastisch machen könnte," ZP, 89 (1934), 660-664.
117. J.G. Crowther, Fifty years with science(London, 1970), 63.
118. Fritz Stern (ref. 37), 119;
119. Henning and Kazemi (ref. 34), 74.
120. Crowther (ref. 43), 63-64.
121. Henning and Kazemi (ref. 34), 71-72.
122. Henning and Kazemi (ref. 34), 74.
123. See Stern (ref. 37), 133.
124. Stoltzenberg (ref. 21), 230-231.
125. See William Taussig Scott and Martin X. Moleski, S.J., Michael Polanyi: Scientist and philosopher (Oxford, 2005), 87.
126. Document of 27 Jul 1923, signed by Polanyi, Harnack, and Franz v. Mendelsohn. See MPG, Hauptabteiling. II. Repositur 1A. PA Polanyi. Folder for 1914-1932, Blattzahl 14. Scott and Moleski mention as his clients Siemens Electric Works and the Osram Lamap Work in Berlin, the Philips Lamp Works in Eindhoven, and the United Lamp Works in Budapest. Scott and Moleski (ref. 50), 103.
127. Letter from Fritz Haber to Generalverwaltung, KWG, 21 Nov 1928. MPG: Abt. I Rep. 000 1A #1165. Also see letter from Haber to Stefan Bogdandy, 16 Nov 1928, regarding the 30% policy. MPG: Abt. I. Rep. 000 1A #1165.
128. Document of 26 Oct 1929, following a 4 Jul 1929 letter from Haber to Polanyi regarding negotiations. MPG: Hauptabteilung. II. Repositur 1A.PA Polanyi, Michael. Folder for 1914-1932, Blattzahl 14. Scott and Moleski write of offers from the German University in Prague in 1928 and from the University of Szeged in May 1929. Polanyi also had an ongoing offer from Izzo. Scott and Moleski (ref. 50), 112-113.
129. Stoltzenberg (ref. 21), 231.
130. Brigitte Schroeder-Gudehus, "The argument for the self-government and public support of science in Weimar Germany," Minerva, 10 (1972), 537-570, esp. 564-567.
131. And Stoltzenberg (ref. 21), 231.
132. Michael Polanyi, "Förderung der Wissenschaft," Der deutsche Volkewirt (23 May 1930), 1149-1151.
133. According to Scott and Moleski (ref. 50), he turned down an offer from Harvard in 1929. Polanyi's notes from his 1929 trip to the U.S. are thoroughly negative about scientific reseach opportunities in American universities, where he saw too much emphasis on applied research and on teaching.
134. Carbon copy of letter from Polanyi to Arthur Lapworth, 13 Jan 1933 (MPP, 44:4). It was on 30 Jan 1933 that Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Carbon copy of letter from Polanyi to Arthur Lapworth, 13 Jan 1933 and carbon copy of letter from Polanyi to F.G. Donnan, 17 Jan 1933 (MPP, 2:11).
135. Letter from Fritz Haber to Polanyi, 27 June 1932, in response to a note from Polanyi of 26 June 1932 (MPP, 2:9).
136. Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A life in physics (Berkeley, 1996), esp. 139-154.
137. Stoltzenberg (ref. 32), 442.
138. In Night thoughts of a classical physicist, Victor Jakob remembers Drude: "Trim in your gymnastic suit with its dark sash, you looked like someone who got more than his share of satisfaction from life. When you took flight on the parallel bar or the wooden horse, you gave the impression that you could handle any problem with ease and confidence" (ref. 19), 110-111.
139. Crowther (ref. 43), 66.
140. Polanyi discussed the meetings in his interview with Thomas Kuhn (ref. 22), 10-11.
141. Also see letter from Polanyi to Fran Dr. Toni Stolper, 25 Jan 1930 (MPP, 2:6) and handwritten note, undated (MPP, 43:2).
142. Crowther (ref. 43), 65.
143. Stern (ref. 37), 108-109;
144. Henning and Kazemi (ref. 34), 7-12.
145. Polanyi also thought that faculty on American campuses, particularly the land-grant public university of Minnesota, were expected to spend too much time on research that had practical applications. Scott and Moleski (ref. 50), 115. See "Notes from a trip to America 1929" (MPP, 44:3).
146. M. Polányi, Pesti Futár, 21 (1928), 37-38,
147. quoted in Gabor Pallo (ref. 22), 39.
148. Wigner (ref. 40), 156-157.
149. Michael Polanyi, "Geheirmat Fritz Haber Vollendet am 9 Dezember sein 60. Lebensjahr," Metallwirtschaft, 7, #49 (7 Dec 1928), 1316-1317. Polanyi later reflected on his difficult leave-taking from Haber in 1933 and his wish for Haber to take an even stronger stand for his Jewish colleagues than just resigning himself, which was the action Haber took at the same time that he was ordered to request Polanyi's resignation. If Polanyi knew of Haber's May 1931 letter to Hermann Dietrich (Minister of Finance) advising the government to "adopt a dictatorship and a planned economy as its own program," thereby temporarily abandoning the rule of the market economy, Polanyi surely disagreed.
150. On Haber's letter, see Stern (ref. 37), 150.
151. Michael Polanyi, "The republic of science," Minerva, 1 (Oct 1962), 54-73.
152. On Francis Bacon and the "Republic of science," see William Whewell (ref. 11). In analyzing the ideas of Bacon, Whewell writes: "It may be universally true, that Knowledge is Power; but we have to do with it not as Power, but as Knowledge. It is the formation of Science, not of Art, with which we are here concerned" (p. 246).
153. Crowther (ref. 43), 65, 66.
154. Melvin Calvin, "Memories of Michael Polanyi in Manchester," Tradition and discovery, 18, #2 (1991-1992), 40-42.
155. Michael Polanyi, The tacit dimension (ref. 7), 3-4.
156. The film consisted of diagrams illustrating economic processes and debuted in a soundless version with subtitles in Nov 1937. Typescript, "Memorandum on economic films," 6 pp. (MPP, 3:6) and carbon copy of letter from Michael Polanyi to Charles Vale in London, 4 Sep 1937 (MPP, 3:9). It was distributed by Gaumont British Instructional films and it was shown to viewers who included members of the Manchester Statistical Society, the technical employees of Imperial Chemical Industries in Northwich, the Hope Street Church Social Study Group in Liverpool, Walter Lippmann's colloquium in Paris, and Professors Friedrich von Hayek and Richard von Mises.
157. Letter from the Film Centre to Polanyi, 9 May 1938 (MPP, 3: 11), followed by Letter from Michael Polanyi to Mr. Sale, 28 Apr 1939, reporting that he had received funds from the Rockefeller Foundation in order to release the film for general instructional purposes; also Letter from John Jewkes of the Economics Research Section of the University of Manchester to Robert Letort, Rockefeller Foundation in Paris, 18 May 1939, regarding support for continuing experimental work on the production of diagrammatic films illustrative of economic processes (MPP, 3:15).
158. Letter to Polanyi from Association of Scientific Workers, 24 Aug 1938; and letter to Polanyi from J.D. Bernal, 10 Sep 1938 (MPP, 3:12).
159. On Karl Polanyi, see Lee Congdon, "Between brothers: Karl and Michael Polanyi on fascism and communism," Tradition and discovery, 24 (1997-1998), 7-27;
160. Endre J. Nagy (ref. 23). On Blackett and Polanyi, see Mary Jo Nye, "Scientific practice and politics: A preliminary look at Blackett and Polanyi in Manchester" Polanyiana, 5 (1996), 21-35.
161. Letter from Patrick Blackett to Michael Polanyi, 3 Nov 1941 (MPP, 4:7).
162. On Polany's sympathies with the Russian people, although not with Russian communism, see the typescript "Review of scientists in Russia: Prof. E. Ashby" (MPP, 31:4). Polanyi's mother was originally Lithuanian.
163. On this, Judit Szapor, "Laura Polanyi 1882-1957: Narratives of a life," Polanyiana, 6, #2 (1997),43-54, on 47-49 and note 14,49;
164. David Cesarani, Arthur Koestler: The homeless mind (New York, 1998), 13, 78, 83;
165. Alex Weissberg, Conspiracy of silence, trans. Edward Fitzgerald, pref. Arthur Koestler (London, 1952), viii-xii, 13.
166. The subtitle of his collection of essays, Science, faith and society (ref. 7). Note, too, that this turn connected with a renewal of religious convictions in the late 1930s after what he described to Mannheim as a 10-year period, the Berlin period, in which his religious interests had weakened. Letter, Michael Polanyi to Karl Mannheim, 14 Apr 1944 (MPP, 4:11).
167. Michael Polanyi, Science, faith and society (ref. 7) (2nd edn., with new introduction, Oxford, 1964), 31.
168. On Polanyi and positivism, see Gerald Holton, "Michael Polanyi and the history of science," in Kostas Gavroglu et al., eds., Physics, philosophy and the scientific community (Dordrecht, 1995 (Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 163), 205-233.
169. On Popper, Malachi Haim Hacohen, Karl Popper-The formative years, 1902-1945: Politics and philosophy in interwar Vienna (Cambridge, 2000);
170. and Michelle-Irène Brudny, Karl Popper: Un philosophe heureux (Paris, 2002).
171. Ian Hacking remarked of Charles Sanders Peirce that Peirce "is perhaps the only philosopher of modern time who was quite a good experimenter" and that "the only great philosopher familiar with measurement was C.S. Peirce." Ian Hacking, Representing and intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science (Cambridge, 1983), 60, 240.
172. Polanyi (ref. 82), 31.
173. Ibid., 76.
174. On detachment and skepticism, see the classic positivist text Claude Bernard, Introduction to the study of experimental medicine, trans. Henry Copley Green (New York, 1957; orig. 1865).
175. Polanyi (ref. 38), 97.
176. Carbon copy of letter to Wichard von Moellendorff [W is correct], 27 Mar 1929 (MPP, 2:5). As Hermann Mark wrote: "the results of our studies failed to impress the leading members of the scientific community in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, including Max von Laue, Fritz Haber, O. Hahn, Lise Meitner, James Franck, K.F. Bonhoeffer, and others who were preoccupied with radioactivity, atomic and molecular quantum phenomena, and catalysis." Mark (ref. 34), 29.
177. Polanyi, "My time with x-rays and crystals" (ref. 38), 91-92.
178. On Kuhn, J.L. Heilbron, "Thomas Samuel Kuhn. 18 July 1922-17 June 1996," Isis, 89 (1998), 505-515, on 505.
179. On Kuhn's familiarity with Polanyi's writings, see, for example, letter from Thomas S. Kuhn to William H. Poteat, 28 Feb 1967, cited in Scott and Moleski (ref. 50), 246;
180. and "A discussion with Thomas S. Kuhn," with Aristides Baltas, Kostas Gavroglu, and Vassiliki Kindi, in James Conant and John Haugeland, eds., The road since structure: Thomas S. Kuhn (Chicago, 2000), 255-323, on 296.
181. I discuss Kuhn's familiarity with Polanyi and his work in a paper "Science and politics in the philosophy of science: Popper, Kuhn, and Polanyi" in Moritz Epple and Claus Zittel, eds., Science as cultural practice/science in an age of extremes (Berlin, in press).
182. McCormmach (ref. 20), 20-31, 117;
183. J.C. Poggendorffs biographisch-literarisches Handworterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften (8 vols., Leipzig, 1863-1985).
184. McCormmach (ref. 19), 27.
185. Ibid., 89.
186. Ibid., 182.
187. Ibid., 108.
188. Cited in ibid., 198.
189. Cited in ibid., 198,
190. from an obituary for Gustav Wiedemann (1899) and from Ostwald's biographics of Drude and Ludwig Boltzmann in Ostwald's Grosse Männer (5th edn., Leipzig, 1919).
191. McCormmach (ref. 19), 117-188.
192. Polanyi (ref. 85), 33.
193. See the essays "Science and reality," "Authority and conscience," and "Dedication or servitude" (ref. 85).
194. Also, Michael Polanyi, "The autonomy of science" [Feb 1943], Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 85 (1941-1943), 19-38;
195. and Polanyi (ref. 70), 54-56.
196. See William McGucken, Scientists, society and the state: The social relations of science movement in Great Britain, 1931-1947 (Columbus, Ohio, 1984).
197. See David H. Guston, Between politics and science: Assuring the integrity and productivity of research (Cambridge, 2000);
198. and a review by Norman Metzger, "Reassessing science's social contract," Chemical and engineering news (29 May 2000), 71-73.
199. For example, May Brodbeck, review of Personal knowledge in American sociological review, 25 (Aug 1960), 583;
200. Michael Oakeshott, "The human craft," review of Personal knowledge in Encounter 11 (1958), 77-80;
201. William Earle, review of Personal knowledge in Science, 129 (27 Mar 1959), 831-832. Clippings in MPP, 47:2.
202. For example, see Heilbron (ref. 19), 138-140, 146, 147, 184-185, 191.