Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), a medical doctor, physical chemist, social thinker, and philosopher, made his most important contribution in the area of humanizing scientific inquiry. He proposed a new theory of knowledge based on an appreciation of the role of the individual and the individual's and society's values in the seeking and finding of truth.

Michael Polanyi was born on March 11, 1891, in Budapest, Hungary, the fifth child of Michael Pollacsek and Cecilia Wohl. His family life was marked by a rich and stimulating intellectual world that combined theoretical and practical concerns and artistic, literary, and social issues. His father was a civil engineer, and his mother was the center of a circle of poets, painters, and scholars. His two brothers and two sisters were all in their own ways distinguished. In his lifetime Michael Polanyi had four careers--medical doctor, physical chemist, social thinker, and philosopher. Leaving medicine early for...