Michael Polanyi - Fact Quotes

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

Michael Polanyi

No sincere assertion of fact is essentially unaccompanied by feelings of intellectual satisfaction or of a persuasive desire and a sense of personal responsibility.

Michael Polanyi

In a strict usage the same symbol should never represent the act of sincerely asserting something and the content of what is asserted. For the symbolic distinction between the two, Frege has introduced the 'signpost' symbol.... p is to signify the actual assertion of p, while the bare symbol p must henceforth be used only as part of a sentence.... It should be clear from the modality of a sentence whether it is a question, a command, an invective, a complaint or an allegation of fact.

Michael Polanyi

Discoveries made by the surprising configuration of existing theories might in fact be likened to the feat of a Columbus whose genius lay in taking literally and as a guide to action that the earth was round, which his contemporaries held vaguely and as a mere matter for speculation.

Michael Polanyi

The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.

Michael Polanyi