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Michael Polanyi and Jewish Identity

University of Sheffield

Michael Polanyi’s Jewish identity contributed to his philosophical outlook. His life in a Hungarian-acculturated, nonobservant Jewish family in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; his experience as a Jew emigrating from Hitler’s Germany; and his thoughts about Zionism informed his theory of knowledge. During the late 1930s and 1940s, he worked to reconcile his Jewish identity with his commitments to Christianity, and this tension contributed to his thinking about the nature of scientific discovery. The malapropism baptized Jew characterizes the scientist on the verge of discovery, one who occupies a twilight world between adherence and apostasy with regard to the scientific community.

Key Words: Jewish identity • Hungarian Jews • Karl Popper • Zionism • scientific discovery

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 35, No. 3, 263-293 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0048393105277986


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