The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. … - Michael Polanyi

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Michael Polanyi

The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.

Evidence, Hands, Knowledge, People, Science

Same Author Quotes

Admittedly, scientific authority is not distributed evenly throughout the body of scientists; some distinguished members of the profession predominate over others of a more junior standing.

Body, Evenly, Juniors, Scientific, Scientist, Throughout

No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry.

Chemistry, Determined, Fully, Inanimate Objects, Law, Laws

And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.

Achievement, Chemistry, Mechanisms, Physics, Thing

I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.

Activities, Communication, Feelings, Intellectual, Like

We know more than we can tell.

Know, Knows, Tacit, Tell