Merton College, Oxford: 1959–1961

Abstract

Abstract Through his appointment as Senior Research Fellow at Merton, Polanyi found the home that would serve him for the rest of his life. His post-critical philosophy clashed with the logical positivism and linguistic analysis that dominated the Oxford scene, but the intellectual and cultural life were very satisfying for him and Magda. In these years, Polanyi capitalized on his previous work and lectured extensively on the need to broaden our understanding of the tacit and personal foundations of knowledge in order to overturn the nihilism generated by too narrow a view of the grounds of objectivity in science.