Abstract
This year, 2008, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the publicationof Michael Polanyi’s magnum opus, Personal Knowledge:Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, provides the occasion not onlyfor the celebration of this ground-breaking philosophical work andan extensive corpus of related works by Polanyi—some ten books,one hundred, thirty-three published essays, plus an additional hundredor so unpublished writings—but also for the celebration of agreat man. Michael Polanyi was arguably one of the most importantprophetic voices—if not the most important prophetic voice—of thetwentieth century. Certainly deserving of close ranking with himwould be, to my thinking, such outstanding figures as MichaelOakeshott, Eric Voegelin, and Bertrand de Jouvenal. (I note that,with the present symposium, The Political Science Reviewer hasorganized a symposium in recognition of each one of these individuals.)
