Polanyi Chronology

1891		Born in Budapest, Hungary, [March 11/12] (TD, opposite title page) of Viennese parents (family name changed from "Pollacsek" to "Polanyi" to sound more Magyar).
1914	23	Received doctoral degree in Medicine from the University of Budapest. First paper on adsorption published (K&B, 87).
1914-18	23-27	Medical officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army (K&B, 89).
1917	26	Theory of adsorption accepted as Ph.D. thesis in Physical Chemistry at University of Budapest thanks to the "complete ignorance of the professor of theoretical physics" (K&B, 93).
1919	28	Baptized a Catholic (apparently for the sake of convenience; Scott, "Religious Reality," 86).
1920	29	Institute of Fibre Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (crystals, K&B, 97).
1923	32	Institute of Physcal Chemistry (reaction kinetics, K&B, 104).
1929	37	Made Life Member of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physical Chemistry (TD, opposite title page).
1930	39	Joint paper with London, based on quantum-mechanical resonance and "inverse third power law" (K&B, 90).
1932	41	Atomic Reactions. London: Williams and Norgate, 1932.
1933	42	Fled Hitler's persecution of the Jews. Elected professor of physical chemistry at the Victoria University of Manchester, England (TD, opposite title page).
1935	44	"I first met questions of philosophy when I came up against the Soviet ideology under Stalin which denied justification to the pursuit of science" (TD, 3). In this decade, Polanyi also moved from chemistry to economics and social analysis.
1936	45	USSR Economics: Fundamental Data, System and Spirit. Manchester University Press, 25 pp.
1940	49	The Contempt of Freedom. London: Watts and Company, 1940.
1945	54	Full Employment and Free Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1946	55	Science, Faith and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1948	57	" . . . retired from the professional pursuit of science to take up philosophy" (K&B, 87). "Manchester University has made it possible for me to accept the invitation of Aberdeen and to spend nine years almost exclusively on the preparation of this book. The generosity of Senate and Council in allowing me to exchange my Chair of Physical Chemistry for a Professorial appointment without lecturing duties . . . " (PK, ix). " . . . I turned to philosophy as an afterthought to my career as a scientist" (TD, 3).
1950	59	" . . . has lectured since then, as Visiting Professor or Senior Fellow, at the universities of Chicago, Aberdeen, Virginia, Stanford, and Merton College, Oxford" (TD, opposite title page). "Scientific Beliefs," Ethics 61 (1950) 27-37. "This work owes much to Dr. Marjorie Grene. The moment we first talked about it in Chicago in 1950 she seemed to have guessed my whole purpose, and ever since she has never ceased to help its pursuit. Setting aside her own work as a philosopher, she has devoted herself for years to the service of the present enquiry. Our discussions have catalysed its progress at every stage and there is hardly a page that has not benefited from her criticism. She has a share in anything that I may have achieved here" (PK, ix).
1951	60	The Logic of Liberty: Reflections and Rejoinders. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
1951-2	61	Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen (basis of Personal Knowledge, PK ix).
1953	62	"Science and Conscience," Religion in Life 23 (1953) 47-58.
1958	67	Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (epistemology; endorsed Protestant theology). Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
1959	68	The Study of Man -- "a theory of historiography" (TD, ix). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1959-1961	68-69	Senior Research Fellowship at Merton College
1960	69	"Beyond Nihilism," Encounter 14 (1960) 34-43, reprinted in K&B, 3-23.
1961	70	University of Virginia lectures--first public lectures on the substance of The Tacit Dimension (TD, acknowledgments). "Faith and Reason," The Journal of Religion 41 (1961) 237-47. "Knowing and Being," Mind 70 (1961) 458-70, reprinted in K&B, 123-37.
1962	71	Terry Lectures at Yale, from which The Tacit Dimension was developed (TD, acknowledgments; Mullins disagrees).
1962	71	"The Unaccountable Element in Science," Philosophy 37 (1962) 1-14, reprinted in K&B, 105-120. "The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory," Minerva 1 (1962) 54-73, reprinted in K&B, 49-72. "Tacit Knowing: Its Bearing on Some Problems of Philosophy," Review of Modern Physics 34 (1962) 601-616, reprinted in K&B, 159-180.
1963	72	"Science and Religion: Separate Dimension or Common Ground?" Philosophy Today 7 (1963) 4-14.
1964	73	Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto, at Duke University (summer; (TD, acknowledgments).
1965-1966	74-75	Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University (TD, opposite title page).
1965	74	"The Structure of Consciousness," Brain 88 (1965) 799-810, reprinted in K&B, 211-224.
1966	75	The Tacit Dimension. New York: Doubleday and Company. "The present volume is the first account in book form of the work done during these nine years. The delay was caused by hope and by fear. The lure of the next bend behind which new sights might appear distracts us from the labor of taking stock, and the effect of this distraction is reinforced by the anxiety that our theories might be defeated at the next turn" (TD, ix). "The Logic of Tacit Inference," Philosophy 41 (1966) 1-16, reprinted in K&B, 138-158. "Faith and Reason," Journal of Religion 41 (1961), reprinted in Scientific Thought and Social Reality.
1967	76	"The Growth of Science in Society," Minerva 5 (1967) 533-545, reprinted in K&B, 73-86. "Sense-Giving and Sense-Reading," Philosophy 12 (1967) 301-321, reprinted in K&B, 181-207.
1968	77	"Life's Irreducible Structure," Science 160 (1968) 1308-1312, reprinted in K&B, 225-239.
1969	78	Knowing and Being. Edited by Marjorie Grene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. "On Body and Mind," New Scholasticism 43 (1969) 195-204.
1974	83	Scientific Thought and Social Reality: Essays by Michael Polanyi, edited by Fred Schwartz. New York: International Universities Press.
1975	84	Meaning, with Harry Prosch (dealing, in part , with aesthetics). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1976	85	Died February 22.
1977		William T. Scott, a physicist, began work on Polanyi's biography.
1997		Martin X. Moleski, SJ, a theologian, began to rewrite Scott's manuscript.
1999		Scott died on February 22--twenty-three years to the day after Polanyi died.
2005		Michael Polanyi: Scientist and Philosopher (Oxford University Press) by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski, SJ.