Michael Polanyi was a polymath who primarily studied medicine and chemistry. Precisely because of Polanyi's work in the physical sciences, his writings have a unique dimension not found in other advocates of the market and too infrequently found even in philosophers of science. Society, Economics, and Philosophy represents the full range of his interests outside of his scientific work: economics, politics, society, philosophy of science, religion and positivist obstacles to it, and art.

Polanyi was a powerful critic of totalitarianism and of the deficiencies of the usual defences of freedom which helped to prepare the way for it. Freedom, he argued, can be based only upon truth and dedication to transcendent ideals, not upon scepticism, utilitarianism, and the liberty of doing merely as one pleases. More radically than even von Mises and Hayek, Polanyi showed that an industrial economy can operate only "polycentrically," that central planning is logically impossible, and that what was called by that name in the Soviet Union was in reality no such thing. Likewise, scientific research can proceed, not by a central plan, but only by the spontaneous self-adjustment of separate initiatives to discover a common reality.

Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), was born in Hungary, studied medicine, but devoted himself to research in chemistry. He worked in Germany until Hitler expelled Jews from public positions in 1933, when he went to the University of Manchester as Professor of Physical Chemistry. His books include his magnum opus, Personal Knowledge, as well as Science, Faith, and Society, among others. R. T. Allen is editor of Appraisal and is best known for his work in philosophy, particularly dealing with the nature, status, and destiny of the person. He is the author of numerous books, including Beyond Liberalism: A Study of the Political Thought of F. A. Hayek and Michael Polanyi, The Structure of Value, and Transcendence and Immanence in the Philosophy of Michael Polanyi and Christian Theism.