ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the inner human agency to realise desired outcomes in personal, social and professional life. Polanyi was a British Jewish scholar in physical chemistry and later also in economics and philosophy. His relevance to social work stems from his concept of tacit knowledge. Polanyi was interested in the internal mechanism, organism, structure or pattern - using such words alternately - that steers human beings in their perceiving, acting and knowing. Polanyi referred to 'Gestalt' as being able to conceive the whole without perceiving all the details; the whole is different from the details it is composed of. The declared aim of modern science is to establish a strictly detached, objective knowledge. The human being is an integrated part of the world. From the moment knowledge is detached from the inner person, it becomes a power of its own, threatening the world.
