ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about Max Weber and Michael Polanyi. The intellectual temper of the two men appears as different as possible. The first is a philosopher of contradiction dedicated to science, but in suffering, with the covert sorrow of being excluded by the progress of science from the paradise of faith. The second is a philosopher of reconciliation, convinced that it is only through a misunderstanding of its true nature that science disenchanted the universe. Between the knowledge of the verifiable and the intuition of the inexpressible, the chapter establishes a radical break and the latter a continuous progression. The epistemology of Max Weber represents a supreme effort to take account of the social sciences and to establish and limit their objectivity, within the framework of a critical philosophy. Starting from the difficulties to which this philosophy drive, the chapter describes what contributes the post-critical philosophy of Polanyi that makes to the theory of sociological knowledge.
