A chemist & member of a family renowned for its learning in several disciplines, Michael Polanyi experienced first-hand the horrors of totalitarian government & worldwide war. Consequently there is a singular weight to Polanyi's challenge to advocates of centrally planned scientific inquiry or the centrally planned implementation of scientific discovery. He argued that organizations--or governments--based solely on the methods of science threaten to foreclose a full human knowledge of the mysteries of existence & therefore pose a direct threat not only to academic freedom but to social & political liberty. The very triumphs of science in the modern era, Polanyi believed, at least affect & sometimes threaten liberty: "Our discovery & acceptance of scientific knowledge is a commitment to certain beliefs which we hold, but which others may refuse to share." This fateful interrelationship between science & liberty in our time is given supreme & elegant reflection in The Logic of Liberty. Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an internationally renowned scientist, philosopher & professor whose other works include Personal Knowledge & The Tacit Dimension. Stuart D. Warner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Roosevelt University, Chicago.