Abstract

This is an interesting book, though an unphilosophical one. Episteme, the series title, is here a misnomer; this is in no sense "science" as the Greek asserts; nor is it techne, art and craft; but eikasia, opinion and conjecture. What we are given is an anthology of relatively uncriticized and elliptically cited opinions bearing on three topics. These are the identity or diversity of mysticism and modern physics, the tendency toward wholism in philosophy of science, and the sociological reduction of mathematics to a materialist explanation. The dense snippet-quotation method will remind some readers of Diogenes Laertius' collection of Lives and Opinions.