Books like Blueprints — picked by fans

I am curious. What catches my attention are those sudden, highly surprising new combinations of existing knowledge, which I have not been aware of so far.

Though I have not studied particle physics, I always thought that the quantum mechanisms entail mysteries that still wait to be discovered by interpreting them. Maybe by applying a new formal language. As a fan of Spinoza, I am convinced that life, mankind, is all nature and might be explained with a similar toolset as non-living systems. I invented a research project called "Quantum Political Economy." It got stuck.

Then I encountered this book on "Quantum Biology." It is a marvelous attempt to take the first steps towards an epistemological break in our understanding of how we could frame what happens in the brains of living subjects. 

I adore the political attitude of this famous leading researcher in quantum theory.

Of course, he knows better than the general public how severe a global nuclear conflict will endanger the survival of the human species. And of course, he had to endure a broad wave of criticism from colleagues who rather shied away when asked to warn of a new escalating armament race. "This is not our business," was their recommendation.

But Carlo Rovelli always was after truth and wrote a book that fascinates me. His books pave the way not only to understand space and time in a new way, but also to combine the clear argument of natural science with humanist goals. With them, an epistemological break is on its way.

For me, Sheila Rowbotham is one of the central authors representing the epistemological break that I was experiencing as a teenager in the Sixties.

She describes her involvement in the intellectual wars of the time as well as her everyday involvement in lust and tears. I love her book; for me, it is indeed a promise. She represents the left-progressive feminism, which at the time was fully integrated into this broader wave of emancipatory movements.

Nevertheless, it is not all pure praise; Rowbotham’s critical view of her generation anticipates what turned out to destroy the youth revolt in the following decades. It is a promise on which learning as well as optimism can follow.

Umberto Eco is a prophet for the rising the epistemological break that we are approaching.

In this collection of essays, he anticipates how a rising dark age forces progressive scientific circles to retreat into secret monasteries to survive and to preserve valid older knowledge. As a historian specialized in the Middle Ages, he knows what he talks about.

But he also provides a revolution in the style and content of what he writes: Short essays that connect everyday life experiences of the young generation of the Sixties with his art of deriving theoretical – even witty - abstractions. This is semiotics (a scientific field he developed) at its best, and I love it.

Discover Condorcet!

Most people, when asked to name a philosopher who wrote about inequality, would think of Rousseau. Condorcet was the last of the Encyclopédistes, young enough to experience the revolution in 1789—sadly, also one of its victims.

Unlike his philosopher colleagues, he participated actively in public policymaking, first in the Ministry of Finance, later as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly after the revolution. He chaired an organization working for the abolition of slavery. He argued for equal rights for women before Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft had published their more well-known pamphlets. He co-authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and also wrote a proposal for new constitution for France.

Most importantly, he realized the fundamental role of education as a means to reduce inequality and liberate mankind, and he even developed curricula for the various stages of a general… show more.

What child isn’t curious about the night sky and all the stars that live up there? Did you know that the Sun is a giant star? This book is full of fun facts, not just about stars but about our planet. It helps to put things into perspective, so to speak. It talks about gravity and how many miles away the moon is from the earth. I think kids will learn a lot from reading this book and will even be able to impress their friends with all of their newly acquired knowledge. Did you know the earth looks green because it’s covered in 3,000,000,000,000 trees?? I love this book because learning new things is fun and this book is all about fun. I felt very smart after reading this book.

This is a fascinating analysis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Gilbert, Boyle, and Newton. It not only establishes the reasons for the triumph of the modern perspective but also accounts for certain limitations in this view that continue to characterize contemporary scientific thought.

A criticism as well as a history of the change that made possible the rise of modern science, this volume is also a guide to understanding the methods and accomplishments of the great philosopher-scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Univalent Foundations program in foundations of mathematics launched by Voevodsky and others in the past decade and a half has contributed to a promising new paradigm unifying computation, mathematics, logic, and proof theory.

Understanding the core elements of this research program, Homotopy Type Theory, is essential for contemporary philosophers who want to engage directly with current developments in mathematics and computer science.

Corfield is a well-established name in philosophy of mathematics, and this book is the best introduction to Homotopy Type Theory for philosophers.

Working within themes and problematics that will be familiar to philosophers with a basic background in logic, Corfield covers the elementary constructions of homotopy types from a logical point of view and provides plenty of provocative suggestions for how these formal tools might reinvigorate philosophical research today.

Many undergraduate mathematics books – even those aimed at new students – are dense, technical, and difficult to read at any sort of speed. This is a natural feature of books in a deductive science, but it can be very discouraging, even for dedicated students. Houston’s book covers many ideas useful at the transition to proof-based mathematics, and he has worked extensively and attentively with students at that stage. Consequently, his book maintains high mathematical integrity and has lots of useful exercises while also being an unusually friendly read.

Mathematics requires accurate calculation, and students sometimes think that getting the right answer is enough. But mathematics is also about valid logical arguments, and the demand for clear communication increases through an undergraduate degree. Students, therefore, need to learn to write professionally, with attention to general issues like good grammar, and mathematics-specific issues like accuracy in notation, precision in logical language, and structure in extended arguments. Vivaldi’s book has a great many examples and exercises, and students could benefit from studying it systematically or from dipping into it occasionally and reflecting on small ways to improve.