Against Method

This book by Paul Feyerabend is one of the most important and certainly the most radical books of philosophy of science to come out of the twentieth century. It forms almost a perfect sequel to Thomas Kuhn's book in the same field - only, where Kuhn gave us an objective "what happens and how" of revolutions in scientific fields, Feyerabend here gives us a more subjective "what could maybe happen, and how to do it". To use a comparative metaphor, Kuhn wrote of scientific revolution like Marx wrote of its socio-economic equivalent, while Feyerabend writes of it like Che Guevara, chock full of grassroots incitement to properly-informed action and ample tactical advice (using Galileo's career as prime example).

   I won't go into depth with a summary of what he talks about in this book as it spans a huge arena of the history of science, its present and future capacities, and the dynamics at play in determining what we may consider progress in all of this. To give a very brief summary of the main point of the text though, I will say that Feyerabend sees the only sustainably trustworthy epistemological approach to science as that of anarchism. That is to say, when approaching theory, fact, experiment, and so on, the only reasonable guideline to guarantee that progress can intuit itself into the field's grasp on its object is: "anything goes." I like this a lot. It's a healthy reminder that even the most open-minded empiricists can, and do, get bogged down in the accumulation of the best thinking of all the open-minded empiricists who came before them, and thus often cease being effective open-minded empiricists. Epistemological anarchism is an approach that rightly inspires terror in the hearts of academics who have devoted their careers to the minutiae of issues under particular paradigms; however as an approach deigning to liberate and guarantee the continual advancement of any kind of knowledge, it's very difficult to argue with given how unpredictable are the paradigm shifts in any given field of study.

   If you're interested in the philosophy of science I'm going to assume that you've already read this, but if you're merely a scientist who has given relatively little thought to the epistemological conditions of your work, I'd highly recommend this if you want a revolutionary energising shock.

the Structure of Scientific Revolutions

This book by Thomas Kuhn is probably the most significant work in the philosophy of science to come out of the twentieth century. In it, Kuhn skips around the history of scientific endeavour to sketch a theory of how progress in these fields happens. Science of a particular era subsists in what he calls a paradigm, a collectively-agreed-upon web of assumptions, problems and techniques that define the scope and limits of the field at that time. It is only when a particular paradigm begins to encounter anomalies that it is unequipped to explain, and thus enters a period of crisis, that hitherto unthought-of methods and speculations emerge, and thus a scientific revolution (think Copernicus overturning the Ptolemaic astronomical system, or Einstein going so far beyond Newton that the previously accepted physics became a redundant rump) takes place - the paradigm shifts, and new modes of understanding become possible, new questions become salient, and new experiments become required to continue advancing the frontiers of knowledge. I was pleasantly surprised by how readable this book was - I'm interested in science but don't read much of it as I find myself either feeling alienated by the abundance of jargon or patronized by the author's obvious overcompensations in avoiding jargon, but Kuhn avoids both extremes and explores this whole nest of topics in an accessible and enlightening way. Absolutely highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of science.

the Corpus Hermeticum

This book is one I've read before and thus blogged about before, see prior post - although this text is very easily available for free online, I've not included links either there or here as maintaining an air of mystery seems key for me in these kinds of cryptic ancient documents. I can't really say I got much new out of it on a second reading - it still feels like wisdom farting in your face for fun. To discern anything meaningful from these writings would either take a lifetime of arcane study or an unthought-out kneejerk series of seemingly-brilliant hunches, neither of which I really have time for. As lurid and enjoyable as the Corpus Hermeticum is, I really don't think it has, or arguably has ever had, really that much to offer philosophy, science, or faith. So, yeh. Don't take my word for it - give it a google and read the .pdf of the thing. It will confuse you and illuminate you in equal measure, ultimately leading nowhere special.

Know yourself through your Handwriting

This book, appropriately enough for an anonymous sheaflet from the 1970s that came for free with a box of breakfast cereal probably, would be an invaluable tool to anyone looking into psychology, criminal theory or practical forgery tips; and that's about all as I'll say on't.

the Corpus Hermeticum

This book, for which I'm not going to provide a link because the whole point of alchemy is to send unexpecting overcurious readers down their own rabbit-holes and where would the fun of that be if I just gave you it that easily?* is probably the foundational text, or at least one of the key foundational texts, for the Western Hermetic tradition by which a true alchemical practice is derived. It takes the shape of a conversation between Hermes and Thoth, on a range of matters - but dealing in considerable depth the natures of Cosmos, Mind, Being, God and Goodness; the language is potently symbolic but not such that it, I don't think anyway, obscures the underlying metaphysical things it is trying to talk about - though the very nature of alchemy means that what I have derived from the text might not necessarily be what any other reader might clearly be able to infer from the words alone; as such, I would not recommend this text with much gusto - despite feeling personally that it has an abundance of Truth contained therein - because for that truth to shine through in a proper way to the Imaginations of its readers they must have been prepared through the cosmic trip of their own life-inner-journeys - but if you have, as I was, been led to the discovery of this text through your own questings, then read it with generous discernment - as I sense this far down the rabbit-hole things do start getting strange, and those who read out of an intellectual voracity and a desire to Fully Comprehend risk dragging their minds and souls into the truly abstract and/or occult which are less than life-giving; but if you have been led here out of a humble expectancy, spiritual curiousity and openness - it may very likely have much of merit to say, but let me say here - nothing which has not been said elsewhere, in many forms and occasions, as the true & proper ground of any alchemical "fact" can only be known exactly as and where it is - which may well be just about everywhere, and if you do not already see that then reading a text like this might not necessarily help you do so, instead just furnishing the strangeness of your mind-soul's quest-loot with an additional bunglage to its burden, which will only be shed when you properly grasp what it's about. God is not gnosis. Nor is gnosis necessary for salvation: only Christ - but the Gnosis spoken about in this text, that is the gnosis of, and in, for and through such things as the mind-soul's Life in Jesus-God; is a real thing impossible to lose when it is found, for it is the truest surest ground of a mind-soul that can be known, felt or said to exist - all of which is to say, be honest in your self-examinations, and quest carefully.

* That said, you do have my assurance that PDFs of it are available online, or it in book form. I read the translation by G.R.S. Mead, if you're interested.

the Little Book of Colour

This book by Karen Haller proclaims, per its subtitle, that it will informatively equip its reader to better transform their lives utilising the psychology of colour. I didn't even know there was such a thing - apart from, of course there is, and it's mindblowingly subtle & powerful in its everyday constant potency. The kinda thing you never think about until you do then you can't ever unsee it - or remove from your daily awareness of such a basic thing as colour some residual echoes of the backdrop; each colour's psychological hefts - which are affected partly by cultural context and personal taste, but weirdly there's a deep-rooted similitude in how colours affect people's brains. What it may make someone think or feel is impossible to neatly predict, as everyone processes things differently and most common colours have widely variably symbolic purposes in different cultures - but I learnt from Haller that each colour actually triggers particular neurological responses and these are pretty consistent across human diversity... which means that carefully chosen & crafted combinations of colours tend to induce reliable effects in those perceiving them.* Visually delicious and accessibly written, this was a fascinating surprise: I bought it for my sister's birthday & ended up reading it all in about an hour and a half on the coach before she got it.

* Obviously yes, there's a good two or three chapters exploring meaty applications of all this theory in workplaces, home decor and personal fashion.

No-one is too small to make a difference

This book is a collection of speeches made over this past few months by Greta Thunberg - whom you've probably heard of by now, unless you've been living under Boomer Snowflake Rock - since pretty much all of these speeches are available online or were covered in the news media, the only real reason I can envision buying a copy of this book might be for someone a necessarily recommendable act is as a present for people living under that aforementioned rock. Not that they'd probably read it, because hey, who's going to listen to an autistic Swedish teenager if you're already not going to listen to a united consensus among our planet's most dedicated minds on questions of ecological action?

How Faith Changes

This book* by Ruth Perrin is an absolute marvel of qualitative research in the complicated theological and cultural context that is millennials. She interviewed 47 young people from across 23 Protestant denominations, all living in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Tees Valley or Northumberland, and who had all been actively-affirming Christians in their early 20's - now aged 29-37, she explores a rich and deep and thoroughly challenging set of ways in which their faith has been knocked, changed, reformed, dropped, and so on. I've probably read this more like two or three times because it spoke so deftly into the particular kinds of things I've seen young Christians wrestle with (often, as she discusses, largely without helpful support from church families, for a number of reasons) and the fallouts of these issues; though not wishing to simply offload an attempt at a personal summary of her whole arguments and methodologies (fascinating though these are), particularly because she has a fuller book about the same thing coming out soon and I'd rather discuss it in detail then (as I will definitely be getting a copy when it comes out in January). Not much point making a recommendation to you, dear audience, when there is very little chance you would be able to acquire a copy of this particular book either - but it was a highly informative and illuminating exploration of the field and would probably surprise most readers as to the fluidity of religious faith and some of the dynamics underlying this.

* No link on this one, sorry! I know it's against my own rules but hey, it was a limited run exclusively shipped to church research folks and I can't find a page for or about it online anywhere. Check out her blog Discipleship Research though. And consider pre-ordering her next wider-audience book which will probably build on a lot of the research discussed in this.