There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World

by Carlo Rovelli

the borders between theories, disciplines, eras, cultures, peoples and individuals are remarkably porous, and our knowledge is fed by the exchanges across this highly permeable spectrum. Our knowledge is the result of a continuous development of this dense web of exchanges.

But de Finetti identifies with acumen the nature of our knowledge, and understands how, notwithstanding the absence of absolute certainty, it can nevertheless develop in a rigorous and credible way and lead to convictions that are justified and, above all, shared.

In the Anglophone world, it was thanks to the English philosopher Frank Ramsey that the subjective interpretation of probability was taken seriously at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher concerned with the nature of consciousness, as well as a passionate scuba diver and a captivating writer. Other Minds is a work of popular science that describes the ingenious behaviors of these extraordinary creatures, and at the same time a convincing

From endlessly turning over the open questions, trying all roads to a solution, then again trying all the roads to a solution—and then trying all those roads again. Until there, where we least expected it, we discover a gap, a fissure, a way through. Something that nobody had noticed before, but that is not in contradiction with what we know; something minuscule on which to exert leverage, to scratch the smooth and unreliable edge of our unfathomable ignorance, to open a breach onto new territory.

Intelligence is not about stubborn adherence to your own opinions. It requires readiness to change and even discard those opinions.

In order to understand the world, you need to have the courage to experiment with ideas and not fear failure, to constantly revise your opinions, so as to make them work better.

be revised tomorrow. But he rebels against abandoning the search for knowledge. His is a declaration of faith in the knowability of the world, and a proud rebuke to those who are content with their own ignorance and with delegating knowledge elsewhere.

The subtle, intelligent game played in The Sand Reckoner is not just a demonstration of an audacious mathematical construction, or the virtuosity of one of the most extraordinary intellects of antiquity. It is also a defiant cry of reason, which recognizes its own ignorance but refuses to delegate knowledge to others. It is a small, low-key and extremely intelligent manifesto against obscurantism. It has never been more current.

The well-balanced conviction of Lemaître, developed in many of his writings, was that neither science nor religion should attempt to speak of things in areas in which neither has any competence.

Genesis had even the slightest understanding of cosmology. Genesis knows nothing about physics, and physics knows nothing about God.

Lemaître was a Catholic priest, deeply interested in the relations between religion and science, a subject on which he wrote pages of great relevance today, and which in my modest and inexpert opinion are illuminating.

The siege mentality of the Church, its defense to the bitter end of its central role in public life, which we would like to see consigned to history, is a retrograde battle against science, revealing its incapacity to understand the beneficial and positive growth and evolution of morals.

Compare theory of error of agriculture

A recent book by Piergiorgio Odifreddi, How Things Are: My Lucretius, My Venus, offers a readable prose version of Lucretius’s poem, with an extensive commentary that illustrates with examples from contemporary science the rational legibility of the world, in the manner of Lucretius himself.

Alongside Odifreddi’s text, I read Vittorio Enzo Alfieri’s Lucretius, first published in 1929. Here, to my surprise, I found a reading of Lucretius’s poem that is opposite to Odifreddi’s.

How far can we go in understanding our reason? Can it save us from the monsters that dwell in us? Or should we renounce lucidity in order to find consolation?

Who is David Lewis?” “He is one of the greatest philosophers of the century.” “Goodness. And what does he believe?” “That all possible worlds actually exist.” “But what can that mean, it makes no sense: do you believe it?” “No.”

Naturalism without Mirrors is a complex book in which one of the most brilliant contemporary philosophers, Huw Price, the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, discusses a version of what it would be no exaggeration to call the dominant philosophy of our time: naturalism.

a short, dry, philosophical text written eighteen centuries ago in India. It has become a classic reference work of Buddhist philosophy. Its title is one of those seemingly endless Indian words, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, which has been translated in various ways, including “The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way.” I read it in the English translation by the philosopher Jay Garfield, accompanied by an excellent commentary that helps in coming to terms with its language. Garfield has a deep knowledge of Eastern thought, but his philosophical basis is in the Anglo-Saxon analytic tradition and he presents the ideas of Nāgārjuna with the lucidity and concreteness typical of this school, connecting them with Western philosophy.

If someone tells you that you should be afraid, it is because they are weak.

Penrose is a polyhedral intellectual. Readers know him for several books, among them the dense and wonderful The Road to Reality, a great panorama of contemporary physics and mathematics,