Western philosophy has long been divided between empiricists, who argue that human understanding has its basis in experience, and rationalists, who argue that reason is the source of knowledge. A central issue in the debate is the nature of concepts, the internal representations we use to think about the world. The traditional empiricist thesis that concepts are built up from s...(展开全部)

"There are books--few and far between--which carefully, delightfully, and genuinely turn your head inside out. This is one of them. It ranges over some central issues in Western philosophy and begins the long overdue job of giving us a radically new account of meaning, rationality, and objectivity."--Yaakov Garb, San Francisco Chronicle

"There are books--few and far between--which carefully, delightfully, and genuinely turn your head inside out. This is one of them. It ranges over some central issues in Western philosophy and begins the long overdue job of giving us a radically new account of meaning, rationality, and objectivity."--Yaakov Garb, San Francisco Chronicle

"Writing with grace and clarity...he touches on everything from the evolution of the Western tonal system, to the Freudian theory of music as infantile escapism, to the differing roles o the right and left brain in perceiving music." WALL STREET JOURNAL Drawing on his own life long passion for music and synthesizing the theories of Plato, Schopenhauer, Stravinsky, Nietzsche, B...(展开全部)

Rudy Rucker is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at San Jose State University and the author of numerous books on mathematics and philosophy, including Artificial Life Lab, Mind Tools: The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality, and The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of Higher Universes. Among his works of science fiction are White Light, Software, and Space-Time Donu...(展开全部)

Rudy Rucker is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at San Jose State University and the author of numerous books on mathematics and philosophy, including Artificial Life Lab, Mind Tools: The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality, and The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of Higher Universes. Among his works of science fiction are White Light, Software, and Space-Time Donu...(展开全部)

Rudy Rucker is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at San Jose State University and the author of numerous books on mathematics and philosophy, including Artificial Life Lab, Mind Tools: The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality, and The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of Higher Universes. Among his works of science fiction are White Light, Software, and Space-Time Donu...(展开全部)

Rudy Rucker is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at San Jose State University and the author of numerous books on mathematics and philosophy, including Artificial Life Lab, Mind Tools: The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality, and The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of Higher Universes. Among his works of science fiction are White Light, Software, and Space-Time Donu...(展开全部)

Robert Tombs is Professor of History at Cambridge University. His acclaimed book That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present was published in 2006. He is one of the leading scholars of Anglo-French relations.