While driving thru Southern Oregon on Intersate 5, i stumbled upon the "Gold Hill Mystery House" and this book. If anyone has read, "The Challenge of Fate" by Dethlefson then you will be drawn to this book. At the "vortex", i was subjected to a half-dozen experiments that seemd to defy science. At the bookstore i bought this book. Read it with an open mind and it will change your life. i do NOT exaggerate this. Science can be used to prove the opposite of everyting it stands for. And it is this dichotomy that makes for on hell of a trip. The author uses documented "Bermuda Triangle" events to prove his theory, which at first glance seems irrational and insane. Then, forming a scientific theory, that seems to go nowhere when suddenly...it takes over, the author "proves" that everything we know to be true is an illusion. UFO's, Bermuda Triangle and the North and South Pole are examined. Follow the step by step logic, feel the goose-bumps on your arms and then get ready to deny the results. I guarantee a startling conclusion that not only makes sense, but it will convert you. I promise.

The title of this review is false.

I love paradoxes. A good paradox is something like an incongruity in the structure of the Matrix, an indication that there's something not quite right about our take on reality. Jorge Luis Borges even took paradoxes as evidence of monistic absolute idealism -- proof that the "undivided divinity operating within us" had "dreamt the world" but left in a few "crevices of unreason" so that we could tell we were dreaming. ("Avatars of the Tortoise," in _Labyrinths_.)

I also love Nicholas Rescher's books, of which he's written many. This one is very, very good.

Every time Rescher writes a book, it seems, he founds (or at least names) a new discipline. This time it's "aporetics," the study of paradoxes and their resolution. (An "apory," Rescher says, is a "group of acceptable-seeming propositions that are collectively inconsistent" [p. 7].)

Rescher studies a _lot_ of paradoxes in this volume. Even if you're interested in it only as a sort of bestiary of paradoxes, you'll be impressed by the sheer number of the things he's managed to include. He's combed the philosophical literature from the present day on back through the European Middle Ages clear to ancient Greece. And I'm willing to bet that he didn't miss any of importance.

But what's actually supposed to be new here is Rescher's method for dealing with paradoxes. So let's chat about that.

First of all, Rescher spends some time discussing the difference between truth and plausibility. His point here is that paradoxes become resoluble if we break them out into propositions, each of which is under consideration as a _candidate_ for truth, but which we can decide to reject if we like. In an aporetic analysis, the propositions in an "aporetic cluster" may have a _presumption_ of acceptability (if they're plausible, which they probably are or we wouldn't have a paradox) but we don't just assume indefeasibly that they're all true.

Now, when we get down to cases, what we do is this: when we encounter a paradox/apory, we break it down into a set of propositions that give rise to the paradox. Then we sort the propositions according to their degrees of plausibility. Then, based on the resulting "retention prioritization," we decide which one(s) to reject. There are some complications here but that's the skinny of it.

How far does this take us? Well, frankly, what it's doing is giving us a useful and organized way to _think_ about paradoxes (which of course is no small thing), but not necessarily a method for actually resolving them.

First, as Rescher himself acknowledges, different people may have different "retention prioritizations" (as in the "Paradox of Evil," p. 31, about which, Rescher says, religious believers and committed atheists would presumably disagree). This fact alone means that in lots of controversial cases, Rescher's method will generate different results for different people.

Second, and arguably more seriously, it's not altogether clear that different people will break a paradox out into exactly the _same_ set of propositions. On the contrary, I would have thought that actually _finding_ this set of propositions would have been a major subdiscipline of aporetics. But Rescher essentially hands us these on a silver platter and tends to presume that there's no question about how to arrive at them.

Third, and probably _most_ seriously, even when we're through with our aporetic analysis, we still may not have satisfactorily resolved our paradox! I'll illustrate with the "Liar Paradox," which Rescher discusses in his tenth chapter.

The "Liar Paradox" arises, of course, from the statement "This statement is false" -- which seems to be true if it's false and false if it's true. Rescher resolves it by breaking it out into a set of propositions that includes this one: "S [the Liar statement] is a semantically meaningful statement -- that is, it is either true or false and not both." His "retention prioritization" concludes that this is the one to reject; the Liar statement must be dismissed as "semantically meaningless" [p. 202].

This is all well and good; at the very least, that proposition is almost undoubtedly the place at which to concentrate one's philosophical fire in an analysis of the Liar Paradox. But does Rescher's analysis really _resolve_ the paradox?

I think it does not. Not all readers would agree (I don't) that "semantically meaningful" is identical in meaning to "either true or false and not both"; indeed, if Rescher had broken _this_ proposition out separately, I might have regarded _it_ as the one to reject.

Which means that the paradox hasn't really gone away. Indeed, the engine that drives it seems to be our very sense that a statement _can_ be semantically meaningful and yet fail to be decisively true or false. For surely the heart of the paradox is precisely that we _can_ tell what the Liar statement means well enough to recognize that it is self-referring and self-undermining (or, in Rescher's marvellous coinage, "self-counterexemplifying" [p. 194]). We may very well have to dismiss it as semantically meaningless after all -- but the paradox hasn't been resolved until we know _why_. Rescher's method, even if fully sound, would tell us only _that_ we should do so.

This isn't a fatal flaw, so long as we don't expect to use Rescher's aporetic analysis for more than it can do. As a method of organizing our thoughts when we sit down to think through a paradox, it's very, very good. It's just not complete (and probably isn't supposed to be) as a method for actually figuring out what makes a paradox tick and what we should do about it.

If you enjoy paradoxes even a tenth as much as I do, you'll like this book.

If you're just starting to investigate the subject, I recommend William Poundstone's _Labyrinths of Reason_ and Mark Sainsbury's _Paradoxes_ as introductory volumes. Eventually you'll also want to get around to Barwise and Etchemendy's book on the Liar Paradox, Raymond Smullyan's books, Douglas Hofstadter's _Goedel, Escher, Bach_, and Rudy Rucker's _Infinity and the Mind_, and a host of others.

This new edition of Whitehead's book, which has already become a classic in esoteric/mystical Christianity, will be a delight to students. The formatting and binding are much improved, and lovely CD recordings of the meditations are in a handy pocket in the back. There is also some new material. All who are interested in the living symbolism of the Christian tradition will find this book a valuable and much-consulted resource.

This book was my daughter's all time favorite. It is easy to read and provides an introduction to the childhood of this famous American. This book is fiction, allthough based on fact, and is fast paced, exciting reading for your 7-10 year old. We have purchased all the titles by this author!

Fast action, witty dialog, sharp characters and believable situations made this book the best of the "Horror High" series. See if you can get it used somewhere. It's worth looking for.

While this is dated (1939?) it is a very good look at the last months and days of the Romanov dynasty. Pares was in Russia at the time, so he also brings the focus of an observer on the scene to the book. As a British historian writing between the wars,
and without access to most Russian archives, he does an excellent job of showing the reader these events and personalities from his close observer perspective.

I found this book as a master guide for pipeline designers and engineers.

If you're a true Keats fan this is a must to add to your collection. Contains all of Keat's best work. Or enrich somone's life who is not familiar with Keats. A great gift idea.

Though accessible to the general public,this book is intended for the student and practitioner of the healing arts. It is a fine introduction to the field by one of its grand masters. I "found" it while looking for help in running poetry workshops with teens - and earmarked so many pages for special note that it made more sense to buy the book.

Nicholas of Lyra (fourteenth century) was a seminal figure inthe development of Biblical criticism. His commentaries were thefirst to be published and represent a transition towards a more critical approach to biblical study. In particular, his knowledge of Hebrew and Hebrew commentators may be seen as an indication of this. They were also highly influential in the development of Luther's thought. In this study of the Old Testmanent book known as the Song of Songs, Lyra follows the classic Rabbinic commentator Rashi, in approach, albeit with a marked Christian emphasis in some details, particularly in the latter chapters. Lyra reads the Song allegorically, as describing poetically the history of up to and including the foundation of Christianity and its acceptance by Constantine. The Church is seen, then, as a continuation of the Israel of the Old Testament. Although modern commentators eschew allegory as a method of interpretation, Lyra's historical significance can not be discounted, especially in his knowledge of and openness to Jewish writers. This book contains the original latin text and an accurate translation of it into English. There is also a useful introduction outlining the context and significance of de Lyra's work. At just under 130 pages, this is a succint commentary, covering the whole Song, well paced, without unnecessary detours away from the text of the Song of Songs. Those who read latin will find in Lyra a capable and appealing writer, at least in comparison to his fellow biblical commentators. This book is part of a series (Reformation Texts with Translation), which although in early stages of development, on the strength of this work, appears promising. As someone who has read a lot of commentaries on the Song of Songs, this is certainly one of the best.