Reviews and Comments

Essentially a two-part book. The first part of the book, from the 1st to the 3rd chapter, is a compact summary of studies and positions conducted by others regarding the transformation of the Roman West. From the 4th chapter onward, it concentrates on religion, or the impact of the rise of Christianity on the Roman West, how it transformed the Roman West. The study is largely fact and evidence driven, with little speculative efforts. Nothing really new is in the book for a non-researcher. The main point of the book may be exemplified by the following passage:

Rather than seeing the Carolingians as rejuvenating a religiously and culturally impoverished Age, we need to ask rather if Charles Martel and Pippin III temporarily undermined an essentially religious socio-political system. While we tend to see the Carolingian Age as marking a major development in the Christian ideology of rule, we should perhaps see it also as marking a reconstitution of a religious system that the Arnulfing ancestors of the Carolingians themselves had broken through the secularization of Church property by Charles Martel—a policy necessitated by the need for military reform following the arrival of the Islamic forces.

Dummett was probably the most profound philosopher of the 20th century, who worked mainly on those fundamental notions such as truth, meaning, etc., and exerted profound influence upon the intuitionistic strand of logic and mathematics. Per Martin-Lof was heavily influenced by him when he was drafting his intuitionistic type theory. Reading Dummett's books is always a spiritual exercise, and a test of will power. It's not for the faint of heart. His sentences are so tremendously tortured, and his thoughts are extremely hard to grasp. This is probably the easiest book Dummett had ever written, but it's still not easy. It requires patience and devotion. Slowly, the reader will be able to feel the magnificence of Dummett's terse but powerful writing style, there's a stable force, "a restraint, a logic", that permeates the sentences, a calm, steady, generative power that purifies the soul. It will be an unforgettable experience. There's no sugarcoating, no clever rhetoric, only a grand, dignified, and, so to speak, raw architecture. The book summarizes Dummett's philosophy, and concludes with a rather scholastic chapter on God. The chapter, while devoid of flowery languages and passionate, sentimental expressions, is one of the most moving chapters about God, where Dummett's deep faith is rendered through rational, mountainous, quiet, dignified lenses. One can feel the presence of Thomas Aquinas there.

This is in effect, in the form of autobiography, a gentle introduction to the innermost core of theological anthropology, comparative mythology, and modern Schellingianism. Jung is not a psychologist or a psychoanalyst, he's a thinker and a "mystic" in the Boehmian-Schellingian tradition.

Schelling is the original theoretician of the unconscious, and his notion of unconscious is more in line with Jung than Freud. Jung read von Hartmann and Boehme diligently and was probably the greatest authority regarding medieval alchemy, hermeticism, gnoscitism, ancient Christianity, etc., adding a layer of textual and phenomenological evidence to Schelling and Boehme's prophetic insight.

And in the last three chapters, namely, "Visions", "On Life after Death", and "Late Thoughts", modern Schellingianism is on full display, in its full power, where psyche and matter are intermingled, and Time and Eternity become graspable. If you try to understand, try again and again, the shape of the reality that you perceive will be transformed fundamentally.

This is such a difficult work that even Dummett's The Logical Basis of Metaphysics seems trivial in comparison. 350 pages of torture. Whitehead's style is also not inviting at all. He had already written the Principia by then. The last of the grand old metaphysicians. Deleuze seems nothing compared to him.

"Its influence will radiate through concentric circles of popularization until the common man will think and work in the light of it, not knowing whence the light came." Factually the whole second half of the 20th century was under the influence of Whitehead, in the guise of Gaia hypothesis, ecology, embodied etc., though extremely indirect, and along with other factors like Jungian, Teilhardian thoughts. Ingold's anthropology, phenomenology after Merleau-Ponty, the hype with Buddhism... All stems from this monumental, epoch-making work.

If you read Schelling, or Jung, or whatever process theology, Whitehead is a must, since he's a developed form of Schelling, and was influenced heavily by Schelling. Don't read those process philosophers who are largely influenced by ecology and the counter-culture of the 60s and 80s. Read the master directly. It's a pity that Whitehead was popularized by Americans.

An exciting and fantastic book, with concise and no-nonsense philosophical explications and the use of relatively advanced results in model theory. Furthermore it is even helpful for those who is learning model theory to get the theory itself, since model theory is by far the most conceptually confusing field in mathematics I've ever encountered.

The gem of the book lies in the B part, regarding categoricity, where categoricity is introduced in a way better than ordinary textbooks in model theory, and seemingly unconnected problem of (sort-of) mathematical structuralism is scrunitized with the categoricity results. Some naive views that mathematicians hold with regard to mathematical structures and arithmetics are dissected and countered. To the end of the B part arguments in favour of internalism is given, which is suspiciously similar to a proof-theoretic view of the foundations. It was a horizon-enlarging experience.

It is claimed that an 101 logic course should be sufficient for the book but I doubt that. Maybe mathematical logic 1 and 2, including Godel's incompleteness theorem and arithmetization, and some not-naive set theory introducing cumulative hierarchy and cardinal arithmetic is needed for part A and B. Regarding part C, it might be too concise. I'll refrain from making comments since I don't really understand.