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Methods of Logic (Fourth Edition)
by W. V. QuineThis widely used textbook of modern formal logic now offers a number of new features. Incorporating updated notations, selective answers to exercises, expanded treatment of natural deduction, and new discussions of predicate- functor logic and the affinities between higher set theory and the elementary logic of terms, Quine's new edition will serve admirably both for classroom and for independent use.
Methods of Metaphysics (Routledge Library Editions: Metaphysics #9)
by Alan WhiteOriginally published in 1987. This book comprises a critical exposition of the thoughts on metaphysics of the major philosophers of the tradition. It introduces the ideas of these philosophers to students but is of interest to teachers as well. The author begins with a survey of the metaphysical writings of Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley, Leibniz and Bradley, clarifying throughout the relation of their methods and results to those of science. He follows this with a careful study of the critical attitudes to metaphysics espoused by Kant, Wittgenstein and the Logical Positivists. In the final section he scrutinizes the attempts by Collingwood, Wisdom and Lazerowitz to rehabilitate metaphysics.
Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems
by Ellina GrigorievaThis book is a unique collection of challenging geometry problems and detailed solutions that will build students' confidence in mathematics. By proposing several methods to approach each problem and emphasizing geometry's connections with different fields of mathematics, Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems serves as a bridge to more advanced problem solving. Written by an accomplished female mathematician who struggled with geometry as a child, it does not intimidate, but instead fosters the reader's ability to solve math problems through the direct application of theorems. Containing over 160 complex problems with hints and detailed solutions, Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems can be used as a self-study guide for mathematics competitions and for improving problem-solving skills in courses on plane geometry or the history of mathematics. It contains important and sometimes overlooked topics on triangles, quadrilaterals, and circles such as the Menelaus-Ceva theorem, Simson's line, Heron's formula, and the theorems of the three altitudes and medians. It can also be used by professors as a resource to stimulate the abstract thinking required to transcend the tedious and routine, bringing forth the original thought of which their students are capable. Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems will interest high school and college students needing to prepare for exams and competitions, as well as anyone who enjoys an intellectual challenge and has a special love of geometry. It will also appeal to instructors of geometry, history of mathematics, and math education courses.
Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems
by Ellina GrigorievaThis book is a unique collection of challenging geometry problems and detailed solutions that will build students’ confidence in mathematics. By proposing several methods to approach each problem and emphasizing geometry’s connections with different fields of mathematics, Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems serves as a bridge to more advanced problem solving. Written by an accomplished female mathematician who struggled with geometry as a child, it does not intimidate, but instead fosters the reader’s ability to solve math problems through the direct application of theorems. Containing over 160 complex problems with hints and detailed solutions, Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems can be used as a self-study guide for mathematics competitions and for improving problem-solving skills in courses on plane geometry or the history of mathematics. It contains important and sometimes overlooked topics on triangles, quadrilaterals, and circles such as the Menelaus-Ceva theorem, Simson’s line, Heron’s formula, and the theorems of the three altitudes and medians. It can also be used by professors as a resource to stimulate the abstract thinking required to transcend the tedious and routine, bringing forth the original thought of which their students are capable. Methods of Solving Complex Geometry Problems will interest high school and college students needing to prepare for exams and competitions, as well as anyone who enjoys an intellectual challenge and has a special love of geometry. It will also appeal to instructors of geometry, history of mathematics, and math education courses.
Methods of Solving Number Theory Problems
by Ellina GrigorievaThrough its engaging and unusual problems, this book demonstrates methods of reasoning necessary for learning number theory. Every technique is followed by problems (as well as detailed hints and solutions) that apply theorems immediately, so readers can solve a variety of abstract problems in a systematic, creative manner. New solutions often require the ingenious use of earlier mathematical concepts - not the memorization of formulas and facts. Questions also often permit experimental numeric validation or visual interpretation to encourage the combined use of deductive and intuitive thinking. The first chapter starts with simple topics like even and odd numbers, divisibility, and prime numbers and helps the reader to solve quite complex, Olympiad-type problems right away. It also covers properties of the perfect, amicable, and figurate numbers and introduces congruence. The next chapter begins with the Euclidean algorithm, explores the representations of integer numbers in different bases, and examines continued fractions, quadratic irrationalities, and the Lagrange Theorem. The last section of Chapter Two is an exploration of different methods of proofs. The third chapter is dedicated to solving Diophantine linear and nonlinear equations and includes different methods of solving Fermat’s (Pell’s) equations. It also covers Fermat’s factorization techniques and methods of solving challenging problems involving exponent and factorials. Chapter Four reviews the Pythagorean triple and quadruple and emphasizes their connection with geometry, trigonometry, algebraic geometry, and stereographic projection. A special case of Waring’s problem as a representation of a number by the sum of the squares or cubes of other numbers is covered, as well as quadratic residuals, Legendre and Jacobi symbols, and interesting word problems related to the properties of numbers. Appendices provide a historic overview of number theory and its main developments from the ancient cultures in Greece, Babylon, and Egypt to the modern day. Drawing from cases collected by an accomplished female mathematician, Methods in Solving Number Theory Problems is designed as a self-study guide or supplementary textbook for a one-semester course in introductory number theory. It can also be used to prepare for mathematical Olympiads. Elementary algebra, arithmetic and some calculus knowledge are the only prerequisites. Number theory gives precise proofs and theorems of an irreproachable rigor and sharpens analytical thinking, which makes this book perfect for anyone looking to build their mathematical confidence.
Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Transgenerational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County, California, 1945–1975
by Frank P. BarajasIn Mexican Americans with Moxie Frank P. Barajas argues that Chicanas and Chicanos of the 1960s and 1970s expressed politics distinct from the Mexican American generation that came of age in the decades prior. Barajas focuses on the citrus communities of Fillmore and Santa Paula and the more economically diversified and populated rurban municipalities of Oxnard, Simi Valley, and Ventura, illustrating Ventura County&’s relationship to Los Angeles and El Movimiento&’s ties to suburbanization, freeway construction, and the rise of a high-tech and defense-industry corridor. Mexican Americans with Moxie devotes particular attention to cross-cultural dynamics that transcended space and generation. The residents of Ventura County became involved with national issues such as the Vietnam War, school desegregation, labor, and electoral politics. The actions of Black students at the community colleges of Moorpark and Ventura and other area universities inspired Mexican American youth of Ventura County to assess their own activism.Mexican Americans with Moxie situates the Chicana-Chicano movement within the nation&’s struggle to achieve social justice. From this history, readers will gain a new appreciation for how leadership development spans generations and contributes to the identity formation of communities.
Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt
by John GiblerMexico Unconquered is an evocative report on the powers of violence and corruption in Mexico and the rebel underdogs who put their lives on the line to build justice from the ground up. Mexico Unconquered probes the overwhelming divisions in contemporary Mexico, home to the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, and to destitute millions. John Gibler weaves narrative journalism with lyrical descriptions, combining the journalist's trade of walking the streets and the philosopher's task of drawing out the tremendous implications of the seemingly mundane. John Gibler has reported for In These Times, Common Dreams, YES! Magazine, ColorLines, and Democracy Now!.
Mexico's Dilemma: The Political Origins Of Economic Crisis
by Roberto Newell G. Luis Rubio F.This book analyzes the crisis Mexico experienced in 1982 on the basis of the historical evolution of Mexico's political and economic structures. The author’s purpose in writing this book is to provide an interpretation of Mexico's current problems in order to analyze what must be done to solve some profound dilemmas and to restructure Mexican society. The main dilemma Mexico faces is its vanishing consensus.
Mexico-United States Relations: The Semantics of Sovereignty (Routledge Studies in North American Politics)
by Arturo Santa-CruzSovereignty is a key factor to consider when studying the Mexico-United States relationship. During most of the twentieth century, as a result of the new character of the Mexican post-revolutionary regime, there was a decoupling between the state’s maximalist discourse on sovereignty, and its practice. Sovereignty as an undifferentiated whole does not exist; it should instead be disaggregated into the myriad issue areas in which it is constantly negotiated. Focusing on a tripartite classification relating to the construction of Mexico’s sovereignty towards its northern neighbor since 1920, this volume illustrates how Mexico’s sovereignty has varied not only according to the times, but also according to the issues at stake. In doing so, Arturo Santa-Cruz comprehensively covers a variety of issues in the bilateral agenda such as drug trafficking, electoral observation, human rights, investment, migration, security, and trade, as well as some defining moments in the relationship, such as the 1923 US granting of recognition to the Mexican post-revolutionary regime, the 1938 oil nationalization, the 1982 debt crisis, and the 1995 financial bailout. These diverse cases, analyzed through an original analytical approach, capture sovereignty’s multifocal meaning.
Meyer Schapiro’s Critical Debates: Art Through a Modern American Mind
by C. Oliver O’DonnellDescribed in the New York Times as the greatest art historian America ever produced, Meyer Schapiro was both a close friend to many of the famous artists of his generation and a scholar who engaged in public debate with some of the major intellectuals of his time. This volume synthesizes his prolific career for the first time, demonstrating how Schapiro worked from the nexus of artistic and intellectual practice to confront some of the twentieth century’s most abiding questions.Schapiro was renowned for pioneering interdisciplinary approaches to interpreting visual art. His lengthy formal analyses in the 1920s, Marxist interpretations in the 1930s, psychoanalytic critiques in the 1950s and 1960s, and semiotic explorations in the 1970s each helped to open new avenues for inquiry. Based on archival research, C. Oliver O’Donnell’s study is structured chronologically around eight defining debates in which Schapiro participated, including his dispute with Isaiah Berlin over the life and writing of Bernard Berenson, Schapiro’s critique of Martin Heidegger’s ekphrastic commentary on Van Gogh, and his confrontation with Claude Lévi-Strauss over the applicability of mathematics to the interpretation of visual art. O’Donnell’s thoughtful analysis of these intellectual exchanges not only traces Schapiro’s philosophical evolution but also relates them to the development of art history as a discipline, to central tensions of artistic modernism, and to modern intellectual history as a whole.Comprehensive and thought-provoking, this study of Schapiro’s career pieces together the separate strands of his work into one cohesive picture. In doing so, it reveals Schapiro’s substantial impact on the field of art history and on twentieth-century modernism.
Meyer Schapiro’s Critical Debates: Art Through a Modern American Mind
by C. Oliver O’DonnellDescribed in the New York Times as the greatest art historian America ever produced, Meyer Schapiro was both a close friend to many of the famous artists of his generation and a scholar who engaged in public debate with some of the major intellectuals of his time. This volume synthesizes his prolific career for the first time, demonstrating how Schapiro worked from the nexus of artistic and intellectual practice to confront some of the twentieth century’s most abiding questions.Schapiro was renowned for pioneering interdisciplinary approaches to interpreting visual art. His lengthy formal analyses in the 1920s, Marxist interpretations in the 1930s, psychoanalytic critiques in the 1950s and 1960s, and semiotic explorations in the 1970s all helped open new avenues for inquiry. Based on archival research, C. Oliver O’Donnell’s study is structured chronologically around eight defining debates in which Schapiro participated, including his dispute with Isaiah Berlin over the life and writing of Bernard Berenson, Schapiro’s critique of Martin Heidegger’s ekphrastic commentary on Van Gogh, and his confrontation with Claude Lévi-Strauss over the applicability of mathematics to the interpretation of visual art. O’Donnell’s thoughtful analysis of these intellectual exchanges not only traces Schapiro’s philosophical evolution but also relates them to the development of art history as a discipline, to central tensions of artistic modernism, and to modern intellectual history as a whole.Comprehensive and thought-provoking, this study of Schapiro’s career pieces together the separate strands of his work into one cohesive picture. In doing so, it reveals Schapiro’s substantial impact on the field of art history and on twentieth-century modernism.
Michael A. Weinstein: Action, Contemplation, Vitalism (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by Diane Rubenstein Robert L. OpriskoThis book is a major reassessment of Michael Weinstein’s political philosophy. It situates his singular contribution, designated as "critical vitalism," in the context of both canonical American and contemporary continental theory. Weinstein is presented as a philosopher of life and as an American Nietzsche. Yet the contributors also persuasively argue for this form of thinking as a prescient prophecy addressing contemporary society’s concern over the management of life as well as the technological changes that both threaten and sustain intimacy. This is the first full scale study of Weinstein’s work which reveals surprising aspects of a philosophic journey that has encompassed most of the major American (pragmatic or vitalist) or Continental (phenomenological or existential) traditions. Weinstein is read as a comparative political theorist, a precursor to post-structuralism, and as a post-colonial border theorist. A different aspect of his oeuvre is highlighted in each of the book’s three sections. The opening essays comprising the "Action" diptych contrasts meditative versus extrapolative approaches; "Contemplation" stages a series of encounters between Weinstein and his philosophic interlocutors; "Vitalism" presents Weinstein as a teacher, media analyst, musician, and performance artist. The book contains an epilogue written by Weinstein in response to the contributors.
Michael Dummett (Philosophy Now Ser.)
by Bernhard WeissMichael Dummett's approach to the metaphysical issue of realism through the philosophy of language, his challenge to realism, and his philosophy of language itself are central topics in contemporary analytic philosophy and have influenced the work of other major figures such as Quine, Putnam, and Davidson. This book offers an accessible and systematic presentation of the main elements of Dummett's philosophy. This book's overarching theme is Dummett's discussion of realism: his characterization of realism, his attack on realism, and his invention and exploration of the anti-realist position. This book begins by examining Dummett's views on language. Only against that setting can one fully appreciate his conception of the realism issue. With this in place, Weiss returns to Dummett's views on the nature of meaning and understanding to unfold his challenge to realism. Weiss devotes the remainder of this book to examining the anti-realist position. He discusses anti-realist theories of meaning and then investigates anti-realism's revisionary consequences. Finally, he engages with Dummett's discussion of two difficult challenges for the anti-realist: the past and mathematics.
Michael Dummett and the Theory of Meaning (Routledge Revivals)
by Darryl GunsonPublished in 1998, this book argues that in recent decades, Anglo-American philosophy of language has been captivated by the idea that the key to progress in this area of philosophy lies in investigating the possibility of constructing a theory of meaning. This text provides an in-depth critique of the Davidsonian suggestion that Tarski's work on formal definitions of truth is an important element in allowing us to understand the form that the theory of meaning should take.
Michael Fried and Philosophy: Modernism, Intention, and Theatricality (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)
by Mathew AbbottThis volume brings philosophers, art historians, intellectual historians, and literary scholars together to argue for the philosophical significance of Michael Fried’s art history and criticism. It demonstrates that Fried’s work on modernism, artistic intention, the ontology of art, theatricality, and anti-theatricality can throw new light on problems in and beyond philosophical aesthetics. Featuring an essay by Fried and articles from world-leading scholars, this collection engages with philosophical themes from Fried’s texts, and clarifies the relevance to his work of philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, Morris Weitz, Elizabeth Anscombe, Arthur Danto, George Dickie, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, G. W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Denis Diderot, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roland Barthes, Jacques Rancière, and Søren Kierkegaard. As it makes a case for the importance of Fried for philosophy, this volume contributes to current debates in analytic and continental aesthetics, philosophy of action, philosophy of history, political philosophy, modernism studies, literary studies, and art theory.
Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss: The Politics of Renaissance and Enlightenment (Recovering Political Philosophy)
by David McIlwainThis book compares the thought of Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss, bringing Oakeshott’s desire for a renaissance of poetic individuality into dialogue with Strauss’s recovery of the universality of philosophical enlightenment. Starting from the conventional understanding of these thinkers as important voices of twentieth-century conservatism, McIlwain traces their deeper and more radical commitments to the highpoints of human achievement and their shared concerns with the fate of traditional inheritances in modernity, the role and meaning of history, the intention and meaning of political philosophy, and the problem of politics and religion. The book culminates in an articulation of the positions of Oakeshott and Strauss as part of the quarrel of poetry and philosophy, revealing the ongoing implications of their thinking in terms of the profound spiritual and political questions raised by modern thinkers such as Hobbes, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger and leading back to foundational figures of Western civilization including St. Augustine and Socrates.
Michael Oakeshott and the Cambridge School on the History of Political Thought
by Martyn P. ThompsonThis book is a critique of Cambridge School Historical Contextualism as the currently dominant mode of history of political thought, drawing upon Michael Oakeshott’s analysis of the logic of historical enquiry. While acknowledging that the early Cambridge School work represented a considerable advance towards genuinely historical histories of political thought, this work identifies two major historiographical problems that have become increasingly acute. The first is general: an insufficiently rigorous understanding of the key concept of "pastness" necessarily presupposed in historical enquiry of all kinds. The second is specific to histories of political thought: a failure to do justice to the varieties of past political thinking, especially differences between ideology and philosophy. In addressing these problems, the author offers a comprehensive account of the history of political thought that establishes the parameters not just of histories of ideological thinking but also of the much disputed character of histories of political philosophy. Since rethinking history of political thought in Oakeshottian terms requires resisting current pressures to turn history into the servant of currently felt needs, the book offers a sustained defence of the cultural value of modernist historical enquiry against its opponents. An important work for political theorists, historians of political thought and those researching intellectual history, the philosophy of history and proposed new directions in contemporary historical studies.
Michael Oakeshott and the Conversation of Modern Political Thought
by Luke Philip PloticaOne of the seminal voices of twentieth-century political thought, Michael Oakeshott's work has often fallen prey to the ideological labels applied to it by his interpreters and commentators. In this book, Luke Philip Plotica argues that we stand to learn more by embracing Oakeshott's own understanding of his work as contributions to an ever-evolving conversation of humanity. Building from Oakeshott's concept of conversation as an engagement among a plurality of voices "without symposiarch or arbiter" to dictate its course, Plotica explores several fundamental and recurring themes of Oakeshott's philosophical and political writings: individual agency, tradition, the state, and democracy. When viewed as interventions into an ongoing conversation of modern political thought, Oakeshott's work transcends the limits of familiar ideological labels, and his thought opens into deeper engagement with some of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century, including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Taylor, Michel Foucault, and Hannah Arendt. Attending to these often unexpected or unrecognized affinities casts fresh light on some of Oakeshott's most familiar ideas and their systematic relations, and facilitates a better understanding of the breadth and depth of his political thought.
Michael Oakeshott on Authority, Governance, and the State (Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism)
by Eric S. KosMichael Oakeshott on Authority, Governance, and the State presents contributions on one of the most important British philosophers of the 20th century. These essays address unique and under-analyzed areas in the literature on Oakeshott: authority, governance, and the state. They draw on some of the earliest and least-explored works of Oakeshott, including his lectures at Cambridge and the London School of Economics and difficult-to-access essays and manuscripts. The essays are authored by a diverse set of emerging and established scholars from Europe, North America, and India. This authorial diversity is not only a testimony to the growing international interest in Oakeshott, but also to a plurality of perspectives and important new insights into the thought of Michael Oakeshott.
Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics
by Elizabeth Campbell Corey<p>Elizabeth Campbell Corey now makes the case that Oakeshott’s moral and political philosophies are more informed by religious and aesthetic considerations than has previously been supposed. Hers is the first book-length study of this premise, arguing that Oakeshott’s views on aesthetics, religion, and morality are intimately linked in a creative moral personality that underlies his political theorizing. <p>Corey focuses on a wealth of early material from Oakeshott’s career that has only recently been published, as well as his acclaimed “Tower of Babel” essays, to show that these works illuminate his thinking in ways that could not have been realized prior to their publication. She places Oakeshott squarely in the Augustinian tradition, citing his 1929 essay “Religion and the World,” and then identifies his departure from it. She explores Oakeshott’s recurring theme of “living one’s life in the present”; examines his explicit discussions of religion, aesthetics, and morality; and then considers his political thought in light of this moral vision. She finally compares his idea of Rationalism to Eric Voegelin’s concept of Gnosticism and considers both thinkers’ treatment of Hobbes to delineate their philosophical differences.</p>
Michael Oakeshott's Political Philosophy of International Relations
by Davide OrsiThis book argues that Michael Oakeshott's political philosophy contributes to current debates in normative international theory and international political theory on the historical, social, and moral dimension of international society. Davide Orsi contends that the theory of civil association may be the ground for an understanding of international society as a rule-based form of moral association constituted by customary international law. The book also considers the role of evolving practices of morality in debates on international justice. Orsi grounds this work on a study of Oakeshott's philosophical arguments and compares the Oakeshottian perspective to recent constructivist literature in International Relations.
Michael Oakeshott's Skepticism (Princeton Monographs in Philosophy #34)
by Aryeh BotwinickThe English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) is known as a conservative who rejected philosophically ambitious rationalism and the grand political ideologies of the twentieth century on the grounds that no human ideas have ultimately reliable foundations. Instead, he embraced tradition and habit as the guides to moral and political life. In this book, Aryeh Botwinick presents an original account of Oakeshott's skepticism about foundations, an account that newly reveals the unity of his thought. Botwinick argues that, despite Oakeshott's pragmatic conservatism, his rejection of all-embracing intellectual projects made him a friend to liberal individualism and an ally of what would become postmodern antifoundationalism. Oakeshott's skepticism even extended paradoxically to skepticism about skepticism itself and is better described as a "generalized agnosticism." Properly conceived and translated, this agnosticism ultimately evolves into mysticism, which becomes a bridge linking philosophy and religion. Botwinick explains and develops this strategy of interpretation and then shows how it illuminates and unifies the diverse strands of Oakeshott's thought in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, epistemology, political theory, philosophy of personal identity, philosophy of law, and philosophy of history.
Michael Oakeshott’s Cold War Liberalism
by Terry NardinDuring the Cold War, political thinkers in the West debated the balance between the requirements of liberal democracy and national security. This debate resonates in today's East Asia and especially Korea, where an ideological-military standoff between democracy and a totalitarian system persists. The thinkers often identified as 'Cold War liberals'—Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and Michael Oakeshott—are worth revisiting in this context. Of these, Oakeshott is the least-well understood in East Asia and therefore particularly deserving of attention. Especially valuable are his ideas about the limits of rationalism in politics, the irrelevance of conventional views of liberalism and conservatism, and how constitutional democracy should be defined and defended against various forms of anti-liberal politics. In this book, leading Oakeshott scholars from around the world explore these ideas and their implications for East Asia in ten illuminating and readable essays.
Michael Polanyi and His Generation: Origins of the Social Construction of Science
by Mary Jo NyeIn Michael Polanyi and His Generation, Mary Jo Nye investigates the role that Michael Polanyi and several of his contemporaries played in the emergence of the social turn in the philosophy of science. This turn involved seeing science as a socially based enterprise that does not rely on empiricism and reason alone but on social communities, behavioral norms, and personal commitments. Nye argues that the roots of the social turn are to be found in the scientific culture and political events of Europe in the 1930s, when scientific intellectuals struggled to defend the universal status of scientific knowledge and to justify public support for science in an era of economic catastrophe, Stalinism and Fascism, and increased demands for applications of science to industry and social welfare. At the center of this struggle was Polanyi, who Nye contends was one of the first advocates of this new conception of science. Nye reconstructs Polanyi's scientific and political milieus in Budapest, Berlin, and Manchester from the 1910s to the 1950s and explains how he and other natural scientists and social scientists of his generation--including J. D. Bernal, Ludwik Fleck, Karl Mannheim, and Robert K. Merton--and the next, such as Thomas Kuhn, forged a politically charged philosophy of science, one that newly emphasized the social construction of science.
Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing
by Mark T. MitchellThe polymath Michael Polanyi first made his mark as a physical chemist, but his interests gradually shifted to economics, politics, and philosophy, in which field he would ultimately propose a revolutionary theory of knowledge that grew out of his firsthand experience with both the scientific method and political totalitarianism. In this sixth entry in ISI Books&’ Library of Modern Thinkers&’ series, Mark T. Mitchell reveals how Polanyi came to recognize that the roots of the modern political and spiritual crisis lay in an errant conception of knowledge that served to foreclose any possibility of making meaningful statements about truth, goodness, or beauty. Polanyi&’s theory of knowledge as ineluctably personal but also grounded in reality is not merely of historical interest, writes Mitchell, for it proposes an attractive alternative for anyone who would reject both the hubris of modern rationalism and the ultimately nihilistic implications of academic postmodernism.