Eureka

by Michael Macrone

81 Of the western world's greatest- and sometimes murkiest- ideas.

PHILOSOPHY
Original sin
The Prime Mover
Occam's Razor
The Ontological Proof
Pascal's Wager
"Everything Changes But Change Itself"
"Man is the Measure of All Things"
Zeno's Paradox
Plato's Cave
The Three Laws of Thought
"I Think, Therefore I am"
Hume's Fork
The Scandal of Induction
The Thing-in-Itself
The Categorical Imperitive
"And the Life of Man, Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short"
The Tabula Rasa
The Social Contract
The Dialectic
Utilitarianism
Superman
Eternal Recurrance
Pragmatisim
"The World is All That is the Case"
Phenomenology
Existentialism
"I Am Condemned to Be Free"

SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
The Pythagorean Theorem
Archimedes' Principle
The Copernican Revolution
"Knowledge Itself is Power"
Newton's Laws
Paradigm Shifts
Relativity
A "Quantam Leap"
The Uncertainty Principle
"God Does Not Play Dice"
Metalanguage
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem
Game Theory
Fuzzy Logic
Entropy
Cbyernetics
The Big Bang
Chaos
Ontogney Recapitulates Phylogeny
Evolution
Mendel's Laws

THE HUMAN SCIENCES
A Pavlovian Response
Behaviourism
The Unconscious
The Oedipus Complex
Ego, Id, and Superego
The Pleasure Principle
The Collective Unconcious
Object Relations
Structuralism and Semiotics
Universal Grammar
Deconstruction
The "Global Village"
"The Medium is the Message"
Virtual Reality
Gresham's Law
Laissez Faire
The "Invisible Hand"
The Division of Labor"
The Paradox of Value
Dialectical Materialism and the Class Struggle
"Religion is the Opium of the People"
Conspicuous Consumption
Deficit Spending
Monetarism
Parkinson's Law
Luddism
The Pathetic Fallacy
"Form Follows Function"
"Less is More"
"Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemmed to Repeat It"

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Reference, History, Economics

203 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eureka! was a neat book. It features "mini-chapters' of three or four pages that summarize various concepts in philosophy, science, math, physics, psychology and economics. I have been reading a chapter a night for months but finally grew impatient and finished the book in one fell swoop today. I still don't claim to understand the theory of relativity. But it has been enjoyable to think about some things I have not contemplated in a long time, like Zeno's Paradox, the Cretan Liar's Paradox, Occam's Razor, etc. It's good to push yourself in a different direction from time to time.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many ideas and names - a little information on each one. I found the writing style to be informative but entertaining enough to keep me interested. (I sometimes have difficulties with nonfiction, especially when I'm just reading for personal edification.)
One plus - I finally learned what Occam's Razor was, an idea that seemed to pop up too many times in Stranger in a Strange Land. My reading strategy of laziness has once again been validated- I mostly skip over words or concepts I'm unfamiliar with and hope that the text or life will explain them later!

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nette Idee, kurze Betrachtungen zu Heureka Situationen, bzw. Meme, die die Welt verändert haben. Und interessanterweise Philosophie wie Naturwissenschaft, aber auch Sozialwissenschaft und sogar Architektur: Form follows function. (9/10)

[Sherri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit a number of things in this book were way over my head. However most weren't and the author has a real talent for taking complicated ideas and explaining them to the average person.

[Rob Lund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great primer for big ideas.

[Marty Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit dated since I have an old edition but for the most part the information is interesting and important.

[Mark Bates · Rating 2 out of 5]

Complex ideas made complex. Very dry.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Galileo : Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (for heliocentric hypothesis)
as Rosa Parks : [Ida Wells?]

ether or quintessenta--made Aristotle A BITCH!


Philo
Scientific method, Hume's Fork, taken for granted today, back then went against conventional ideas about finding truth

p 4 Some materialists--believing that mind is nothing but matter--argue for determinism: scientifically. Since the brain is a physical object, it obeys physical laws; thought and behavior, along with everything else in the universe, follow a determined path. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kan...
"natural processes are mechanical and predictable ontological proof"
http://sqapo.com/kant.htm

Pascal's Wager
http://sqapo.com/pascal.htm

Plato's Cave
http://sqapo.com/plato.htm

Cogito ergo sum
http://sqapo.com/descartes2.htm

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
http://sqapo.com/hume.htm
p 32 more meaningful model of reality based on human pyschology, probability, and habitual behavior. Today Hume is a skeptic--another name for a psychologist or statistician.

Critique of Pure Reason
http://sqapo.com/kant.htm

The Metaphysics of Morals
http://sqapo.com/kant2.htm

Leviathan
http://sqapo.com/hobbes.htm

Tabula Rosa (Essay Concerning Human Understanding)
http://sqapo.com/locke.htm

The Social Contract
http://sqapo.com/rousseau.htm

Dialectic
http://sqapo.com/marx.htm

Utilitarianism
http://sqapo.com/bentham.htm

Ubermensch (Overman)
http://sqapo.com/nietzsche.htm

Language: statements & reality
http://sqapo.com/wittgenstein.htm
Are most of the problems with philosophy just problems of language?

Existentialism
http://sqapo.com/sartre.htm


Human Sciences
p 197 "Global Village" - out of touch with the richness of experience communicated at once by all the senses


Vocab
Tautology - In logic, a tautology is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation. (Wittgenstein)

placid - not easily upset/excited

[Robin Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use this as a lunch read, short (most of the time) explanations of ideas.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of fun for a quick read... each entry is only a couple pages.

[Tyler]

A history of influential ideas.

[Maurean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another interesting one to go back to from time to time, that sits on my 'reference' shelf.

[Jonathan]

None

[Johan Sulaiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parkinson's Law is one of the highlights of the book!

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contain a number of interesting factoids which makes it worthy as a reference. Unfortunately, as most of books of this type, lacks depth on the different subjects that are dealt with.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice book. Learned a lot. Now, I'll think twice before using phrases, adages and ideas we take for granted.

[Sae-chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got inspiration of books to buy from this book.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good primer on major philosophical, mathematical, scientific and economic ideas that shaped Western civilization.

[Jennifer Kunz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had a lot of stuff I didn't know, so was informative :)

[Nour-Eddine Aboudihaj]

A must read for any one who wants to enjoy big ideas from great books.