Smart and Cheeky
September 30, 2015
Materialism is under attack from multiple quarters these days, not the least of which comes from the podcast-in-a-book known as Why Science is Wrong … About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris, who is obviously being provocative by insisting on “Almost Everything” rather than simply “Consciousness” in the title of his book. But that’s because Tsakiris believes that consciousness is at the root of everything, or at least everything that is most important to human beings. Jeffrey J. Kripal, the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion at Rice University says: “Alex Tsakiris has articulated in this feisty work what many of us in the academy have felt but have not quite had the courage to say. Alex writes as our conscience here, as he calls us all to balk against the silly and self-contradictory script that is reductive materialism.” In his review of the book in Fortean Times, Jerome Clark wrote: “What makes Tsakiris’s book so eye-opening and often hilarious is that it exposes hardline defenders of the old order as woefully, even militantly, ignorant. Tsakiris politely pushes them until they’re forced to confess as much, if they haven’t slammed down the phone by then…Tsakiris’s book isn’t fat and scholarly, but it’s smart and cheeky…” Ryan Ashton, who runs a Philosophical Commentaries blog, has some equally nice things to say about both the book and its author: Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything is a very interesting and thought-provoking read. It is also remarkably easy to read…The dialogue format and Tsakiris’s sharp questioning style also make me think of him as a modern day Socrates—a compliment of the highest order…Thanks to Alex Tsakiris for all of his great contributions to the philosophy and science of mind!”
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