Libri di Piergiorgio Odifreddi
Bad Influence
Bertrand Russell: Dissident, Atheist and Pacfist
di Piergiorgio Odifreddi
editore: Raffaello Cortina Editore
The analysis of a great “immoral” thinker of the twentieth century to address the most thorny issues of our time.
In an era marked by fanaticism and obscurantism, Bertrand Russell stands out as a luminous and provocative figure. His extraordinary vision of free and creative man invites us to refl ect on freedom from power, freedom of worship and the importance of critical thinking. Russell proposes an education reform that encourages young people to form their own judgements independently, to think and feel with their own voices, rather than passively accepting the opinions of others.
Russell still offers us valuable tools to resist groupthink and conformity. A hundred years later, his legacy continues to inspire and guide new generations, confirming him as one of the most original and lucid thinkers of modernity.
Pills of Mathematics
Numbers in the Humanities and Science
di Piergiorgio Odifreddi
editore: Raffaello Cortina Editore
The illness that has been diagnosed is scientific innumeracy, the cure prescribed: 120 “pills of mathematics”They say that mathematicians talk only to God, but this is certainly not true of Piergiorgio Odifreddi, a mathematician who not only converses with all branches of science, but is also on excellent terms with literature, art and philosophy. The illness that has been diagnosed is scientific innumeracy, the cure prescribed, 120 “pills of mathematics” of which the active ingredients are summarized in the sub-title. These “pills of mathematics” play the fields of the humanities and mathematics to show the reader, whether old, young or middle-aged, that mathematics is present – sometimes almost shyly, other times powerfully – in all aspects of culture: in those disciplines, ranging from physics to economics, where one would expect to find it, but also in less expected places, from novels to works of art. The cure does have a collateral effect, but a positive one: by the end of the book, you will know more than the contents of an encyclopaedia and you will be convinced that mathematics is superior to any other branch of science
Something Is Rotten in the States of the West
di Piergiorgio Odifreddi
editore: Raffaello Cortina Editore
pagine: 200
A confession of the sins that weigh on the conscience of a white western man.Piergiorgio Odifreddi, like many people born in the postwar period, grew up in the myth of the United States and the "liberating" American soldiers. Yet, beginning with the Vietnam War, his relationship with the US began to change. As time goes by, he realizes the violent ways in which Western countries in general have always lorded it over the peoples: economic exploitation, trade embargo, military occupation, and more oppressions.In this book he reflects on the arrogance of the West, and invites us not to ease our conscience through the illusion that, perhaps, others may even be worse than we are.
