Synopses & Reviews
Contents: "Man Without Letters." Newton, the Enigma. Paolo Toscanelli and His Friends. Alessandro Volta. Galileo Today. Necessity, Contingency, and Natural Law. Prologue to Parmenides. Galileo and Oppenheimer. The Role of Art in the Scientific Renaissance. The Italian Novel Today—A Note on Realism. The Seventeenth-Century Legacy: Our Mirror of Being. Philolaos in Limbo, Or: What Happened to the Pythagoreans? Paralipomena of the Future. Vico and Descartes. Eudodux and Plato: A Study in Chronology. "Scientific Rationalism." Einstein (pour le décennal de sa mort). Les Grandes Doctrines Cosmologiques. De Bruno à Leibnitz. Postface à Galilée; Les Suites de l'Affaire. La Storia da Riscrivere. Fato Antico—Fato Moderno. Salvemini. Il Rovescio della Medaglia.
Review
"What appears at first sight to be a formidable tome to be ploughed through with pencil and paper in hand, turns out to be a series of essays of the most pleasant reading. 'Reflections on Men and Ideas' is just that—the reflections of a man who 'sees what is living and operating at a given time, in order to find the true context of ideas.
"Whether that time be pre-Socrates or post-Oppenheimer Giorgio de Santillana is equally at home with the well known and lesser known scientists of the past who have shaped one way or another the ideas of our own times; he is equally at home with the ancients and the moderns, the scientists and the philosophers, the litterateurs and politicians."
—Boston Globe