In the pursuit of knowledge, Dorion Sagan argues in this dazzlingly
eclectic, rigorously crafted, and deliciously witty collection of
essays, scientific authoritarianism and philosophical obscurantism
are equally formidable obstacles to discovery. As science has
become more specialized and more costly, its questing spirit has
been constrained by dogma. And philosophy, perhaps the discipline
best placed to question orthodoxy, has retreated behind dense
theoretical language and arcane topics of learning. Guided by a
capacious, democratic view of science inspired by the examples set
by his late parents-Carl Sagan, who popularized the study of the
cosmos, and Lynn Margulis, an evolutionary biologist who repeatedly
clashed with the scientific establishment-Sagan draws on classical
and contemporary philosophy to intervene provocatively in
often-charged debates on thermodynamics, linear and nonlinear time,
purpose, ethics, the links between language and psychedelic drugs,
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the occupation of
the human body by microbial others. Informed by a countercultural
sensibility, a deep engagement with speculative thought, and a
hardheaded scientific skepticism, he advances controversial
positions on such seemingly sacrosanct subjects as evolution and
entropy. At the same time, he creatively considers a wide range of
thinkers, from Socrates to Bataille and Descartes to von Uexkull,
to reflect on sex, biopolitics, and the free will of Kermit the
Frog. Refreshingly nonconformist and polemically incisive, Cosmic
Apprentice challenges readers to reject both dogma and cliche and
instead recover the intellectual spirit of adventure that
should-and can once again-animate both science and philosophy.
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