Reason and Being

1. A Nonclassical Historical Perspective.- 2. The Criteria of 'External Confirmation' and 'Inner Perfection'.- 3. The World-Line.- 4. The Structure of the Book.- 5. Epistemological Optimism.- I.- 1. The Heraclitean-Eleatic Clash.- 1. Heraclitus.- 2. Parmenides.- 3. Democritus.- 4. Plato.- 5. Aristotle.- 2. Paradoxes of Being.- 1. Paradoxes of Identity.- 2. Paradoxes of Infinity.- 3. Paradoxes of Structure.- 4. Paradoxes of Freedom.- 5. Paradoxes and the History of Philosophy and Science.- 6. Paradoxes of Science and Scientific Prediction.- 3. Einstein and Epicurus.- 1. Atoms and Space.- 2. Clinamen.- 3. Individual Being.- 4. Isotachy.- 5. A Modern Epilogue to Epicurean Physics.- 6. The Problem of Death and the Fear of Death for Epicurus and Einstein.- 7. The Gods of Epicurus and the 'God' of Einstein.- 4. The Rationalism of the Renaissance.- 1. Realism and the Revolution of Nonidentity.- 2. The Rationalism of Leonardo da Vinci.- 3. The Rationalism of Giordano Bruno.- 4. The Rationalism of Galileo.- 5. Descartes.- 1. The Illumination at Ulm.- 2. The Criteria of Certainty.- 3. Universal Mathematics.- 4. Being and Space.- 5. The Limits of Cartesian Rationalism.- 6. Spinoza and Einstein.- 1. Substance.- 2. Causa sui.- 3. Natura naturans.- 4. Attributes.- 5. Modes.- 6. Does Spinoza's God Play Dice?.- 7. The Genesis of Classical Science and the Problem of Nonidentity.- 1. Nonidentity and Mathematics.- 2. A Thought Experiment.- 3. Nonidentity and Being.- 4. Classical Reduction.- 5. Differential Representation, Local Reflection and the Problem of Immortality.- 8. Dynamism and the Critique of Stationary Being.- 1. The Concept of Force.- 2. The Dynamism of Leibniz and the Problem of Individ- ualization.- 3. Pluralism and Eclecticism.- 4. Critical Philosophy: The Rejection of Rationalism and the Return to it.- 5. Dynamism and the Idea of a Natural Order.- II.- 9. Heterogeneous Being.- 1. Rationalism and Irrationalism in Dialectical Philosophy.- 2. 'Being'and'Beginning'.- 3. 'Pure Being'and'Pure Experience'.- 4. Being in Motion.- 5. The Hierarchy of Forms of Motion.- 10. Existence and Actuality.- 1. Becoming.- 2. Determinate Being.- 3. Essence 305.- 4. Existence.- 5. Actuality.- 6. The Theory of Relativity as a Theory of Actuality.- 11. Understanding and Reason in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Science.- 1. Understanding, Reason and the Gradient of Science.- 2. Entropy.- 3. The Field.- 4. Physics and Mathematics.- 5. Quanta.- 6. Megascience.- 12. Nothing and the Vacuum.- 1. Determinate Nothing.- 2. The Alienation of Nature.- 3. The Being of Nature and the Being of Man.- 4. Philosophy and Political Economy.- 5. Phantom and Reality for Einstein and Dostoevsky.- Afterword.- Afterword.- 1. Lutetia.- 2. The Gargoyles of Notre Dame 401.- 3. Vanitas vanitatis, the Breton Megaliths and the Prob- lem of Infinity.- 4. For What Did They Give Up Their Lives?.- 5. La Gioconda.- 6. Beau and Belles.- 7. Logos and Eros.- 8. The Invariants of Culture.- 9. On Inspiration and the Poetic Mist in the Landscape of Paris.- 10. The Invariants of Poetry.- 11. The Poetry of Scientific Prediction.- Bibliography of Works Cited.- Index of Names.