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A review by mcsnide
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins
3.0
This book was not at all what I was expecting from the title. Having read a few books on mind, AI, and neuroscience, I was expecting a challenging discussion. Instead, I found a book that seemed to be aimed at explaining how the world works to teenagers. If it had been named Why Things Are the Way They Are, it would have been tremendous.
In explaining how we know what's really true, though, it leaves much to be desired. The author ignores Cartesian dualism with a wave of the hand and insists (without any explanation) that we can use our senses to discover what's real. While I am an empiricist, it doesn't seem fair to ASSUME empiricism in a book that claims to be about epistemology. And he never even deals with the question of what truth is and whether it's even attainable.
All that said, I'd highly recommend this book to youngsters and people who don't have much background knowledge but want to learn about science. The illustrations by Dave McKean are tremendous, and the book is an easy, simple read - a nice primer on observational science and how the universe works. The author is a great communicator and presents his ideas cleanly (even if a bit too neatly at times). He even has the humility to admit when a subject is too technical for him to explain well, which I find admirable. I just wish that humility extended to epistemology.
In explaining how we know what's really true, though, it leaves much to be desired. The author ignores Cartesian dualism with a wave of the hand and insists (without any explanation) that we can use our senses to discover what's real. While I am an empiricist, it doesn't seem fair to ASSUME empiricism in a book that claims to be about epistemology. And he never even deals with the question of what truth is and whether it's even attainable.
All that said, I'd highly recommend this book to youngsters and people who don't have much background knowledge but want to learn about science. The illustrations by Dave McKean are tremendous, and the book is an easy, simple read - a nice primer on observational science and how the universe works. The author is a great communicator and presents his ideas cleanly (even if a bit too neatly at times). He even has the humility to admit when a subject is too technical for him to explain well, which I find admirable. I just wish that humility extended to epistemology.