This book is a thorough and critical, comparative analysis of the logic of modern scientific thought and of traditional teachings generally referred to as mythological and mystical. Different rationalities with different domains of interest and legitimacy exist, which should not be confused and cannot be unified in any theory of "Ultimate Reality." Atlan suggests they must coexist in practice, although each of them presents itself as an exclusive and all-encompassing truth. The book introduces teachings from Jewish talmudic, midrashic, and kabbalist sources and text from Zen and Taoism to exemplify the kind of rationality or controlled irrationality at work in such traditional thinking.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Right or Wrong? 1. (Experimental) Proceedings A Radio Encounter between Assiduous Listeners of "Cultural" Broadcasts, a Biologist, and a Philosopher November 1978: The President and the Biologists Versailles, 1974 California, 1967-1968 Cordoba, 1979--Science and Consciousness: Two Views of the Universe Initial Questions Cosmic Consciousness and the Collapse of the Wave Function Confusions of Levels and Disciplines 2. Scientific Knowledge and Levels of Organization Biological Organization From the Experience of Separation to the Joy of the Encounter The Temptations of Reductionism The Mind-Body Problem Reductionism, Self-Organization, and Levels of Observation Language as the Locus of the Articulation between the Physiological and the Psychological Creation of Meaning and Neoconnectionist Models Self-Reference in Language and White Space on the Page Psychosomatic Organization and Unconsciousness of Self Weak Reductionism The Role of Mathematics Biological Functions and Intentionality: The Outflanking of the Scientific by the Quotidian and the Ethical 3. Mysticism and Rationality The Rights of Irrationalism: Unreason and Antireason Order and Chaos in Symbolic Rationality Reason as Complement of Illumination Scholastic Theology and Kabbalistic Rationality Maimonides and Nachmanides Kabbala and Alchemy as the Midwives of Modern Science A Word about Gnosis: Rationality, Strangeness, and Cunning 4. Intermezzi Unicorns, Electrogenic Demons, and Parapsychology The Undecidability of Noncontradiction About "Possibles" 5. Interpretation, Delirium, Black Mud The Interests of Reason and the Interpretive Impulse Interpretands An Attempt at Classification On the Relativism of Knolwedge and the Reality of Interpretands The Reality of the Real, According to Kripke Physical Science as Interpretation Causality as Proximity Explanation is a Bonus in the Sciences On the Reality of Numbers The Dualism of Access Paths Animism as the Explanatory Absolute; Ethics and Monotheism The Sciences Humaines and the "Rational Myth of the West" Disinterest: The Price of Entry into Scientificity Frued versus Jung and the Scientificity of Psychoanalysis The Scientific Wager in Modern Psychoanalysis 6. Ultimate Reality Physical Reality and Quantum Representations The Reality of Meanings in Interpretation Science and Mysticism: Games of Speech and Silence Natural Science and the Wisdom of Israel in the Talmudic Tradition Moral Law and Natural Law The Normative as a Dialectic of Openness Ethics Comes from Somewhere Else "Wisdom Is Superior to Folly" 7. Man-as-Game (Winnicott, Fink, Wittgenstein) "Is That Supposed to Be Serious?" Playing and Games Playing as the Symbol of the World Reality as a Reduction of "Possibles" The Opportunities Provided by Modern Atheism Language Games: An Alternative to the Disclosure of Ultimate Reality Real and Unreal in Language A Review of the Possible and the Logical Games of Knowledge and Language; Domains of Legitimacy The Need for a True Ethics versus the Jokes of Theory 8. An Ethics That Falls from Heaven; or, A Plea for Wishful Thinking The Impulse to Knowledge and the Question of Ethics The Ethics of Life Dissociated from Objective Knowledge A Genealogy of Ethics The Voices of the Right Brain Modified States of Consciousness as Sources of Ritual Transcendentalities of Ethics and Logic Symbols and Rituals The Rationalities of Magic and of Science Modern Unifying Temptations: Jung and Complementarity The New Myths of Science Fiction Severing Science from Its Origins Scientific Temptations Science Fiction and Prestidigitation: Effective Nonbeliefs From Relativism to Social Theories of Knowledge: The Last Temptation? Taking One's Desires for Reality: The Scope and Limits of Wishful Thinking Knowledge Games about Knowledge Cunning Reason: "Two-Tier Thinking" Norm and Experience The Barrier of Responsibility "Otherwise that Knowing, Otherwise than Being"? A Game of Games 9. Naked Truth The Garments of Modesty The Great Temptation of the Dogmatic The Games of Scientific Legitimacy Speaking to Say Nothing Index