This volume is rather unique among those addressing the "chaos theory" developed in recent decades, in being written by not a scientist nor a mathematician, nor a popularizing author to communicate scientific and mathematical concepts. Kellert's field is philosophy, and here he examines the epistemological nature and consequences of chaos theory. There is no soft-pedaling of the concepts involved, and readers who would rather avoid mathematical representations and concepts will not have an easy go of it. In particular, this interesting and soundly-argued book will be useless to supernaturalist thinkers looking for intellectual window-dressing to attach to "Chaos magick."

Of particular note in the first half of the book is the discussion of determinism, and whether and how chaos theory might have consequences for that physico-philosophical problem. In these sections, there is a useful focus on the ways in which scientific methodology and metaphysical suppositions generate and limit one another.

The final section of this book is the most interesting. Entitled "Beyond the Clockwork Hegemony," it might have been called "Off the Prow of Chaos," because its concern is the intellectual and cultural factors that delayed the appreciation of the sort of qualitative understandings now on offer in chaos theory. As Kellert demonstrates, the usual explanation that digital computing was indispensable for the investigation of chaos is insufficient. His conclusion is to suggest a greater interpenetration of the "subjective" factors of culture and the "objective" knowledge of math and the physical sciences.

It's about time I read this one again; it was endlessly fascinating, back when I had it as required reading in a course about 15 years ago. ( )

Philosophical aspects of chaos theory. (Kellert defines chaos as unstable aperiodic behavior in deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems. It has to do with sensitive dependence on initial conditions and reveals that even deterministic systems [e.g. weather, perhaps] can be intrinsically unpredictable beyond a short range.)