The Irigaray Reader (Blackwell Readers Series) Book

The moment I hear the words mathematician and logician my brain instantly assumes a biased stance against them, stemming from my deep abhorrence for pathological rationality; against people who worship like dogs at the shrine of 'truth', who will do away with every shred of empathy and in turn humanity, in the name of 'analysis'; and the logical positivists who think that the inherent effectiveness of any statement necessarily comes from it being either true or false, even if something is 'logically' meaningless, whereas i believe it can still be extremely beneficial to humanity. And not to mention my special disgust towards self proclaimed linguistic logicians simping at the feet of Wittgenstein, being extremely one-dimensional and unkind toward the wholeness of their own persona.

All these things were buzzing in my head when I picked up this book, expecting Smullyan to be another of these robots.
I accidentally discovered Raymond Smullyan through one of the recommended books for my Philosophy of Mind class. One of Smullyan's ultra short-story was featured in the said book, and that led me to eventually discover this book. An acclaimed mathematician, logician, philosopher AND a magician, and boy am I glad I stumbled upon him!
I have never been so glad to be proven so blatantly wrong.
The book initially seemed like a random collection of short essays on topics ranging from morality, ethics, general philosophical problems, logic, and science, seamed together. But as I waded my way through, I realised a common theme running throughout: the classic dualism between intuition Vs reason; science Vs spirituality. Smullyan never categorically claims to know or believe in anything, but ever so subtly nudges the reader to attempt to reconcile the dualism inside their own psyche, on their own. He never attempts to influence the reader; this job of course is done hilariously and beautifully. There are so many passages that I wrote down in my diary, nuggets I memorized by heart.
SPECIAL MENTION TO THE LAST SECTION CALLED PLANET WITHOUT LAUGHTER.

My review doesn't do the book any justice; I have no possible words to explain how much I've come to adore Raymond Smullyan. Anybody rigorously trained in mathematics and logic who can still strike a perfect balance with their intuitive side has my respect and admiration, as does Smullyan. The way he refutes mysticism logically and at the same time conversely demonstrates how scientific logic is absolutely pointless in things mystical, is hilarious and enlightening.
This one will remain close to my heart forever, and shall definitely be revisited every now and then.