Goldstein gives us a tour of the philosophic landscape at the 20th century's quarter-century. And in a way I appreciated; it enabled me to relate the familiar names in those human terms: who liked whom and why. The Vienna Circle was the "in" group of the day. So, the politics played out there lived into the present at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. I'm a rank amateur philosopher, so her treatment of Wittgenstein, Hilbert, Russell, Schlick (the one who I hadn't known of before) .. enabled me, in ways reading secondary philosophic reading had not done for me before, to place those individuals theories in perspective. For example, "early" vs "late" Wittgenstein. If you know Wittgenstein, your cocktail conversation forces you to pick "early" or "late" depending on the tilt of the table.returnGoldstein cured me of that. While you'd think she's effectively bashing Wittgenstein, she leads you to realize, in ways not available to either Godel or Wittgenstein, they had more in common that they, or any contemporaries could see. And maybe the temporal element is what kept them from seeing it. Enter Einstein.returnreturn(to be continued)...