En el ámbito del liberalismo y de la economía de la Escuela austriaca abundan las

fundamentaciones filosóficas y los estudios de historia del pensamiento: son escasos los
intentos de apoyo y crecimiento en las ciencias naturales, tal vez por falta de interés y/o
capacidad, por ser muchos investigadores gente de letras o humanidades. Esta
desconexión es empobrecedora, frecuentemente sectaria, y facilita la infiltración por
ideas falaces o absurdas (pseudociencias, supersticiones, conspiranoias). En lugar de
enfatizar las diferencias para separar y trabajar de forma aislada, una actitud intelectual
más fructífera y realista busca la consiliencia, la integración con otros ámbitos del
conocimiento que sirvan para generar, apoyar o criticar ideas de forma interdependiente.

La praxeología separada de la psicología (apriorismo, dualismo metodológico) dice

cosas ciertas e importantes, pero también vagas, genéricas, sin concretar, y ofrece
descripciones y explicaciones muy incompletas de la realidad. Estudiar solamente la
acción intencional implica obviar otros tipos de acción que puede ser muy relevantes.
Tomar la intencionalidad de la acción humana como un axioma irrefutable cuya
fundamentación no es necesario investigar puede llevar a ignorar que muchos otros
seres vivos también actúan intencionalmente, y a no sentir la necesidad de explicar la
existencia de lo teleológico en un mundo físico causal, como si fuera un hecho bruto o
un misterio imposible de resolver.

En mi formación académica tienen un fuerte peso las ciencias naturales. Mi trabajo de

estudio e investigación me ha permitido ver que es posible integrar de forma consistente
todos los ámbitos científicos, y que esto permite comprender mejor la realidad humana
y las fortalezas y los problemas del liberalismo.

A continuación presento los autores y libros que me han servido para aprender en muy
diversos ámbitos, para que sirvan como referencia y por si pueden ser de utilidad para
otras personas interesadas en aprender sobre estos temas. Es una lista cuya organización
es problemática por cómo escoger los temas y por cómo clasificar cada libro solo en
uno cuando en realidad casi todos tratan de varios temas. Incluyo libros que aún no he
leído o que o no he leído en su totalidad (marcados con un asterisco *), pero que
considero importantes y tengo en cuenta para mis lecturas futuras. Algunas obras (por
ejemplo, sobre filosofía o física) pueden ser menos relevantes para la economía y el
liberalismo. No menciono de momento (en general) libros típicamente liberales
austriacos (economía y ética), de teoría monetaria, banca y finanzas.

Se trata de una lista provisional e imperfecta que espero completar con más libros leídos
o proyectos de lectura, recomendaciones de los más interesantes en cada ámbito, ideas
clave, referencias a reseñas, resúmenes o debates, y materiales adicionales como sitios
de internet, contenidos audiovisuales, cursos o artículos sobre los diversos temas
(algunos aparecen con frecuencia en las recomendaciones de intelib.wordpress.com).
No todos los libros son recomendables en el sentido de acertados: por ejemplo la
literatura creacionista es una sucesión de errores, falacias y disparates, pero es
conveniente leerla para conocerla. Algunos libros tienen menos conexión con las
ciencias naturales (historia, política). Algunos libros tienen dos títulos por la diferencia
entre la edición inglesa y la norteamericana.

Para empezar recomiendo dos autores que piensan y escriben muy bien y además son
liberales: Matt Ridley y Michael Shermer. Con mucho gusto recibiré preguntas,
comentarios, sugerencias o críticas de lectores interesados.
Filosofía / Philosophy

Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair
Philosopher (The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: And Ninety-Nine Other Thought
Experiments)

Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding
Philosophy Through Jokes

Jostein Gaarder, El mundo de Sofía

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go

Away

Lou Marinoff, Plato, Not Prozac!: Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems

Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (*)

Matthew Stewart, The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy

Física, Cosmología, Matemáticas / Physics, Cosmology, Mathematics

Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Amir D.Aczel, Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics

Peter Atkins, The Creation

Peter Atkins, Four Laws That Drive the Universe (*)

John D. Barrow, Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits

John D. Barrow, The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the
Origins of the Universe

John D. Barrow, The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and
Endless

David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

William H. Calvin, How the Shaman Stole the Moon: The Search of Ancient Prophet-
Scientists: From Stonehenge to the Grand Canyon (*)

Sean Carroll, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time

Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
Peter Coveney & Roger Highfield, The Arrow of Time: A Voyage Through Science to
Solve Time’s Greatest Mystery

Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its
Implications

David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Keith Devlin, Mathematics: The Science of Patterns: The Search for Order in Life,
Mind and the Universe

Richard P. Feynman, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious

Character

Richard P. Feynman, “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” Further
Adventures of a Curious Character

Martin Gardner, Mathematical Magic Show: More Puzzles, Games, Diversions,

Illusions and Other Mathematical Sleight-Of-Mind from Scientific American

Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest
for the Ultimate Theory

Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the
Cosmos (*)

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes

Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design

Jim Holt, Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story

Robert Kaplan, The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero

Robert Kaplan & Ellen Kaplan, The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics

Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than
Nothing

Lawrence M. Krauss, The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here?

Lillian R. Lieber, Infinity: Beyond the Beyond the Beyond

Alan Lightman, The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature

Eli Maor, To Infinity and Beyond: A Cultural History of the Infinite

Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe

Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Charles Seife, Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

Lee Smolin, Three Roads To Quantum Gravity

Ian Stewart, The Problems of Mathematics

Ian Stewart, From Here to Infinity: A Guide to Today’s Mathematics

Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The
Universe

Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate
Laws of Nature

Ciencia, Epistemología, Filosofía de la ciencia, Sociología de la ciencia / Science,

Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Sociology of Science

John Brockman, The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution

John Brockman (ed.), What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers
on Science in the Age of Certainty

John Brockman (ed.), What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Today’s Leading Thinkers on the
Unthinkable

John Brockman (ed.), This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future

John Brockman (ed.), What Have You Changed Your Mind About?: Today’s Leading
Minds Rethink Everything

John Brockman (ed.), This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve
Your Thinking

John Brockman (ed.), This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories
of How the World Works

John Brockman (ed.), This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking
Progres

John Brockman (ed.), Know This: Today’s Most Interesting and Important Scientific
Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments

Michael Brooks, At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise

Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True

Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for
Wonder

Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

Peter Godfrey-Smith, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

Stephen Jay Gould, The Hedgehog, the Fox & the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap
Between Science & the Humanities (*)

Friedrich A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason

Terence Kealey, Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, Conceptos contrarios o El oficio de científico

Mario Livio, Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great
Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe

Mario Livio, Why? What Makes Us Curious

Samir Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

Miguel Ángel Quintanilla, Fundamentos de lógica y teoría de la ciencia

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Michael Shermer, Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife,
Immortality, and Utopia

Andrew Shtulman, Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So
Often Wrong

Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Sistemas / Systems

Adrian Bejan & J. Peder Zane, Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs
Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations, Development,

Applications

Redes / Networks
Albert-László Barabási, Linked: The New Science of Networks (How Everything Is
Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday
Life)

Mark Buchanan, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks

Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our
Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (Connected: How Your Friends’
Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do)

Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for
Global Power (The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons
to Facebook)

Alex Pentland, Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread—The Lessons from a New
Science (Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter)

Duncan J. Watts, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age

Complejidad / Complexity

Sunny Y. Auyang, Foundations of Complex-System Theories (in Economics,

Evolutionary Biology, and Statistical Physics) (*)

Yaneer Bar-Yam, Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex

World (*)

Eric D. Beinhocker, The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical
Remaking of Economics

John L. Casti, Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World Through the Science

of Surprise

Jack Cohen & Ian Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a
Complex World

Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the
Complex

Brian Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity

John H. Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (*)

Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos

Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour

John H. Miller, A Crude Look at the Whole: The Science of Complex Systems in
Business, Life, and Society (*)
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and
Chaos

Stephen Wolfram, A New Kind of Science (*)

Caos / Chaos

Albert-László Barabási, Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do

Antonio Escohotado, Caos y orden

Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science

Edward Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos

Leonard Smith, Chaos: A Very Short Introduction

Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos

Orden espontáneo, Autoorganización, Emergencia / Spontaneous Order, Self-

organization, Emergence

Philip Ball, The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature

Philip Ball, Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts (Branches)

Philip Ball, Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts (Flows)

Philip Ball, Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts (Shapes)

Ori Brafman & Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable
Power of Leaderless Organizations

Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability to
Order the Universe

John H. Holland, Emergence: From Chaos To Order (*)

Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

Stuart Kauffman, The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in

Evolution (*)

Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-
Organization and Complexity

Stuart Kauffman, Investigations

Stuart Kauffman, Humanity in a Creative Universe (*)

Stuart Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and
Religion (*)

Harold J. Morowitz, The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex

Rafael Rubio de Urquía, Francisco José Vázquez, Félix Fernando Muñoz Pérez
(eds.), Procesos de autoorganización (*)