Answer

I agree with every word. Bickel is a babbler. By the way, I criticized this book of his in my “Two Wagons.” The whole book is made up of declarations without any argument or alternative. He rejects the postmodern void, and I’m with him on that, but he doesn’t offer a reasoned alternative. He also applies his critique to mathematics, which by its nature ought to be empty, so that critique simply isn’t relevant to it.
Alexandrovich’s distinction—that Bickel is not dealing with mathematics but with mathematical tools for physics—is wonderful and very much on target.
I remember I devoured the whole book during my two days of hospitalization at Soroka. It’s very cumbersome and not sharp. Every simple idea is presented in a complicated way. My feeling was that I strongly identified with the motivations and the criticism (not the part about mathematics), but I didn’t see any alternative. I brought a completely parallel criticism there regarding Gadi Taub’s The Hunched Revolt. Back then he still defined himself as a leftist, and from reading his book it was clear to me that he was an unconscious right-winger. The same went for Steinitz from reading his philosophical writings.