One of the things that attracts me to Philosophy is that there's such a fluid distinction between "basic" and "advanced", that non-trivial work is perpetually getting done. I still read all of those little comic-book Intro books to Kant, Heidegger for instance, and always pick up something new. Best bet is the Phenomenology angle from my post (which also covers existentialism), and Russell's History of Western Philosophy, and then those things will think you out to the other books in no time. Or something like that.
I quite enjoy your posts as well, in turn. In fact, your poem about a dying spider single-handedly obviated my arachnophobia and impelled me to let them live happily in their respective corners of my house, staring down at me.
These sound great. I love reading about this stuff and hearing people discuss it but unfortunately I'm so fucken dumb that some of the most basic stuff goes over my head. I'm pretty good with large concepts but at the moment I'm working on getting my basics worked out. The worst part is I really want to get deep into some of this stuff but don't have the time to study it at like, degree level.
Anyway, cheers, always enjoy reading your posts dude.
I quite enjoy your posts as well, in turn. In fact, your poem about a dying spider single-handedly obviated my arachnophobia and impelled me to let them live happily in their respective corners of my house, staring down at me.
Here are a handful of books that would make my list, and that you should totally check out:
Plato's later dialogues- Parmenides, Sophist, Philebus
These are barely dialogues at all any more. You see Plato transitioning to a distinctly more didactic style. He completely repudiates and moves away from his "theory of forms" and gives complex accounts of cause, value, nothingness, and unity. If you don't want to be full of shit when discussing Ancient Greek thought, you must at least be familiar with these. They're also fucking goldmines for excellent metaphysics, should anyone be interested.
Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead
In my opinion, this is the greatest work of speculative Philosophy and Metaphysics since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. All of the things Heidegger and the so-called Post-Modernists call impossible for Philosophy to do to justify itself Whitehead manages to do. Ironically it was published the same year as Being and Time too.
Whitehead started as a Mathematician and Logician, co-writing Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell, but moved away from logic and logical analysis to speculative philosophy. He was there on the ground floor of the revolutions in quantum mechanics and relativity, and to date his book is the best general cosmological explanation of these developments. It has revolutionary theories of time, causality, development, subjectivity, physics, and God. It's a must read not to be full of shit in Theology, or any area of speculative metaphysics.
Religion and Nothingness- Keiji Nishitani
Fulfills the promise of nothingness based Ontology that Heidegger and the Buddhist tradition had attempted, and is simultaneously the most loyal and interesting successor to both in many ways. Revolutionary notions of Time, Process, Appearance, Reality, and Religion.
Anyway, that's all for now. Plenty I forgot. I'd be happy to go on about my issues with Heidegger or give more about Whitehead or Plato or Nishitani.
Plato's later dialogues- Parmenides, Sophist, Philebus
These are barely dialogues at all any more. You see Plato transitioning to a distinctly more didactic style. He completely repudiates and moves away from his "theory of forms" and gives complex accounts of cause, value, nothingness, and unity. If you don't want to be full of shit when discussing Ancient Greek thought, you must at least be familiar with these. They're also fucking goldmines for excellent metaphysics, should anyone be interested.
Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead
In my opinion, this is the greatest work of speculative Philosophy and Metaphysics since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. All of the things Heidegger and the so-called Post-Modernists call impossible for Philosophy to do to justify itself Whitehead manages to do. Ironically it was published the same year as Being and Time too.
Whitehead started as a Mathematician and Logician, co-writing Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell, but moved away from logic and logical analysis to speculative philosophy. He was there on the ground floor of the revolutions in quantum mechanics and relativity, and to date his book is the best general cosmological explanation of these developments. It has revolutionary theories of time, causality, development, subjectivity, physics, and God. It's a must read not to be full of shit in Theology, or any area of speculative metaphysics.
Religion and Nothingness- Keiji Nishitani
Fulfills the promise of nothingness based Ontology that Heidegger and the Buddhist tradition had attempted, and is simultaneously the most loyal and interesting successor to both in many ways. Revolutionary notions of Time, Process, Appearance, Reality, and Religion.
Anyway, that's all for now. Plenty I forgot. I'd be happy to go on about my issues with Heidegger or give more about Whitehead or Plato or Nishitani.
These sound great. I love reading about this stuff and hearing people discuss it but unfortunately I'm so fucken dumb that some of the most basic stuff goes over my head. I'm pretty good with large concepts but at the moment I'm working on getting my basics worked out. The worst part is I really want to get deep into some of this stuff but don't have the time to study it at like, degree level.
Anyway, cheers, always enjoy reading your posts dude.
The Top 10 Most Difficult Books
- 09/08/2012 02:56:57 PM
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