_The Tao is Silent_, by Raymond Smullyan, comes to mind.
Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
21–30 of 148 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#22-Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations by Ludvig Wittgenstein
-The Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper
-On Liberty John Stuart Mill
-Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and their Computation by Machine by John McCarthy
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#23Sophie's World is a fun novel and a map of the historical development of philosophy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World
The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists).
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.htm...
My best friend in college was a Russian Jew whose family immigrated to US during the Cold War, and he kept that book on his coffee table.
It's the Yin to Howard Zinn's Yang - A People's History of the United States - which even though it's not philosophy is worth reading too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United...
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#24Asking for "Best Philosophical Books" is pretty much like asking for an opinion, everyone will have a very different view. That being said, here's my view!
John Stuart Mill - "Utilitarianism" (Kant be damned.)
Thomas Nagel - "Moral Luck"
David Lewis - "On the Plurality of Worlds"
Plato - "The Republic"
Aristotle - "The Metaphysics"
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#25Hirshman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
Camus, the myth of Sisyphus
Borges, the Aleph
Chomsky, on Language
Cicero, On Invention
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Wiener, Cybernetics
James, Pragmatism
Tzara, Dada manifesto
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#26The ones I've read and find good:
- Existentialism is a Humanism - Jean Paul Sartre : Very easy to read and is a very good introduction to existentialism.
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
- Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#27Wow, I was fiddling with the idea of posting exactly that question (with Philosophy in the title) but was hesitant as to is this the right community (btw where can I find one?) I haven't read many books about philosophy but my main interest is Philosophy of mind and I just love the lectures here[1]. [1] http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=...
>but was hesitant as to is this the right community (btw where can I find one?)
Try reddit.com/r/books
Some HN-ers don't like reddit probably because their impression starts and ends with the reddit default front page. But the gems are the smaller sub-reddits with some very high quality communities. My personal favorite /r/askscience
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#28_Faith of a Heretic_ - Walter Kaufmann
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#29I really enjoyed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It's not quite a philosophy book but I found his take on the concept of 'quality' very useful. To me it's a story of how a westerner discovers eastern philosophy, which is great to read coming from a western perspective.
I never leave a book unfinished, if I start a book I feel like have to finish the book (I finished Dan Brown's book with disgust, imagine that), but I just couldn't finish this book. I have absolutely no idea why people like this book and I have got recommendations from quite a few people.
Re: Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?
#30My favorites from college are: early dialogues of Plato (the most Socratic / least Platonic -- The Apology is a good start), Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (on how deeply the very ideas about how we perceive things affect our understanding), and Aristotle's Nico. Ethics (the importance of habits, moderation, and the idea of the good).