41–50 of 148 posts
Bertrand Russell: A history of western philosophy. I haven't read it all but what I've read was both informative and witty. Note that Russell, kind of similar to The Economist, is "opinionated". Must be that British style...
While I like the book (and Russel in general) it really is a history rather than a philosophical book.
For what I'll call "hard philosophy" I put my votes for books by Hilary Putnam and John Dewey. As a rationalist seeking a solid basis for ethics in the physical world, I've found both authors quite instructive. Perhaps "Objectivity" by Nicholas Rescher belongs here as well.
There's a whole other class of what I call "idea books" and I've seen a few of them listed in the comments, too. Given the reading examples you mentioned, I'm assuming you're looking more at "hard philosophy" so I'll skip the other kind of suggestions unless you ask for them.
Must We Mean What We Say? (1969) The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (1979) New York: Oxford University Press.
I would also second Russell's A Brief History of Western Philosophy. It's biased and weirdly shallow in some places, but written by a philosopher, so not a toothless compilation.
Obscure but made an impression on me: Ways of Worldmaking by Nelson Goodman.
If you can get through it: John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...an important book with a few very important ideas.
Stuff by Amartya Sen.
On philosophy of science, the historical narratives do the job I think, like The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler (a great read once you get through the Greeks). You could read Thomas Kuhn, Feyerabend's autobiography "Killing Time" which is great, and if you're really serious read Peter Galison's stuff.
Finally, again, more history that pure philosophy but I really liked Wittgenstein's Vienna by Toulmin.
I don't know if it counts as a serious philosophy book, but I really enjoyed Godel, Escher, Bach. Math, computers, consciousness, etc. I'm currently reading Reasons and Persons. Thought experiments and discussion about how personal identity works under, eg, transporter copies.
It's a series of Kripke's lectures from 1970 if I'm not mistaken, republished, but without significant changes/corrections. Note Kripke's age of 29 at that point. In them, he develops his theory of direct reference in a highly interesting and controversial way. He didn't leave the philosophers of that time indifferent, and neither will you. Enjoy.
Bertrand Russell: A history of western philosophy. I haven't read it all but what I've read was both informative and witty. Note that Russell, kind of similar to The Economist, is "opinionated". Must be that British style...
Other things I'd recommend for wading into the waters of philosophy would be Utopia by Sir Thomas More, or Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I had the opposite reaction. I almost never finish books, this book is the first one bigger than a 100 pages that i finished front to cover. I'm currently re-reading it. Here are a few reasons why i liked it: -It was the first book on philosophy i actually read. The closest book on philosophy i ever had contact with before was a high school textbook and it was more than horrible. -I read it with a deliberate reason,…
Maybe my expectation was too high, maybe I was hoping to be blown away by some deep philosophical understanding. Or maybe its the writing style, I felt like I was reading someone's diary, reading his mundane everyday thoughts.
Absolutely nothing. Just a guy riding his bike for ~25 pages.
I stopped reading where he was yelling at his kid for some stupid reason during camping. Maybe after that he talks about something interesting.
I will probably give it another shot, most likely not anytime soon.
Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Even though you may not agree with his conclusions, it is still a remarkable piece of work. http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/FP.html
David Stove does a good job debunking Hume's problem of induction, which underlies what I consider wrong in most modern philosophy http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/davidstove.html
Liberty or Equality outlines the potential for tyranny inherent in democracy http://blog.mises.org/6326/liberty-or-equality/
Wow, 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