A curated list of philosophy resources • Hacker News Board

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#21

Post by jadbox » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

nessunodoro wrote: post #3

This list is exclusively of western philosophers. If you want to step into the world of philosophy at any time period or in any part of the world, I highly recommend the podcast "A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps" by Peter Adamson.

YES! "A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps" is the best place imho for anyone to just into learning philosophy.

I'd also recommend "The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition" on audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Great-Ideas-of-Philosophy-2nd...

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#22

Post by forgotmypw » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

F_J_H wrote: post #10

ebg13 wrote: post #2

This isn't a curated list. This is an empty list. It has almost no content. None of the links do anything. I can't understand why it's posted here when it has so little work done and so much work yet to be done. I hope it grows, of course, but mostly I hope it grows to include people who aren't a handful of western white men.

It's a GitHub hosted shared document, open to all. Feel free to add as many others as you'd like! I've been enjoying ancient Chinese proverbs lately, such as: "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness" ;-)

"In order to grow user-curated content, you must first plant seed content."

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#23

Post by xaryk » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

tarcyanm wrote: post #14

I am becoming tired of the word "curated" unless it is being used in a context implying a qualified curator. This could be someone's random list of browser links for all I know. Who are the curators of this list and how are they qualified for me to are about their "curated" list? I don't necessarily mean formal qualifications. Also, curation implies active and personal involvement (as opposed to passive analysis base…

The list includes The Will to Power as the first entry under Nietzsche. On this basis I'd have to question the degree to which this list was curated at all as this work wasn't actually written by Nietzsche, but rather edited together by his sister whose motives may have been suspect.

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#24

Post by F_J_H » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

ebg13 wrote: post #18

F_J_H wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a GitHub hosted shared document, open to all. Feel free to add as many others as you'd like! I've been enjoying ancient Chinese proverbs lately, such as: "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness" ;-)

> It's a GitHub hosted shared document, open to all So literally the opposite of curated?

Or shared curation, just like Wikipedia. Depends on your view point I guess.

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#25

Post by schlupfknoten » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

This is an arbitrary selection of (exclusively western and male) philosophers, ordered by first names(?), listing the titles of some of their works. No attempt at any classification; no links to easily access the listed works. I don't see how this could be of any use to me.

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#26

Post by smahony » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

finolex1 wrote: post #6

I find modern philosophy papers to be far more interesting, readable and concise than some of these texts, which are often pretty circuitous. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a good site that curates good papers.

You might like this: http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/index.html

It's an annual collection of some of the best papers of the year. It's not aimed at the general reader so some of these will be impenetrable if you don't have a background in the specific area, but there's usually a couple of readable things in each year's edition for someone with an ~undergrad level foundation.

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#27

Post by vehemenz » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

schlupfknoten wrote: post #25

This is an arbitrary selection of (exclusively western and male) philosophers, ordered by first names(?), listing the titles of some of their works. No attempt at any classification; no links to easily access the listed works. I don't see how this could be of any use to me.

The western and male part shouldn't bother anyone. I'm kind of surprised to see that comment several times in these comments. Most philosophy in English, especially before 1960, is written by western males.

Yet no one points out that these all of these sources are continental (as opposed to analytic) philosophers. I'd think that a "curated" list that omits Russell, Carnap, and Quine—the most preeminent philosophers of the 20th century—would raise a bigger fuss among the HN crowd.

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#28

Post by harshreality » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

I think that curated list focuses too heavily on modern philosophy. Does Lacan even belong? Kierkegaard is Christian philosophy, which I don't think belongs in a list of general philosophy resources, except as case studies for spotting logical faults and wishful thinking.

Listing Foucault, but not David Hume, says a lot.

A few surveys would probably be more valuable than trying to slog through most of the primary sources of philosophy.

- Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

- A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

- Anthony Kenny, New History of Western Philosophy (4 volumes but also published as a combined single volume ebook)

- Adam Peterson, A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (3 volumes, 4 later this year, also a podcast[1])

- Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

A common sentiment is that Bertrand Russell is too biased in his presentation, but his survey was a popular classic for many years.

Perhaps also a supplement specific to eastern philosophy, like van Norden, An Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy?

[1] https://historyofphilosophy.net/all-episodes

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#29

Post by asark » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #28

I think that curated list focuses too heavily on modern philosophy. Does Lacan even belong? Kierkegaard is Christian philosophy, which I don't think belongs in a list of general philosophy resources, except as case studies for spotting logical faults and wishful thinking. Listing Foucault, but not David Hume, says a lot. A few surveys would probably be more valuable than trying to slog through most of the primary sou…

> A common sentiment is that Bertrand Russell is too biased in his presentation, but his survey was a popular classic for many years.

Since he explicitly comments on his subjects and is quite clear when he's doing so, and lays out up front which sorts of things he'll be focusing on for the whole enterprise, that complaint's never made much sense to me. I'm sure there's some further bias, but that's going to necessarily be true of any shortish treatment of such a broad field.

> - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

I'd for sure recommend Russell over this. Durant's scope both in philosophers covered, and the portions of their philosophy he focuses on (chiefly ethics, IIRC), is much smaller, and his coverage less insightful and fluent. Russell's is the better single-volume intro to the field of the two, Durant's being so bland and shallow by comparison to make the choice an easy one. Russell's not really any harder to read, either, though the medieval section's kind of a slog (Durant solves that problem by basically skipping all of it).

Re: A curated list of philosophy resources

#30

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

nessunodoro wrote: post #3

This list is exclusively of western philosophers. If you want to step into the world of philosophy at any time period or in any part of the world, I highly recommend the podcast "A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps" by Peter Adamson.

Excellent (if exhaustive) suggestion. I'm a happy listener.