Current Events > rec. some philosophical reads

(+) Yeah! (+)

right now i'm reading some of Kierkegaard's miscellaneous writing in my free time (not my usual, but it's interesting)

i'm mostly interested in ethics tho so recommend some thought provoking philosophers/books/etc?
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Something lighthearted is Batman and psychology; the dark knight of the soul. It's basically baby's first psychology lecture, but does it by applying it to the characters of the Batman universe as examples.
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@MedeaLysistrata and I majored in philosophy,, but it was a bunch of years for me, so it's hard to remember stuff.

plus I was more interested in the philosophy of the mind and epistemology.

one thing I liked reading about was the "Gettier Problem"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#GettProb
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The Bible

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Stephens kings IT
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sounds boring
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If youre interested in the concept of ethics and how it has evolved through history from a philosophical perspective read Nietzsches Genealogy of Morals. The great benefit of Nietzsche is whereas most philosophers are terrible writers, Nietzsche is considered one of the all time GOAT writers so its a great read
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Blitz4532 posted...

Something lighthearted is Batman and psychology; the dark knight of the soul. It's basically baby's first psychology lecture, but does it by applying it to the characters of the Batman universe as examples.

Hmm, sounds interesting enough.

boxington posted...

@MedeaLysistrata and I majored in philosophy,, but it was a bunch of years for me, so it's hard to remember stuff.

plus I was more interested in the philosophy of the mind and epistemology.

one thing I liked reading about was the "Gettier Problem"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#GettProb

Oooh that looks interesting - I'll check it out!

I minored in philosophy actually.

Kazi1212 posted...

If youre interested in the concept of ethics and how it has evolved through history from a philosophical perspective read Nietzsches Genealogy of Morals. The great benefit of Nietzsche is whereas most philosophers are terrible writers, Nietzsche is considered one of the all time GOAT writers so its a great read

I've read a bit of Nietzche's works. This sounds palatable and like I would gain quite a bit of insight from reading it.

Thanks for the recs my dudes
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Ishmael was pretty good. It's got a telepathic gorilla in it and is fairly short and easy.
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this article is really interesting and does a good job at exploring two different ways people think about truth, very relevant to the current socio-political climate: https://aeon.co/ideas/to-my-best-belief-just-what-is-the-pragmatic-theory-of-truth

i haven't read a lot of ethics but for specifically ethics I would suggest:

Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Kant - Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (a bit of a challenging read)
Feinberg - Psychological Egoism
Mackie - The Subjectivity of Values

for other stuff I would suggest:

Hume - Enquiry Concerning Human Nature
Kant - What is Enlightenment?
Locke - Second Treatise of Government
Plato - Theatetus, Euthyphro, Symposium, Protagoras, Parmenides
Nietzsche - pretty much anything, Thus Spake Zarathustra is a good starting point though
Sartre - Existentialism is Humanism, Nausea

- this website is really wonderful: https://plato.stanford.edu/
- there is a podcast called History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, which is exactly what it sounds like
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Nicomachean Ethics is great for an intro to ethics within Western philosophy imo, though Aristotle can be a bit challenging if you arent familiar with philosophical works. My advice would be if youre just getting into philosophy than an intro book might be a better idea than diving right into the all time classic texts in the discipline. The thing is, all these philosophers arent talking about ethics or other topics independently of each other or in a vaccum, but they are all in one big continuous conversation with different interlocutors arguing and responding to each others points through the millenniums. Understanding the context behind a philosophical work is sometimes just as critical to understanding the authors intent and meaning as much as the text itself.

A great intro into the more important debates of Western philosophy can be found in Bertrand Russells Problems of Philosophy, he does a wonderful job of contextualizing what many of these philosophers are responding too. This book got me started on reading philosophy 10 years ago and I havent looked back since, hes a fantastic writer as well.
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Have you ever read Emil Cioran Godnorgosh? Only philosopher that had me seriously question the legitimacy of the antinatalist position, I was surprised because I never thought I would feel that way about it.

I have a question though:

-Robert Nozick's essay, "The Experience Machine." The central claim is this: the view that happiness or pleasure is all that matters in making decisions from the standpoint of ethics (ethical hedonism) does not explain why we would not plug into the experience machine

I dont understand, what doesnt ethical hedonism explain?
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Ah, thats very interesting, a friend of mine once explained a similar notion to me. My only rebuttal was that perhaps were just extremely ideologically grounded about our ontological presuppositions of the world that we feel existentially threatened whenever our conceptual apparatus for what accounts as real is challenged. Hence why we dont take the experience machine, I probably would though yolo
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Ooooh, its awesome to see philosophy grads around here! Thanks again for the suggestions - gonna make a log of things to read. Yall are awesome
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