/lit/ - Literature

One last bump, though I'm not too hopeful. Maybe I'll make a chart for you guys in 6 months or so when i'm better versed in the subject.

>>16704027
Depends on what your starting position is. Lewis isn't very accessible. Get a good grounding in analytic philosophy and especially analytic metaphysics before reading him. Plurality of Worlds (which i was joking about in the OP) touches practically every area of metaphysics at one point and other areas of philosophy besides. If you're already familiar with all this, go ahead. If not, maybe read something like 'Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction' by Loux first, and after that what >>16704105 recommended.

>>16633952
Okay, look out for the thread tomorrow.

>>16619321
Yeah i really like the Vocations lectures. You should note that lurking in the background of Weber is a big Kantian influence which informs his entire sociological method (Why he insists on Interpretive Sociology over the Comptean and Durkheimean positivism). So his position towards (the broader definition) science isn't really surprising. It is also quite funny how sobering he is about Academia even though his own academic work has become almost monolithic in the field. That said, read Economy and Society is you want the really good stuff from Weber.
The Vocation lecture has some nice quotes too.
>Normally such an 'idea' is prepared only on the soil of very hard work, but certainly this is not always the case. Scientifically, a dilettante's idea may have the very same or even a greater bearing for science than that of a specialist. Many of our very best hypotheses and insights are due precisely to dilettantes. The dilettante differs from the expert, as Helmholtz has said of Robert Mayer, only in that he lacks a firm and reliable work procedure. Consequently he is usually not in the position to control, to estimate, or to exploit the idea in its bearings. The idea is not a substitute for work; and work, in turn, cannot substitute for or compel an idea, just as little as enthusiasm can. Both, enthusiasm and work, and above all both of them jointly, can entice the idea.
>Ideas occur to us when they please, not when it pleases us. The best ideas do indeed occur to one's mind in the way in which Ihering describes it: when smoking a cigar on the sofa; or as Helmholtz states of himself with scientific exactitude: when taking a walk on a slowly ascending street; or in a similar way. In any case, ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion.