/lit/ - Literature

>>19831733
Forgot my pic.


When you get taught philosophy at a university, you don't normally just run through primary sources. In a survey, you will generally read those sources, maybe only those sources, but the professor will also give a lecture introducing and then dissecting them, and you'll have discussions on the ideas.

Surveys for undergrads are more aimed at perspective students or people who won't study philosophy. You're getting a big sample of ideas so that you're literate in broad arguments and types. Higher level study tends to focus on a specific area because that's the only way to get into the details effectively.

Now historical surveys have a role. They can give a layman a good map of the main ideas and developments. But they can also be better for name dropping than true understanding. I personally like Kenney's A New History of Western Philosophy the most because the combination of historical overview and topical treatment works pretty well. I prefer it to Russel. Durant should be avoided because, despite the good prose, it isn't a true survey. It is more a highlights reel, skipping the entire medieval period. Durant's Story of Civilization however, has a pretty solid history of ideas, but it's inside a huge survey of political changes, culture, literature, art, religion etc. The scope makes it super broad so it's more like reading an encylopedia, but with nice prose making the journey a lot more fun.

Primary sources absolutely serve a role. There are many interpretations of most "big names" and they have complex arguments that can't be neatly summarized. So going through those is training for your own thought and evaluating ideas. It just isn't the sole way to learn the subject.

Deep dives on an author you like are helpful too, not just for knowing that person, but for understanding that your survey knowledge from reading a few pieces by a person and summaries isn't the whole story.

>>19801360
Also check this. What the mind is, is pretty essential for knowing what the world it observes is. I think you'll find this very relevant too. Physicalism is the most common philosophy of mind, but only holds a plurality of support. With metaphysics, the book above, you'll also get into the being of categories called universals, things like numbers, or "triangularis" and if they exist. On this front, a plurality think these non-physical things DO exist. Popularity is a poor measure of truth, just pointing out that thoughtful people come to different conclusions and have good arguments.

I would not recommend Jung. I like Jung but he has a lot of pseudoscience in his theories. Not pseudscience as in "bullshit," they are great ideas, they just aren't falsifiable in the way scientific theories should be. Not many people are Jungians. A philosophy of mind guide will cover many views, and get you much more of a lay of the land.

>>19791168
Dualism fell out of favor as a philosophy of mind because it fails to explain much of what we see in the world. If mind is unrelated to matter, why don't rocks have minds? Why do animals with more complex nervous systems exhibit more evidence of conciousness? Why does brain damage to given areas of the brain reliably predict the type of changes in personality and described experiences as person has?

Physicalists philosophies of mind dominate because they explain far more. Physicalism as an ontology has many problems, but as a philosophy of mind if is very strong. You don't have to posit what physical things are to say that observation of how minds work gives you and idea of what they are, and that evidence points to minds being generated by bodies.

So what is the "I" in the cognito? People with the main connections between the two hemispheres of their brain will write down different answers to the same question and not be aware of the difference. They can, however, live fairly normal lives. So which I is giving the real answer?

Modern neuroscience and cognitive science tells us the brain is a network of specialized systems that compete for dictating behavior. There is no centralized I. Decartes had to posit a homonculus up in the pineal gland for his system to work. No such center of conciousness exists anywhere we can find it. Bits of the brain appear to keep running when other parts needed to transform processes into behavior are defective. When someone with aphasia wants to say "are you going to the store?" but says "the cards of mayhem are chopped and lit," and doesn't notice the ridiculousness of the statement, which I is speaking, which I wants to speak?

Observation agrees way more with Hume, who didn't find an I when he looked inside, but a bunch of disconnected, competing strands of thought, sensation, and desire.

Decartes assumes the self, but where is it to be grounded? That's what the other anon was probably referring to.

Buddhists had this idea of theory of mind a long time before Hume for what it is worth. There is no I, no Atman. See Hindus have a better case because for then sensation, emotion, and physical objects are Pakrati. Atman is only that which experiences. But here again empiricism has a challenge. When split brained people appear to see different things with different hemispheres of the brain, which "Atman" is doing it?

Pic related and the Great Courses Mind Body Philosophy (which has more science information than most philosophy, which is good) are solid primers on this issue and major issues for physicalism, as well as other ideas like hylomorphism, predicate dualism, etc.

Hegel is the shit at combining this with answering nominalism vs dualism too but hard to read.

I found I preferred his student Robert A Johnson's work. Less of the stuff that ranges into pseudoscience, more focus on myth and the path to self actualization.
Of Jung I had only read On Man and His Symbols, his "autobiography," Psychology and Alchemy, and a number of assorted papers and excerpts and papers I had printed out.

>>19736555
This depends on what you're looking for. For practical elements, I like Johnson, who I mentioned above, and more so Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.

I'm sure there is more stuff like Campbell and Jung being written, it just fell out of vouge for clinicians due to unfavorable results compared to other methods, with psychologists due to the difficulty in falsifying them as well as issues with evidence, and with anthropologists because the monomyth was critiqued as essentially being dependant on selection bias or manipulation of sources for proof of its existence. The problem is that this makes it hard to tell what is decent.

There are "ethnographic" studies like Carlos Castaneda's that tread somewhat similar ground but they has the issue of being partially or fully fictitious. They might be true of parts of Jung's autobiography to, but at least that is less clear.

If you haven't studied modern cognitive science or neuroscience, that would be elucidating, if drier.

Philosophy of mind is more interesting. Pic related is good and requires no background, but can be a bit slow due to building from the ground up. The Great Courses mind body philosophy course is quite good and Audible is cheap enough.