/lit/ - Literature

thanks dude

i never read these things (i prefer physical books) but it gives me a strange sense of security to have them on my harddrive somewhere

ta

>Idealists

>>1573801

I prefer physical books, as well, and I hate reading at length on monitors, but many of them are searchable pdfs, which is extremely useful (if you refer to these sorts of texts regularly).

inb4 "FUCKING TRIPFAGS"

>>1573812
anon is cancer

>>1573812
>>1573822

Do not start fucking up this thread with this shit.

I want so bad to meet a piano teacher like you, Isabelle. It's my fetish.

I haven't bought a physical book ever since i found library.nu (back when it as gigapedia.com) I don't understand why people hate reading stuff on monitors so much, I can't get enough free books, I love reading them on the monitor, I can hook my Laptop up to my tv and have uber large print!

Oh, is this philosophy general?

0. I can conceive of an infinitely perfect being
1. It has every perfection
2. Existence is a perfection
3. God exists
4. Omnipotent and omnibenevolence are perfections
5. God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
6. If God were omnipotent and omnibenevolent, he would only create the best of all possible worlds.
7. We live in the best of all possible worlds.

>>1573835
???

thanks

>>1573795
Well if you're tired of it, get the fuck out.

Don't you have better things to be doing with your infinite mental superiority?

>>1573842

>He reads books on his TV.

>>1573943
nice pics brah

>>1573938

>IF YOU'RE TIRED OF /lit/ SUCKING, JUST LEAVE SO WE CAN KEEP MAKING IT SUCK

uuuuuugh. fucking monogoloids

Is that all the Ficthe you have? Is that all the Fichte I need..?

If I'm a philosophy n0ob can I just jump into German Idealism or do I need lots of prior knowledge of, like, the rationalist and empiricist schools of the time, to get anything out of it? Or what??

>>1574088
Honestly, I'm a bit of a Noob myself, and I reently got Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche. It's an account of a number of philosophers lives--specifically whether they practiced what they preached. It's been a real treat so far. Kind of a good springboard to getting into the heavy stuff, I thought, anyhow.

>>1574088

You need to start with Plato and work your up up to anything, including the German idealists. Anyone who disagrees with me is a troll.

>>1574101
>starting at Plato
ignore this troll OP, you should start with the pre-Socratics and greek tragedists, -then- you can move onto Plato.

>>1574088 here
I just want to know if I have to read like all of Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley and Hume to get anywhere with German Idealism

>>1574154

Yes, and don't forget Aquinas

>>1574161
Fuck I was hoping I'd be able to at least avoid the Scholastics

>>1574171

Don't be silly, son. And obviously to understand Aquinas you need to read the Aristotle and Averroes.

Screw it. I'm just gonna go read The Critique of Pure Reason and see what happens. Wish me luck

philosohpy of economics pretty please. contemporary political stuff also nice

>>1574270
he wealth Of nAtions by Adam Smith

>>1574283
very cute

>>1574270

Why would anyone care about those things?

>>1574161
There really isn't *that* much to read regarding the pre-Socratics. A standard textbook outlining their though (as we have it today) should be sufficient. Start with Plato and Aristotle.

>>1574123
Glad to see there's at least one person other than me here pushing for Aquinas.

You're all ignoring St.Augustine. Start with him young wayfarer.

>>1574270
he Transparency Of eVil by Jean Baudrillard

>>1574360
Glass is evil.

i think you should start with a neuroscience textbook and also dialectic of enlightenment

>>1574360
no

Seems to me like there's a lot of philosophers itt. What's the difference between continental and analytic philosophy? Someone told me continental is better, is it that simple?

>>1574365
Will that tell me a lot about German Idealism..???

>>1574373
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

>>1574373

Yes. It really is. Unless you're a nerd or something. Continental philosophers get all the honeys as well.

>>1574375
not much

>>1574382
Well, thanks anyway, but right now I want to learn about German Idealism, so I can read all of Isabelle Huppert's books.

>>1574373
>>1574381
>>1574378
you should have a foundation in analytic philosophy but read some critical theory as well. particularly the early works of horkheimer and such. of course, empirical social sciences too.

>>1574381
>>1574378

Okay, but do I need to know what makes it better?

>>1574365
>neuroscience
On that note, plenty of good "introduction to neuroscience", would specifically recommend Gregory's Eye and Brain as a decent entry level neuro perception text.

>>1574388
Because the only other option is for dweebs with no social skills and such

>>1573795

How about some philosophy of science

Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery

http://www.mediafire.com/?5j4gb4lbu79uwih

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (scanned OCR, big file)

http://www.mediafire.com/?87ptb8ztt18w78v

well, fuck yeah, titsy.

Cool beans. Thanks, Isabelle. Never let it be said that tripfags are useless.

>>1574088

Start with what interests you and then work both ways chronologically. Don't be afraid to read widely, and while doing background work in order to understand something can be extremely useful, "starting with Plato (or whatever)" and then working consistently forward simply isn't practical a practical option. Honestly, I'd advise you to do enough general reading to determine what interests you, then dive into that.

>>1573795
> reading philosophy electronically
oh lawd

Why don't you just make some good charts of recommended readings for philosophy? Some people aren't children and read real books like normal human beings.

>>1575312

maybe you should read the thread before spouting off

>>1574373
>Someone told me continental is better, is it that simple?
Ha ha ha no. Like everyone else here they don't realise that the slanty eyed yellow people across the globe also have a few worthwhile ideas about philosophy, that don't fit snugly into our western binary oppositions, along with the jews and arabs. But hey we're white and affluent so it's not like we have to take any notice of them.

>>1575320
what's up with your yellow fever

makes you sound a bit gay and weaboo imho

>slanty eyed yellow people across the globe also have a few worthwhile ideas about philosophy

no, they don't.

>>1575329
hey fat lenny

> Ha ha ha no. Like everyone else here they don't realise that the slanty eyed yellow people across the globe also have a few worthwhile ideas about philosophy, that don't fit snugly into our western binary oppositions, along with the jews and arabs. But hey we're white and affluent so it's not like we have to take any notice of them.

Hey Isabelle,

I haven't seen you around in a long long time. What took you away? Also, I've been thinking of getting into Foucault. What's your opinion of him?

Thanks

>>1575352
She doesn't like him. He consciously gave people AIDS and we should judge his writing with this in mind, at least that's what she thinks. It's a valid point.

>>1575352

I'm around sporadically. Drop by sometimes when I drink my coffee, when I get home, or late at night after a long work session. Academic and professional responsibilities consume a lot of my time.

Actually, funny you should mention Foucault, as the next set of uploads I'm going to do will be related. As for my opinion of him, you know (actually, you may not) one of my areas of specialization is mid- to late twentieth century French philosophy. So I've read rather a lot. He's certainly an important figure. Although I find his later, more influential work (on the microphysics of power, biopower, etc.) interesting, it's a little too proto-utopian for me. Chalk up to Deleuze's influence, if you will.

>>1575329
lol u shut him up good len'

>>1575358

No. Nice try, though.

w/r/t the Foucault/AIDS thing, allow me to quote a letter Clare O'Farrell wrote to the Time Literary Supplement in 2002:

"The context and details of Foucault's death from AIDS as the recent discussion indicates remain extremely controversial and have been the subject of widespread discussion in several languages since his death in 1984. The accusation that Foucault deliberately infected his partners with AIDS is certainly nothing new. Most famously, James Miller, publicly airs the rumour in his 1993 biography. The sensationalist aspects of this book have been widely criticised by experts on Foucault's work as well as by those who knew him personally. In particular, Didier Eribon, takes strong exception to Millers' approach in a sequel to his own 1991 biography in French, making the pertinent observation that the debates around Foucault's biography all seem to boil down to one issue: how to write a biography of a philosopher who was also a homosexual." (1/2)

>>1575366

Do you have any Heidegger you could share? Specifically his rantings on modern technology?

>>1575366
> academic and professional responsibilites consume a lot of my time
He's fucking undergrads!

You sly dog!

"Even Miller has to admit that he believes the rumours about Foucault's alleged behaviour to be 'essentially false'. An additional problem with Miller's interpretation and those like it is that it provides a somewhat anachronistic reading of events. One might draw attention, for instance, to the fact that a reliable test for AIDS was not available in France until the Spring of 1984 and if Foucault may have indeed suspected that he had the disease, no positive diagnosis of his condition was ever made by doctors. As David Macey, another biographer of Foucault remarks: 'Days before his death, his doctors were still saying: "If it's AIDS"'.

Neither were doctors in a position in the early 1980s to offer much useful advice on the subject of HIV/AIDS or on safe sex. It is certainly true that many gay men, including Foucault, expressed initial disbelief in the existence of a disease that specifically targeted gay men, seeing this as yet another ploy by the medical establishment to exercise social control. But as Michael Bartos a researcher and activist in the area of AIDS and public health policy points out, this attitude changed as firmer medical evidence came to the fore. And as Bartos further notes these kind of controversies fall into well worn patterns: 'the accusation that an HIV infected person deliberately sought to infect others through anonymous sex is one of the most common tropes of the epidemic. The rumour that Foucault had gone to American bathhouses to deliberately spread HIV should be seen for what it is: a commonplace of the demonisation of people with HIV and an iteration of the standard myths of the malevolent importation of HIV/AIDS.'" (2/3, sorry need three)

"Those who knew Foucault (Richard Sennett amongst them) also argue that his rumoured behaviour is simply not consistent with his other behaviour and views on social and political responsibility. Far from limiting himself to writing, he worked hard at the most practical organisational level on committees advocating the rights of prisoners, immigrants, inmates of health institutions and the politically oppressed in countries such as Tunisia, Spain and Poland, and on occasions put himself at some physical risk in doing so." (3/3)

>>1575375

(http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W3N0QBWT)), Heidegger 1
(http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MO9WGMBT)), Heidegger 2
(http://www.mediafire.com/?himdz1zlw0f)), Heidegger Papers

>>1575381

Much appreciated.

>>1575382

My pleasure.

>>1575384

Hopefully you are still around Isabelle. No sense in wasting that fine mind you've got, might as well ask some questions.

Do people still need philosophy? Or maybe philosophy has outgrown the people?

What philosopher do you think captures the way you feel about the world, the most?

>>1575434

I'm not entirely sure as to the purview of your question, but generally speaking I don't really thinking philosophy and theory can be escaped. You might say that the task that philosophy set for itself in the twentieth century was to escape from what was often (disparagingly) called metaphysics. It's actually quite stunning, for one way or another you see this drive present in the work of philosophers as diverse as Rudolf Carnap and the logical positivists, both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and many more. (The Carnap/Heidegger connection I find most especially interesting given that Carnap uses Heidegger as a negative example in his paper "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through the Logical Analysis of Language.") Despite the benefits that the pursuit of this task have conferred, I think it's also been shown that the attempt is doomed from the start.

Theoretical assumptions and presuppositions that tie into philosophy's subjects are chipped not only throughout every specialized discourse (from bacteriology, where explicitly ontological claims are advanced about microstructures, causality, the nature and method of experiment, the validity of observation, much less the broader epistemological and methodological presuppositions necessary to practice normal science in the first place), but throughout ordinary language. This is true (perhaps even especially so) when it the theoretical aspect is disowned. If you try to do away with theory, or if you think you've succeeded in doing so, then you're just operating on the basis of theoretical commitments you don't understand.

(1/2)

>>1575434

Part of the problem - and part of the reason for the twentieth century's hostility toward theory - is that there's often been assumed to be a clear sort of divide between theory and practice, and philosophers (historically speaking) have often come down on the side of privileging theory. Suffice it to say that I think that divide is, at best, totally obscure and, at worst, an actively retarding influence. Theory and practice are always bound up together, to such an extent that they can't be disentangled without tremendous distortion.

As for your latter question, I'm not entirely sure. Let's say that I'm partial to Adorno, Baudrillard, and Schmitt, but I want to be more like the middle Nietzsche, Feyerabend, Whitman, and Derrida.

(2/2)