/lit/ - Literature

>>2931611
Ok?

u are so fucking pretentious

I'm starting to read it by reading a little bit about some of the main figures and some secondary writings on their works.
I've read about Frege, Wittgenstein and now I'm reading about Popper.

>Derrida

Stop trying so hard.

>>2931616
Sound advice anon. Thanks. I usually look up the person I'm interested in on the Stanford Philosophy site to get a feel for em.

If this helps. the main dudes I'm interested in reading are Derrida, Wittgenstein and Foucault.

>Wittgenstein seems like the obvious starting point
Read Quine's 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' - http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html
Or Russell's 'On Denoting' - http://www.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/lehreinheiten/philosophie_5/personen/anagnos/lv_sose_2011/rus
sell_on_denoting.pdf
Or Lewis' 'Mad Pain and Martian Pain' - http://web.missouri.edu/johnsonrn/papers/lewis.pdf
They're all classics of analytic philosophy.

The Tractatus is extremely difficult to understand and On Certainty isn't analytic philosophy. Not sure about the Blue and Brown books because I haven't read them, but if it's anything like PI then it aint analytic.

>>2931634
Thanks breh, will give those a looking over.

The Blue/Brown books are lectures he made about PI so yeah.

Last bump from me: what works by Derrida and Foucault should I read?

>>2931637
Derrida and Foucault aren't Analytic, they're continental.

>>2931643
Well I feel exceedingly foolish. What exactly defines an analytic philosopher then? I have always seen those two when analytic is mentioned.

Regardless, they interest me so what should I read from them?

>What exactly defines an analytic philosopher then?
more emphasis on formal logic and mathematics and philosophy of those two
it's more an outdated political term than anything else

>>2931604

Analytic Philosophy is a reaction to British Idealism. You should start with Russell and (early non-crazy process philosophy) Whitehead. Boole and Frege may be necessary reading for this too since they gave Russel and Whitehead the tools for their movement. Wittgenstein, GEM Anscombe, the Logical Positivists, etc are the next step.

>>2931637
Foucault always looks like a jolly guy,

>>2931644
The reason they're mentioned in relation to analytic is probably an antagonistic one. on 4chan particularly there is an antagonism between analytic and continental.
analytic philosophy deals with things like logic, language and science.
continental deals with things like society, literary theory, feminism, etc.
I've not ventured into continental so I don't know what to recommend you. Derrida isn't really highly regarded on this board, as evidenced by the childish antagonisms of >>2931611 and >>2931622, it's not entirely without reason either, derrida-followers on /lit/ say things like: Derrida uses language to showcase ideas. Only giving you a heads up, follow your heart.

>>2931664
>>2931661
>>2931653
Interesting. I guess I'll check out the stuff recommended by the people in the thread and then explore other stuff that seems relevant.

Thanks guys. Gonna leave now since I gotta get ready for work.

>>2931664
Also, just to illustrate the continental/analytic antagonism, have this great copypasta:

A marxist post-structuralist continental Ecole Normale Supérieure professor and feminist activist was teaching a class on Martin Heidegger, known hermeneuticist.

”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Nietzsche and accept that his genealogical method was the most highly-evolved theory the continent has ever known, even greater than Hegel's dialectics!”

At this moment, a brave, rational, positivist analytic philosopher who had read more than 15000 pages of Popper and Wittgenstein and understood the raison d'être of empiricism and fully supported all modern hard sciences stood up and held up the constitution.

”How universal is this text, frenchfag?"

The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied “It's not universal at all, fucking positivist, its 'truth' is rooted in our shared understandings about culture, the subject and the nexus of power and knowledge”

”Wrong. It’s been 225 years since human reason created it. If it was not universal, and post-modern relativism, as you say, is real… then it should be regarded as a myth now”

>>2931671
2/2
The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of On Grammatology. He stormed out of the room crying those ironic post-modern crocodile tears. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, Michel Foucault, wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than an AIDS ridden sadomasochist interested in fisting. He wished so much that he had some kind of truth to hold on to, but he himself had written to disprove it!

The students applauded and all rolled into American universities that day and accepted Wittgenstein as the end of philosophy. An eagle named “Formal logic” flew into the room and perched atop the copy of "Principa Mathematica" and shed a tear on the hardcover. The last sentence of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" was read several times, and Karl Popper himself showed up and demonstrated how dialectics is nothing but a means of justifying contradictions.

The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and his "books" were disregarded for all eternity.

>>2931634
Seconding Two Dogmas and On Denoting, and recommending Frege's On Sense and Reference. Read them in the opposite order I have them written here though.

>>2931707
**sigh**
Okay, it is very clear that none of you have read "Two Dogmas". It makes no sense to recommend it to a novice who probably isn't even familiar with the Analytic/Synthetic distinction. Hell, he might not even know what 'a priori' means.
Two Dogmas makes no sense without understanding the dialogue leading up to it. You need to be well-versed in Frege (Anthony Kenny's Introduction is the best for a layman), then read secondary sources on Russell (SEP), and On Denoting. From there, move on to the Tractatus and the Investigations (which is Analytic philosophy in content, but not necessarily method). A quick comment on the Tractatus: It's interesting, but Wittgenstein has a way of building an argument such that it looks irrefutable, but this is only because of its enormous complexity. The Tractatus is towering, but in the Investigations Wittgenstein acknowledges and addresses a lot of the pretension in the Tractatus. Be very skeptical when reading the Tractatus -- it's easy to get whipped up into a fervor by it, but... proceed with caution.
After Wittgenstein, move on to Logical Positivism, most accurately, aptly and lucidly summed up by A.J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic, and once you're done with that, THEN you're ready to read Quine.
Of course, this is all assuming familiarity with Kant's Critique of Pure and Practical Reason. None of this will make sense without that. Kant's three Critiques are also required for reading continental stuff like Marx and Foucault.

>>2931671
>>2931674
i want so badly to love this copypasta. it has some great moments -- the eagle named "Formal Logic," the words "known hermeneuticist" -- but it's in need of repair. the question about the constitution is borderline senseless and a lot of the lines are really awkwardly written. can we get a copypasta repairman out here?

>>2931758
It's been changed so many times already. The best version was the Richard Dawkins one.

>>2931758
>the question about the constitution is borderline senseless
Wasn't that the point?

>>2931767
yeah, i have a few other versions. this one is obviously a rip-off of the "A liberal muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist" one. it steals a few good lines from there but a lot of the other stuff reads as if it were written by someone with only a passing acquaintance with english.

>>2931749
>Okay, it is very clear that none of you have read "Two Dogmas".
Well at least I know you're full of shit, seeing as I have read it.
> It makes no sense to recommend it to a novice who probably isn't even familiar with the Analytic/Synthetic distinction. Hell, he might not even know what 'a priori' means.
Well I don't know, he could, you know, look up the analytic/synthetic distinction or the a priori on Stanford. That would take, oh, about 5 minutes?

Go fuck yourself, you presumptuous idiot.

>>2931771
no. the question should be stupid but sensible.

”How old is this rock, pinhead?”

The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied “4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian”

”Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now”

>>2931779
Have Tom Clancy hold up one of his books and ask something like is the author dead.

>>2931776
Reading about the ASD on SEP, first of all, would take quite a bit more than five minutes. You also need a far greater knowledge of the concept than SEP provides to appreciate the Two Dogmas.
Also, if you don't know the proponents of reductionism and how it relates to larger concepts within philosophy, Quine's criticism of the process is rendered meaningless.
Maybe you have read the Two Dogmas, but if you're recommending it to someone who is asking for an introduction to Analytic Philosophy, and thought Derrida and Foucault were Analytic philosophers, you're delusional. What do you think he could possibly gain from it?

>>2931799
>Reading about the ASD on SEP, first of all, would take quite a bit more than five minutes
I doubt it.
> You also need a far greater knowledge of the concept than SEP provides to appreciate the Two Dogmas.
No you don't. A historical context would help, sure, but it's not necessary to at least comprehend Quine's argument.
>Also, if you don't know the proponents of reductionism and how it relates to larger concepts within philosophy, Quine's criticism of the process is rendered meaningless.
It's 'rendered meaningless', is it? What do you mean by that? Not that it's literally rendered meaningless, because it clearly isn't. That it's significance is not understood? Well so what? Temporary failure to understand philosophy's significance is an unavoidable stepping stone for the beginner. Reading intro books rather than Quine won't ease that.
>What do you think he could possibly gain from it?
He could get a taste of what real analytic philosophy is like. I would much sooner recommend someone interested in analytic philosophy read a short and seminal article which they wouldn't fully understand, than a boring, long introductory book - which would probably put them off for good - which they would.

>>2931799
>Reading about the ASD on SEP, first of all, would take quite a bit more than five minutes
I doubt it.
> You also need a far greater knowledge of the concept than SEP provides to appreciate the Two Dogmas.
No you don't. A historical context would help, sure, but it's not necessary to at least comprehend Quine's argument.
>Also, if you don't know the proponents of reductionism and how it relates to larger concepts within philosophy, Quine's criticism of the process is rendered meaningless.
It's 'rendered meaningless', is it? What do you mean by that? Not that it's literally rendered meaningless, because it clearly isn't. That its significance is not understood? Well so what? Temporary failure to understand philosophy's significance is an unavoidable stepping stone for the beginner. Reading intro books rather than Quine won't ease that.
>What do you think he could possibly gain from it?
He could get a taste of what real analytic philosophy is like. I would much sooner recommend someone interested in analytic philosophy read a short and seminal article which they wouldn't fully understand, than a boring, long introductory book - which would probably put them off for good - which they would.

>>2931799
>>2931799
not OP or the guy you're responding to, but do you have any suggestions for texts on reductionism?

>>2931811

Well told.

Read this article and go from there: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/