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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.2142888 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: we recommend books that aid us somewhat in that long journey to becoming an "intellectual".

>> No.2142891
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>> No.2142900

>>2142891
this actually good?

>> No.2142901
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Taught me, for better or worse, that I should think for myself about literature rather than take the claims of my Theory professors at face value.

>> No.2142902

>>2142900

Yes. Talks about how intellectual life has been transformed by academic institutionalization and introduced me to a ton of great authors and critics who aren't part of the normal syllabus.

>> No.2142903

The Anal Cannon.
Told me how a funnel is placed into an asshole, and the 2nd whore pukes into it. After the ass is filled with puke, a cock then fucks it until the pressure is all built up. After the asshole has been fucked hard enough, the cock is pulled out and the anal cannon explodes! To top it all off, ass to mouth occurs, with both ladies licking off the fresh mix of vomit and ass for the ultimate anal dessert!

>> No.2142904
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>>2142901
>>2142902
Awesome.
MOAR.

>>2142903
Second time I've seen this tonight, so lulz, but could get old fast.

>> No.2142906
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/lit/'s opinion: Karl Popper, or Thomas Kuhn?

>> No.2142908
File: 20 KB, 295x421, A_Vindication_of_th_172656s.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
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I couldn't tell whether I was reading poetry, essays, or "truth" in its most ultimate form. This book is brilliant and something everyone should read at some point in school (or at least something everyone should have heard of.)

>> No.2142913

>>2142906
popper just refined kuhns ideas a little. kuhn was the original though, and probably more influential

>> No.2142915
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Read this book. Im not being fucking funny here. Read this goddamn book. For its prose, its ideas, and for the fate of humanity.

>> No.2142916

>>2142913
Sharpie in the Popper or it didn't happen.

>> No.2142917

So, just out of curiosity, what does the contemporary use of "intellectual" even mean? From what I can tell, it often seems to be just a glorified term for a pundit.

>> No.2142921

>>2142917
"hipster"

>> No.2142920

>>2142908

I enjoy Wollstonecraft, but
>Vindication
>poetry

How so?

>> No.2142923

>>2142917
Not public intellectual, just a clever dood/ette who knows stuff about the world and can apply this knowledge in useful ways.

>> No.2142924

>>2142917

Someone who has read comprehensive summaries of various things academics deem important.

>> No.2142925

>>2142915
wat

>> No.2142928

>>2142904

The best advice I could give would be to read lots of general surveys of various fields (philosophy, literature, history, religion) so that you have a general map of the broad currents of thinking in both east and west. Once you have the overview solidly in mind, you can zoom in on the parts of the map that you find especially interesting.

Also, use Google Books! If you get a cheap e-reader that can read PDFs, there's tons of great out-of-copyright stuff available for free. One of the best things I took away from the Camille Paglia book mentioned upthread is that it's helpful to read scholarship from back in the day rather than just relying on the latest and greatest -- there's great work being written today, but there's also a lot of hackwork by people who are chasing after contemporary intellectual fads as part of the scramble for tenure. *coughZizekcough*

One good thing to check out on GBooks that I've been reading lately is _Main Currents of Nineteenth-Century Literature_ by Brandes, it's a comprehensive but very readable survey of the various 19th-century European literary schools.

>> No.2142932

>>2142917
Someone who is smarter than a 5th grader.

>> No.2142933

>>2142928
Thanks an awful lot, bro.

>> No.2142938

>>2142933

Glad I could help.

Another good book to start with is _Classics Revisited_ by the poet Kenneth Rexroth. Parts of it are online, and you can get it cheap on Amazon. It's a series of short introductory essays on classic literature by a guy who knew what he was talking about. Especially solid on the non-Western classics -- it introduced me to a lot of Chinese stuff I had never heard of before.

>> No.2143000

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff - Beelzebub's tales to his grandson

>> No.2143003

bump for interest

>> No.2143015
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This. Or not, but the point is that you should be wary of who wrote the ideas you are reading.
Marx, for instance, becomes alot less persuasive once you learn about his life.

>> No.2143018

>>2143015
Not for me. But I actually have read several biographies of him. As a young man, Marx was a dynamo -- organizing, arguing, writing, defending himself in court to a standing ovation, being kicked out of country after country. Older, he went to the library every day basically for the rest of his life, working on Capital, living on handouts from his friend. Are you referring to his sex life? What do you do? Masturbate when mom's in the next room? Idiot. Have some respect.

>> No.2143022
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After reading my Very Short Introduction to Tocqueville, I have a hankering for The Old Regime and the Revolution. The author of the VSI says he died before getting to the revolution part in more detail. Is it fair to say others like Arendt picked up where he left off? Still, he was and still is a giant in his field of study.

>>2142908
Oh I am so looking forward to reading this soon.

>> No.2143029

>>2143015
Well the funny thing about intellectuals is their work is in a certain sense their biography

>> No.2144068

bumpan'

>> No.2144703

bump

>> No.2144730

krishnamurti

>> No.2145155
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>> No.2145158

>>2145155
fuck off

>> No.2145157

I like Les Miserables, OP

>> No.2145163
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>>2145155
Go for the original.

>> No.2145165

>>2145163
fuck yeahr spengler

I need to get around to actually buying that book. It's a brick of wisdom.

>> No.2145168

>>2145158
wow son u butt angrey
i hav nevr seen som1 so pooper peeved

>> No.2145173

>>2145163
I know know German :/

>> No.2145174

>>2145173
>don't know
My bad.

>> No.2145177
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>>2145174
ta da

>> No.2145179
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>>2145155
Oh nice cover.
I don't care for the paperback, it just has an American flag and green and crescent flag. As if that was all it was about.

>> No.2145180

>>2145177
Can I get this free someone, seeings as it's fuckold?

>> No.2145188

>>2145180
>somewhere
Fuck, my typing tonight.

>> No.2145184

>>2145179
>>2145177
>>2145155

MOAR

>> No.2145186

1/Read the Tao Te Ching.
2/Compare all available translations.
3/????
4/Profit!

>> No.2145191

>>2145184
If you like Eichmann in Jerusalem read Between Past And Future it is a pretty readable introduction to Arendt's political ideas

>> No.2145199

>>2145177
It's shown everywhere as Vol II. Is there a Vol I I need to worry about?

>> No.2145205
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>>2145191
I picked that one up for 25 cents :]_

So. Much. To. Read.

>> No.2145214 [DELETED] 

Anyone read this 800 page beast? I'm about 4% into it.

>> No.2145216
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Guy Davenport is a super-good essayist, mostly on poetry and culture.

>> No.2145232

Clive James wrote a thing called Cultural Amnesia that's pretty cool. Also Isaiah Berlin is a good guy to read.

>> No.2145233
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Anyone read this 800 page beast? I'm about 4% into it...

>> No.2145243

>>2145216
I was wandering the aisles of my local universities library today, and re-gasped at all the books there are there are.
Music is the same. I use critics to help weed out all the items I just don't care for, probably a lot of good stuff, but I can hold it back for later perhaps.
Literary criticism probably has its own encyclopedia.
This one I can skip. I'm already not interested in poetry. Know any lit-critics for socio-political/history authors?

>> No.2145249

>>2145180
I'm sure you can, but I inherited my copy so I can't help you there.

>>2145199
Yes. You could also be a terrible human being and just get the Vintage abridged edition.

>> No.2145251
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>>2145233
Nope. Never heard of it. I have noticed the decline though.

[Found this book at the Uni library]

>> No.2145250

>>2145233
No, but you've sparked my interest. Pinker rocks.

>> No.2145257

>>2145243
Not sure what you mean exactly... stuff like Berlin's Three Critics of the Enlightenment maybe? And Arendt as previously mentioned.

>> No.2145321
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>>2145257
Yeah something like that. That was for the enlightenment though. Gotta love the book cover with a guy smoking a pipe.

[Pictured: Just something I picked up here]

>> No.2145333
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>> No.2145338
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>>2145333

>> No.2145351

>>2145333
Read Carl Schmitt + Leo Strauss

(actually strauss is a good rec for this thread, whether you agree with him or not)

>> No.2145361

Nice thread.

>> No.2145363
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Not sure if my body is ready for this. Any one here read it?

>> No.2145468
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>> No.2145493

>>2145363
I tried reading it and stopped after some time because it didn't get to the point, was overly long and seemed to be generally a not-well-thought-out math-fantasy-religion

>> No.2145872

>>2145363

While I did find a lot of his diatribes on number theory to be a bit suffocating (I only got through half the book), I thought it was an amazing book that attempted to rationalize the nature of consciousness. That in itself is admirable.

>> No.2146530

bump

>> No.2146537

d&e told me AC Grayling was a vapid pop-philosopher with nothing useful to say.

>> No.2146543

>>2146537

d&e told me there are no species, only individuals.

>> No.2146550

>>2146537
d&e told me he'd love me forever

>> No.2146553

>>2146543

d&e touched me ;_;

>> No.2146557

>>2146537

d&e told me the entire field of analytic philosophy was worthless.

>> No.2146560

d&e told me we can't have sex tonight because he had a big lunch.

>> No.2146571 [DELETED] 

>>2146560

steak n chips will do that.

>> No.2146575

>>2146560

d&e told me steak n chips will do that.

>> No.2146577
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d&e told me Transformers 3 was a good film.

>> No.2146582

d&e told me everything is subjective, then he told me to come back to bed, he's such a sweetie :)

>> No.2146595

>>2146582

d&e told me subjectivity doesn't exist, only varying degrees of intersubjectivity.

>> No.2146604
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>> No.2146612
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>> No.2146711
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No more serious readers on atm?

>> No.2146720
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Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology..

No joke, I'm a committed atheist, but I'm enamored with systematic theology.

>> No.2146730

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/h#a1440

>> No.2146848
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>>2143015

oh god, Paul Johnson?

as a 1st year uni student I randomly picked up a copy of Johnson's 'enemies of society' from the library... looked interesting and I certainly wanted to know who these enemies were. it was probably the worst book i'd ever read. THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE COMING TO GET US!!! I wouldn't read Johnson if you want to be seen as intellectual... if you want to be seen as a closet homosexual conservative catholic faggot, maybe. Johnson did like getting spanked, apparently...

>> No.2146854

>>2146711
Are we just posting good books now? Because I think Candide is more of a classic, and to me that's a different category.

On-topic, do want to recommend Robert Solomon's books, which are very approachable and understandable works on philosophy. "From Hegel To Existentialism" is pretty good.

>> No.2147082

How many books do I have to read to officially stop being ignorant?

>> No.2147436
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>>2146854
I was running out

>>2147082
Good question!
What does it take to become an expert on a given topic? An "intellectual"?
Ignorance is a though thing to shake for some. Some books encourage it. Like this Paul Johnson guy Kirk is smirking at.