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/lit/ - Literature

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5243204 No.5243204[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Where do I start with Sam Harris?

I can't decide which one to read first: "Free Will" or "The Moral Landscape"? The latter was published earlier. Do I have to read it first if I want to understand the former? Does he often reference his earlier works or are they independent? He's the most insightful contemporary philosopher and I really want to understand his theories.

>> No.5243615

>Where do I start with Sam Harris?

Don't.

>> No.5243622
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5243622

>>5243204
>contemporary philosopher
>reiterates englightenment-era arguments (if not even older) to a new fedora-wearing audience

>> No.5243636

You don't need a starting point for Harris, he's barely even a philosopher. He's just a guy who writes about things he doesn't understand.

>> No.5243639

He's the Ben Stiller of literature.

>> No.5243666

Why is sam harris deemed so bad. I've only read 'lying' which was alright, made a strong enough argument. Is it because his other stuff is actually false? Is it because he says things which you already know? Is it because it makes you sad seeing someone you deem less smart than yourself get all this attention as being a modern intellectual?
Surely his existence helps popularise new, potentially helpful ideas by virtue of rep and how far his word can go. That's better than any shit any of us do

>> No.5243668

>>5243204
Read Free Will first, but neither are particularly taxing. Don't expect a discussion on /lit/ either. Any thread about Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Pinker, Dennet, Tyson, Hawking, Sagan, or Feynman will drown in a swamp of fedora and reddit comments.

If you want to discuss any of their ideas, either quote them and use someone elses name, or provide the thought as your own. This usually counters the 'reddit fedora' mess, but will descend straight into it, with everyone jumping ship, if the origin of the quote is revealed mid-thread.

>> No.5243679

>>5243666
Why is sam harris deemed so bad
He criticized contemporary theology and the people who subscribe to it.

>> No.5243730
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5243730

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/march/the-new-philistinism

>> No.5243760

>>5243679

Is it the same deal with Dawkins? He seems to be copping so much shit lately but it just seems to be a whole lot of emotive buttmad bullshit

>> No.5243789

>>5243730

So stupid and bad it hurt my brain

>> No.5243836

if you want to be entertained, go and read harris' facebook feed where people are going apeshit about his pro-israel comments.

>> No.5244197

>>5243666
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prWFkt9-HT0

Sam Harris is a punk-ass bitch (hires body guards because he's afraid of the ebil mooslems; after getting called on his casual chauvinism in the above debate, he ran to his blog to cry about how Hedges is a meanie-mean head and he'll never talk to him again). He has never left his comfortable American suburb, but imagines he is somehow an expert on Middle East issues. His attempts at criticizing other philosophers only serves to demonstrate that he has either never read them, or was just too stupid to understand them. His arguments break down to some milquetoast, unexamined utilitarianism which would be completely ignored, if he didn't keep trying to start shit with religious people.

>> No.5244210

>>5244197

>hedges

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118114/chris-hedges-pulitzer-winner-lefty-hero-plagiarist

>> No.5244836

baitalicious