Socrates, Plato, Sartre, oh my...

Starrfall on 25/10/2009 at 16:05

This is still the best Sartre work: (http://www.martysmith.com/sartre.htm)

Also anytime you're looking for stuff originally written in a language you don't read, it's probably worth looking around to try to find out what translations are considered to be the best.

Namdrol on 25/10/2009 at 16:20

Quote Posted by MrDuck

...eastern philosophy...

If you want a very basic introduction to Buddhism you can't go far wrong with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's "What Makes You Not A Buddhist".
It's deep enough to engage but it doesn't demand a lot of background knowledge.

"Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness" by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamsto is a very good introduction to the topic of "emptiness".
Which is the topic upon which Buddhism rests.
(Although every school has its own interpretation and much blood has been shed in arguing who's right.)

For more hardcore discussions on emptiness try -

"Introduction to the Middle Way: Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Commentary by Jamgön Mipham"
or "Maitreya's Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being"
Although be warned, these last two are not for the faint hearted.

The Oxford University Press do a superb series of primers covering lots of philosophers, ideologies etc.
The series is called (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/24385/series/VeryShortIntroductions/~~/Ym9va0NvdmVycz1ubyZwZj0wJnByPTEwJnNkPWFzYyZzZj1mZWF0dXJlZCZzcz10aXRsZS5hc2Mmdmlldz11c2E=) "A Very Short Introduction"
and I can recommend the one on Indian Philosophy, (only one I've read).

Mr.Duck on 25/10/2009 at 19:07

Frag - Amen. Is that something he wrote or just a fitting poem? :)

Mandy - I remember -that- link from ages ago...I think you were the one that posted it. V. funny, specially since I've peeked into Sartre a bit and get the lols better ;). True, nothing helps like fiddling about to see which one's the best translation.

Namdrol - Oooh...thanks for the imput! I remember some illustrated books by an asian artist (can't recall if Chinese) that talked about zen, taoism and such in comic book format with little stories.

Good stuff guys, thanks a bunch :)

snowcap21 on 25/10/2009 at 20:08

Why not take your time and keep on reading Plato for longer? I don't think that one understands necessarily more if one reads many different authors, but then it always takes me awfully long to develop a feeble idea what those philosophers want to say with their texts.

For a personal recommendation: Spinoza's Ethics, maybe combined with Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy by Deleuze - that was really interesting and worth all the time I spent with it (although I have forgotten most of it to tell the truth, but I remember it fondly)

frozenman on 25/10/2009 at 20:28

Quote Posted by ercles

Herman Hesse, baby. Although Narziss and Goldmund had a profound impact on me personally, I've been blown away by every book of his I've read (Steppenwolf, Glass Bead Game, Sidhartha). Truly makes me wish I could speak German well enough to read the originals, because his prose is incredible.

While I'm a big fan of Hesse, and I'm pleased to see someone else who has read The Glass Bead Game, I don't quite know if I'd consider his works in any sense philosophy, but at the same time some of his works are so potent it feels strange to call them fiction. Narcissus and Goldmund is just beautiful though, and I really enjoy the three lives of Knecht at the end of the Glass Bead Game. I feel Hesse's novels are all portraits at various scales of some universal humanism, whereas often philosophy concentrates on the mechanics of things that make us human...I don't know if that statement holds water.

demagogue on 25/10/2009 at 21:14

I think the most inclusive but still honest way to define what's a philosophical work is if it's offering a postive answer, or a method to get to an answer, to a standard philosophical question (not an answer they take by faith, but something they argue for in a positive way) ... what is time, space, & self; what is free will & do we have it; what are the categories of stuff in reality; what is knowledge & how (far) can we trust it; what's the right standard for moral or noble behavior, or for organizing society; what is the cosmological origin, nature, and ultimate end of the universe; etc. (That doesn't mean they're doing philosophy well, or that people doing other things aren't important to it; but I think that's the line for actually doing philosophy.)

I think works that are religious or scientific or economic or literary can still be philosophical too if they're engaging those category of questions in that way ... So I'd say Augustine was definitely doing philosophy (but not Luther); Einstein & Heisenberg were doing philosophy when they framed their theories as an answer to some of those questions (but not Rutherford); Ayn Rand and Amartya Sen were (are) doing philosophy (but not Hayek). Hesse and Dostoyevsky and Kafka, guys like that, I don't think are doing philosophy, but their works are relevant to it. Derrida and Foucault and guys like that I don't think are doing philosophy, but work relevant to it. I think Camus and Emerson did it some in their essays, Sartre definitely, Nietzsche definitely.

Fragony on 26/10/2009 at 12:08

Quote Posted by MrDuck

Frag - Amen. Is that something he wrote or just a fitting poem? :)

Fitting poem, was made by an English infantrymen during WW1, he woke up and noticed his best friend died, it always reminds me of Sartre.

Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved,- still warm,- too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

'Was it for this the clay grew tall' has to be the greatest line I have ever heard, what's our purpose if there is nothing but mysery. This disgust of meaningless is really dripping from his Nausea, he's kinda walking in the fog and than it really gets to him. Many times copied, never equalled.

Also read the Sade by the way, it's not as evil as it seems, he was actually disgusted by the excesses of violence during the aftermath of the French revolution.

Mr.Duck on 26/10/2009 at 19:11

Sad, yet touching.

And yes, I've read some Sade...he usually makes me chuckle :D

demagogue - so everyone has their fingers, or whole hand, in phylosophy, eh?

Morte on 28/10/2009 at 08:39

I'd suggest Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. It 's not perfect, but it gives you a decent oversight of things, plus his writing is really accessible, and he's got a sharp sense of humour.

Insertnamehere on 28/10/2009 at 11:23

Terry Pratchett:p