Primary Sources
I've spent some time gathering together primary sources from across the internet and I've managed to organize a virtual library. It's not as large as the Internet Archive or some other treasure troves of the web, but it is organized, ad-free and has a general focus on philosophy. I figured that I would share it here because it may be a valuable resource for people interested in philosophy or even the humanities in general.
There are certain books that are essential to an education about the human condition of which I believe should be available for free and with easy access to everybody. I have gathered together some of the most influential writings of the world in an attempt to both preserve and foster easy access to these works. Each e-book on these lists is in PDF format. I have organized them by topic (many topics intersect) and the last name of the author.
https://antilogicalism.com/primary-sources/
There are certain books that are essential to an education about the human condition of which I believe should be available for free and with easy access to everybody. I have gathered together some of the most influential writings of the world in an attempt to both preserve and foster easy access to these works. Each e-book on these lists is in PDF format. I have organized them by topic (many topics intersect) and the last name of the author.
https://antilogicalism.com/primary-sources/
Comments (16)
Interesting! Thanks for sharing your resources and data. Appreciated. I have one question. Why did you choose call it antilogicalism then?
Understandable! I will check it out deeply.
I have just spent about an hour on your link and will go back to it again as I think that it is excellent. You have put so much hard effort into it and I am very impressed.
There is a website in England, "Forgotten Books": [i]Forgotten Books is a London-based book publisher specializing in the restoration of old books, both fiction and non-fiction. Today we have 1,271,513 books ...[/I] I've perused a small fraction of their list and downloaded a few. Many of these books were forgotten because their content was far too narrow to survive (lists of graduates from the local college or meeting minutes of obscure organizations for example). Some of these books were stale to begin with and didn't improve with age. Still, the site is worth visiting (or not, depending on one's interests).
How many of the books on your list have you read or sampled? This isn't a hostile question. I too would include Gibbons' History of the Roman Empire, even though I have only sampled it and have no intention of ever reading it. So much scholarship in Roman Empire history has been done since the late 18th century.
If you had to list 5 or 10 books that were seminal in your intellectual life, what might they include?
I just logged onto the 'Forgotten Books' website which you mentioned. I found it to be fascinating, as a way of gaining access to reading many rare books, and I have downloaded a few. It has some interesting esoteric ones. The philosophy ones are useful too. The only thing which I struggle with is working out which are dated and those which are relevant for all times. What I mean is the some aspects of psychology and philosophy seem to be based on models which are out of line with current science, whereas others seem to have ideas which are applicable universally. However, I do think that certain ideas which have a forgotten may still be worthwhile exploring.
Thanks for sharing it Bitter! I going to check it out. It looks like so interesting and the list is huge :100:
I guess I'm the type of person who likes to collect books, but never gets around to reading them all. Most of what I have read on my lists would be the "canonical" texts of Western philosophical and religious tradition. If I had to list a few of the most influential on my own worldview it would have to include certain books of the Bible, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.K. Chesterton, Keiji Nishitani, and probably some of the other "existentialist" thinkers.
I have an old page here that kind of goes through my first 7-8 years of self-study: https://antilogicalism.com/my-journey/
I want to make a page for the Harvard Classics next.
You are putting together a fantastic site. I appreciate it, and I am sure that many others do too.
I recently got the Harvard Classics page up: https://antilogicalism.com/primary-sources/harvard-classics/