Monthly Readings: Suggestions

If you want really short there's always Is Justified True Belief Knowledge by Gettier.

Or for something a little longer, What is it like to be a bat? by Nagel.

Reply to Michael Good suggestions.

Quoting jamalrob

P.M.S. Hacker

:-O

That has to rank as one of the worst possible names in the history of history.

Nothing against the guy/gal, but seriously... that reads like a cruel joke by his/her parents.

anyway... I'll vote for this one just because of the name. NO matter how frustrating the debate could be, one can always smile when seeing that name. :D


I'll try to over come my dyslexia and maybe participate. I haven't dealt in the world of academics for a long time, so if my rather casual language can be abided, perhaps I can rant a bit too.

Meow!

GREG

btw... I sure hope I haven't voted for a relative of J. Random Hacker!

"Embodiment or Envatment?" sounds interesting. I read about three quarters of the last one, and I found it quite boring. That's not so much a criticism as an admission that it just didn't appeal to me.

Quoting Sapientia

I read about three quarters of the last one, and I found it quite boring. That's not so much a criticism as an admission that it just didn't appeal to me.

The Markus Gabriel one? I read some of it too and found it pretty interesting.

The Hacker one (despite the name!) already has my vote. Hopefully this time I'll have time to get involved.

It might be good to offer some options in ethics and political philosophy too, because they're usually popular. Any ideas?

A philosophy of language suggestion:
Reality without reference - Davidson.

Quine is always fun to read, and his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and "On What Is" have alot to be discussed in them. Otherwise, some other, more left of field ideas:

Michel Bitbol - "Ontology, Matter and Emergence" (on emergence and causation): http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4006/1/Emergence1.pdf

Ed Casey - "The Element of Voluminousness: Depth and Place Re-examined" (phenomenology of depth) - https://philosophydocuments.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/13-element.pdf

Judith Butler - "Merely Cultural" (a defense of cultural analysis): http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/geography_methods/readingPDFs/butler_merely-cultural.pdf

Stanley Salthe and Gary Fuhrman - "The Big Bang and the Second Law" (On causation, cosmology and thermodynamics): http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/18/36

Ray Brassier - "Concepts and Objects" (On Realism and Conceptuality): http://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ray-brassier-concepts-and-objects.pdf

Claus Emmeche and others - "Levels, Emergence, and Three Versions of Downward Causation" (as per the title) http://www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/coPubl/2000d.le3DC.v4b.html

Reply to StreetlightX I like the look of the first two and the Brassier, and Quine's a good idea too.

Quoting jamalrob

The Markus Gabriel one? I read some of it too and found it pretty interesting.

No, sorry, I meant 'The Extended Mind'.

Quoting shmik

Reality without reference - Davidson.

Ooh, another one I think I'd like to read, and possibly discuss, at some point.

Reply to Sapientia Oh right, I see. Fair enough.

Quoting Sapientia

Ooh, another one I think I'd like to read, and possibly discuss, at some point.

Personally that's the one that appeals to me least among those mentioned. But once we have a couple more suggestions, including one on ethics, I'll create a poll and if the people want Davidson, I'll read Davidson.

Quoting Michael

If you want really short there's always Is Justified True Belief Knowledge by Gettier.

Or for something a little longer, What is it like to be a bat? by Nagel.

By the way, I didn't include these because I thought something longer and meatier would be more suitable. And my guess is most people have read the Nagel and could discuss it in any old thread.

I changed my mind in the end and went for the Davidson, which was ahead last I looked.

The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics, H. H. Pattee. I always struggled to understand what the hell Apo was going on about, but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about and recommended this paper for us fools to read. I thought we could give it a go, if only so we could tell him what a condescending shit he is from a position of knowledge.

HOW TO DEFINE CONSCIOUSNESS—AND HOW NOT TO DEFINECONSCIOUSNESS, Max Velmans This is a pretty simple paper which nevertheless makes some really important points.

Quoting bert1

The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics, H. H. Pattee. I always struggled to understand what the hell Apo was going on about, but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about and recommended this paper for us fools to read. I thought we could give it a go, if only so we could tell him what a condescending shit he is from a position of knowledge.

This is a great idea; I similarly struggled to understand his posts but liked a lot of what he had to say. I'll add it to the list for December. The other one looks good too. For this month, the people have spoken and it looks like it's Davidson.

Hello! Suggestions for next month anybody?

Mine: Iris Marion Young - Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality

How about "The Intentionality of Intention and Action" by John Searle?
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15516709cog0401_3/pdf

I didn't realize there was a thread for this. I'm just reposting what I posted in the December poll as a resource.

Peter Singer -- The Solution to World Poverty
http://www.unc.edu/courses/2009spring/plcy/240/001/The_Solution_to_World_Poverty1.pdf

John Hospers -- What Libertarianism Is
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/pp/B%20%20%20NO%20PUB/B2%20%20%20Right-Libertarianism/Hospers%20-%20What%20Libertarianism%20Is.pdf

Kai Nielson -- A Moral Case for Socialism
http://businessethics.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2012/01/Nielsen.pdf

James Sterba -- Liberty Requires Equality
https://philosophynow.org/issues/110/Liberty_Requires_Equality

Garrett Hardin -- Lifeboat Ethics
http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/course/research/lifeboat.pdf

Judith Jarvis Thomson -- A Defense of Abortion
http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/Zola/Thomson.Abortion.pdf

Don Marquis -- Why Abortion is Immoral
http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/45.marquis.pdf

Peter Singer -- All Animals are Equal
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/singer.pdf

Paul Taylor -- The Ethics of Respect for Nature
http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil3140/Taylor.pdf

Reply to Moliere Awesome, thanks. Might be useful to have titles as well as just links though :)

Reply to invizzy Fixed. I added them.

The Quest for Being, Sidney Hook. The essay, that is, in the book of the same name.

OK. I admit I reference it only because the word "Being" appears in the title, so I figured it might have a chance of being selected. But in all honesty I don't think those who consider "Being" an object of study and discussion will like it.

Derek Parfit's "Why anything? Why this?"

Part 1: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this

Part 2: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this

Found a very interesting article, about twenty pages in total, regarding the metaphilosophical question of what even is a philosophical question. Can philosophy be carried out? Are open-questions unanswerable? What is the nature of a philosophical question? What is scientism today?

http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/publications/pdf/wiapq.pdf

Good schtuff.

Any more? We need to set up a poll fairly soon.

One more: GEM Anscombe - Modern Moral Philosophy

(Y)

That time of month again! Some suggestions:

Gottlob Frege - On Sense and Reference
Christine Korsgaard - Skepticism about Practical Reason
Judith Butler - Can One Lead a Good Life in a Bad Life?
Karen Barad - Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism Without Contradiction

Some more suggestions (all available online):

John McDowell, Avoiding the Myth of the Given
John Haugeland, Pattern and Being
Susan Hurley, Varieties of Externalism
Andy Clark, The Twisted Matrix: Dream, Simulation or Hybrid?
Michael Thompson, Apprehending Human Form

Many earlier suggestions would also get my vote.

Peter Sloterdijk - Rules for the Human Zoo

It's fairly accessible, entertaining, and created a huge stir in German when it was released. It's intentionally provocational but still quality stuff (kinda like the philosophical equivalent of a Lars Von Trier film.)

Quoting csalisbury

It's intentionally provocational but still quality stuff (kinda like the philosophical equivalent of a Lars Von Trier film.)

Off topic (and spoiler): I only saw Von Trier's Dogville, and watched it two or three times. I was quite moved by it, emotionally, but also intellectually. The final pitch from Grace's father to her, in his car, about "arrogance" seemed to me, in light of the previous unfolding of events that furnished context to it, thought provoking and pregnant with philosophical implications about freedom, determinism (of the social conditioning sort) and moral responsibility. Maybe I'll start a thread on that eventually.

Quoting StreetlightX

Michel Bitbol - "Ontology, Matter and Emergence" (on emergence and causation): http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4006/1/Emergence1.pdf

I would likely endorse that too ;-)

Also down with that Bitbol piece.@Pierre-Normand I only saw dogville once when I was 17 and trying wayyy too hard to immerse myself in highbrow culture (prob to escape the psychological fallout of a comfy middle-class to food-stamps-might-not-even-cover-us-this-week slide). I liked it a lot then because it felt necessary to like it a lot but nothing stuck in memory. I really wanna see it now when i might *actually* appreciate it. In any case, I'd heartily reccomend Melancholia, Antichrist, and Nymphomaniac vol. 1 ( vol 2 is so-so but 1 is greeeat. It feels in some ways like a cinematic take of W.G. Sebald's prose style (who I'd also heartily reccomend.)

Hey @Pierre-Normand, I'm thinking about putting the Haugeland reading on there, but does it require familiarity with Dennett in order to read? Might it be worth putting Dennett up there instead?

Having read most of the Haugeland piece, I don't really think the Dennett piece *must* be read ahead of time. Also, the Dennet essay is much harder to find online. I really like the Haugeland essay.

Reply to StreetlightX Haugeland's Pattern and Being was first published in the volume Dennett and His Critics, before it was reprinted in Haugeland's Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. But it really stands on its own. Dennett was dubious at first, if I remember, but then, when he reviewed Haugeland's volume of essays, and saw the paper in a broader context, he commented approvingly, on the lines of: 'I now see what you mean, this is indeed what I always have been recommending myself -- objective perception is an achievement'. Haugeland's core original insights didn't seem to leave a discernible mark on Dennett's subsequent thinking about the mind, though.

There is one standalone piece by Dennett that is both available online and that is quite recommendable. This is his sharp critique of Harris' Free Will.

For further months:

J. P. Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism
Michel Foucault - What Is Enlightenment?
Daniel Dennett - Intentional Systems Theory
Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference
John Searle - Minds, Brains, and Computers
George Lakoff and Vittorio Gallese - The Brain's Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge

U. G. Krishnamurti - Mind Is a Myth

Quoting The Great Whatever

U. G. Krishnamurti - Mind Is a Myth

Whoa, I went and read some of that. Pretty extreme stuff. Would make for an interesting conversation.

David L. Anderson - What is Realistic about Putnam's Internal Realism?

Quoting Michael

David L. Anderson - What is Realistic about Putnam's Internal Realism?

I wouldn't mind discussing that. But it's worth noting that Putnam has, meanwhile, distanced himself significantly from his earlier accounts of "internal realism" -- enough so to even repudiate the label. He has rather come to endorse a form of pragmatism, though of a different form than the social institutional pragmatism endorsed by Rorty and Brandom.

Reply to The Great Whatever
U G's a fraud. Yeah he didnt peddle snakeoil feelgood spiritualism - and good on him for that - but he tries to portray himself as this dude who realized the vanity of quests for truth and didnt even care about propagating his message - people just came to him! - but then dictated his "swan song" which reads like dimestore cioran spiced with buddhism. Dude loved his persona and loved ppl having trouble with it.

Reply to csalisbury I think that the power of UG lies in his straight up calling people like Jiddu what they were, hacks and frauds. I think the phrase 'jokers and bastards' should be canon. Reading UG woke me from a sort of dogmatic slumber, and I now think a large number of philosophers in the West are 'jokers and bastards' in his sense of the term, and that Westerners are enthralled by the 'genius' of hacks like Kant and Wittgenstein just as Easterners are enthralled by the 'enlightenment' of hacks like Jiddu.

Kant didn't promise enlightenment. Nor did Wittgenstein. I have my problems with both thinkers but at least they're interesting. UG just isn't very interesting. The hypocrisy of wisdom-peddlers is interesting, the first time you come across it. Calling out people for being 'jokers' in interesting the first time you meet a no-holds-barred straight-talking dude. My very close friend is a lobsterboat fisherman and his colleagues are strictly no-bullshit and you like them for it. But the ideas get old really fast.

Cioran had very well-styled hair - like Schopenhauer - and wrote very lyrically about how hard it was to deal with the pain of thought. And how beautiful it is to deal with the pain of thought. But after a certain level of exposure, Cioran gets to seem a lot like a suburban kid in a band who sings about how hard his well-cut peacoated life is. Sorry Cioran, seems tough. But you already made your point in the first 1000 words you wrote. Why go on? Why go on UG? The suspicion is they go on because, cold and bold as they are, they cant do without people talking about them. My hunch is UG resented J Krishnamurti's success. Which isn't to say I buy into J's ideas. It's just painfully obviously that UG has a bone to pick.

There's a hilarious Cioran quote where he talks about seeing Samuel Beckett on a park bench and he's just in awe of how much he seems to be suffering. You can feel the jealousy. UG seems to have the same lyrical attachment to suffering EC does, just in an eastern register. And it couldn't be more boring.

Quoting csalisbury

Kant didn't promise enlightenment. Nor did Wittgenstein.

Forgive the contradiction, but they absolutely did. It is apparent from their writings that they saw themselves as exalted -- Kant as a historic 'Great Man' who would culminate metaphysics, and Wittgenstein as a solipsistic genius figure.

Quoting csalisbury

I have my problems with both thinkers but at least they're interesting.

I think their insipidity is hard to get to because of the mystique surrounding them. Part of it comes from the refusal to consider the possibility that you might be talking to a 'joker and bastard;' the assumption is that if they were mistaken, they were nonetheless 'deeply' so, their profundity being assumed.

But if you read Kant as a diluter of better minds, regurgitating more radical and interesting philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, to make them palatable to mainstream Christianity, everything he says makes more sense. And if you read Wittgenstein as a man with mental illness, ditto.

Quoting csalisbury

Cioran had very well-styled hair - like Schopenhauer - and wrote very lyrically about how hard it was to deal with the pain of thought. And how beautiful it is to deal with the pain of thought. But after a certain level of exposure, Cioran gets to seem a lot like a suburban kid in a band who sings about how hard his well-cut peacoated life is. Sorry Cioran, seems tough. But you already made your point in the first 1000 words you wrote. Why go on? Why go on UG? The suspicion is they go on because, cold and bold as they are, they cant do without people talking about them. My hunch is UG resented J Krishnamurti's success. Which isn't to say I buy into J's ideas. It's just painfully obviously that UG has a bone to pick.

I don't really feel like I have to defend Cioran, because I agree he lacks substance, even if he was sometimes a great writer. Maybe UG also wasn't a great thinker -- but then, neither was Kant or Jiddu, and UG has a kind of humor and honesty most people don't.

ha, well I can agree with Wittgenstein as a guy with mental illness. (Have you ever read Thomas Bernhard's The Loser? ((An analogue of )W's the loser) It's brilliant and pessimistic and very funny. I honestly think you'd like it. )

Reply to csalisbury No, that sounds fun. I am taking a break from 20th century writing for a while, though, at least the 'real literature' stuff, and reading fantasy, epics, and religious texts for a while, to get into worldbuilding and lore over psychological and self-indulgent stuff. I will put it on a list, but sometimes I never get to things on these lists...

I want to write a high fantasy novella / Gnostic fairy tale!

duuude write it! what fantasies/epics/religious texts have you been reading?

Reply to csalisbury Bible, Iliad, Gilgamesh, Gnostic Gospels / Apocryphon, and I'm starting LotR and after the Worm Ouroboros. I also read A Song of Ice and Fire, but it struck me 'modernist' by high fantasy standards.

There are also a couple of 'modern Gnostic' books I want to look into, like the Illuminatus! trilogy, but that's more pomo (a long time ago I had an interest in chaos magic and Discordianism, which seems to be in the same vein). I like the connection between actual myth and 'fictional myth,' including parody myths, which is in a way what high fantasy is -- and I'm trying at the same to to go through Borges in the native Spanish, which is making the desire for mythmaking fresh for me.

Reply to The Great Whatever The Illumintatus! trilogy is a little too cutesy for my taste. It feels like having a conversation with an aging hippy you meet at a bar and he's just so sure his style and anecdotes are gonna dazzle you but it feels like he's done this routine a million times before. It's just too slick. In terms of pomo gnosticism, I'd recommend P.K. Dick's Valis and his Exegesis. The Exegesis is endlessly fascinating (and explicitly gnostic). Dick obviously passionately believed in the truth of his 'revelation.' Wilson ---idk, he feels a bit opportunistic.

I'm envious about reading Borges in the original though. Have you read Calvino's Invisible Cities? It's got a Borges feel but is also its own thing.

Reply to csalisbury No, I haven't. I'm looking at the wiki page on it, it seems interesting. Reading is just so hard though. And yeah, Borges is kind of my standard, not only the mythology, but the use of terse academic prose to hint at painful underlying realities. Even if Illuminatus! turns out to be cute as you put it, I still feel like it's part of my education to read it. No luck with anyone getting interested in my writing yet, but I feel like sometimes reading things you don't completely like is still a necessary part of the job, and I want to work actively at being better at it (and free up the schedule by reading a lot less philosophy!)

Where are your comments on Schopenhauer? Or did you give up on them because you realized it was hopeless?

Reply to The Great Whatever ha no still planning on responding re: schopenhauer. Just havent had the time to do it right. Its a delicate thing.

Reply to csalisbury No it's not, quit stalling. Unless he intimidates you (which is why you have ot insult his hair).

Reply to Pierre-Normand Do you know where he explains his change?

Quoting Michael

Do you know where he explains his change?

Renewing Philosophy, HUP, 1995, and The Threefold Chord, Columbia UP, 2001 provide useful statements of his mature philosophy.

The book Hilary Putnam, Cambridge UP, 2005, by Yemima Ben-Menahem also likely is useful but, although I own it, I haven't read it yet.

Reply to Pierre-Normand Thanks

Has a decision been reached on what we are to read? I hate when I read the wrong thing because I was only half way paying attention.

Reply to Hanover The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Quoting Hanover

Has a decision been reached on what we are to read? I hate when I read the wrong thing because I was only half way paying attention.

The reading for February was Pattern and Being by John Haugeland, but the conversation hasn't quite left the ground yet.

It's about time we had a reading. I've looked through this discussion and chosen three that appeal to me and which I haven't read:

Peter Sloterdijk - Rules for the Human Zoo
https://rekveld.home.xs4all.nl/tech/Sloterdijk_RulesForTheHumanZoo.pdf

Michael Thompson, Apprehending Human Form
http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/wittgenstein/files/2007/10/ThompsonApprehending.pdf

GEM Anscombe - Modern Moral Philosophy
http://www.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/mmp.pdf

Anyone up for it? Any more suggestions?

Those look like a good selection to vote between to me. Let's do a poll.

Cool. Trying to rustle up some enthusiasm first. The more people the better. And after scanning the Anscombe I've kind of gone off it. I'd like to do something by MacIntyre but all I know of are his longer works. A reading group for After Virtue would be great, if anyone is interested. With all the ethics on this forum and the old PF, I'm surprised he hasn't come up more often.

Anyway, in the meanwhile I'd like to see a few more essay/paper suggestions.

I vote for Anscombe.

I like the look of the Sloterdijk. I'll have a look for something else to add. If anyone else has a paper on their mind, now is the time.

On Bullshit - Harry Frankfurt

Reply to Baden Perhaps a combined reading with The Art of the Deal? ;)

Reply to jamalrob >:)

I'm up for a read, 'How moral agents became ghosts' could be the Macintyre option.

Reply to mcdoodle Looks good, but I can't find an accessible copy of it.

Reply to ????????????? That last one looks like a good contender.

So here's a potential list for the poll:

Peter Sloterdijk, "Rules for the Human Zoo"
GEM Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy"
Harry Frankfurt, "On Bullshit"
Otávio Bueno, "Is Logic A Priori?"

Any more suggestions?

Maybe less democracy. Just schedule them and people will read them?

Reply to Mongrel It's a cunning plan. The democratic charade makes people think they've made a decision even if their choice doesn't win, and once they've made suggestions and voted, they feel more committed to taking part. I'm just manipulating the masses for the greater good of the Forum. >:)

More seriously, I very much doubt the previous readings would have been as successful without the formalities.

Another way to do it could be to set up a permanent group dedicated to reading something each month, and once you're in the group, you gotta do it. And members would take it in turns to choose the reading material. Come to think of it, that's kind of like a regular reading group isn't it?

Democracy is a religion. Voting is a religious ritual. I saw that somewhere. Cult of the individual.

The US constitution allows the president to become a temporary dictator during wartime. Is that how European countries work also?

I think we should read the Constitution of the European Union. That would be cool.

Quoting Mongrel

Democracy is a religion. Voting is a religious ritual.

It's more fun though. I think that's why we we're doing it. Anyway, ain't broke, no need to fix it (unlike real democracies!).

Reply to Baden Fine. On Bullshit, then.

Quoting jamalrob

Any more suggestions?

You just believe that because... Roger White

Reply to shmik Cool, I'll add it to the list and do a poll soon.

Don't take the Thompson paper (Apprehending Human Form) off the list please! It is a masterpiece: accessible and deep. The Anscombe paper would be my second choice among the texts proposed so far. Here is another suggestion:

Don S. Levi, Determinism as a thesis about the state of the world from moment to moment, Philosophy, vol 82, issue 3, 2007.

This paper exposes determinism as an incoherent doctrine owing to its reliance on the idea of "the state of the world at a time" and the uncritical acceptance of the assumptions that underlie this idea (both regarding the nature of time and the allegedly complete determinacy of the "states" of material things). The paper makes use of telling examples and isn't technical.

It can be read online with a free subscription to Jstor.org, or people can send me a private message.

Reply to Pierre-Normand Okay PN, Thompson's back in.

Krishnamurti - Life ahead
For anyone who's ever had a doubt on the education of the modern age. What should a proper education be like? Just give the first 20 pages a try, your whole mind will be filled with questions.

P.S. : i'm just a fan. the real K is long dead
http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Jiddu-Khrisnamurti-Life-Ahead.pdf