What Philosophy Books are you currently reading?

[Eye4Knowledge]

The final book of the Mishima "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy: The Decay of the Angel. Non-fictional philosophy, i.e Hesse's "Siddhartha".

Beautifully written and filled philosophically and logical battles of self and surrounding, past and present.

The tetraology is about a reincarnating spirit, and the childhood friend of one of the reincarnations, that seems to keep coming across the reincarnation every time it reincarnates (which is 3 times so far).

[Lomax]

Just finished Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. It's kind of an endless list of conjecture about why we approve or disapprove of certain things; not one of his better reads. Since he concludes all good things to be approved on account of their utility, I'm surprised not to see him more regularly cited as a utilitarian.

[BorisOfTerreHaute]

Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness
Daniel C. Dennett
http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Dreams-Philosophical-Consciousness-ebook/dp/B001C4TEEQ/ref=sr_1_6_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309488119&sr=1-6
Dennett's mind is a world treasure. :D


And:

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
Russell Shorto
http://www.amazon.com/Descartes-Bones-Skeletal-History-Conflict/dp/B004JZWLZY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309488230&sr=1-1
Descartes's work: the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the 19th century's scientific explosion, 21st-century battles between faith and reason.

[Lomax]

Today I read Descartes' Principles of Philosophy.

The book has improved my opinion of the author - unlike his previous major works, it's terse and clearly written (finally justifying Russell's description of his style as "easy and unpedantic), and laid out in the systematic style of Spinoza's Ethics or Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Descartes spends much less time on the dubious method of Cartesian doubt, and much less time grovelling to the church (he was already living in Orange by this time). Descartes no longer contends that Dubito Cogito Ergo Sum is an epistemological first principle, and his mind-body view is much less dualistic, admitting of a two-way causal relationship.

The physics is somewhat outdated (as is to be expected) although chapter 2 part XIII is an interesting precursor to the relativism not popular until after the Michelson-Morley experiments.

It should be noted that Principles is a bit of a misnomer; like the Meditations, it's more of a catalogue of his philosophical positions, rather than principles.

On the downside, the book offers little in the way of new material - most of his thoughts are unchanged from the Meditations - and it serves, as ever, as an example of the arbitrary positions a philosopher can get into without adopting a thoroughgoing empiricism in his investigations.

[Forest_Dump]

I thought it might be worthwhile mentioning and recommending C. Geertz (1973) "The Interpretation of Cultures" since I am rereading it at the moment.

I would consider this to be philosophy since it covers a lot of the topics that come up in PCF from the origin of human cognition and culture, politics, religion and ideology. The book is actually a collection of essays mostly written in the 1960s so granted it is a bit dated but Geertz certainly read and considers the old classics from Aristotle to Freud but also includes a lot more cross-cultural material so he is far less Eurocentric than most of the older guys. Well worth a read still.

[BorisOfTerreHaute]

Descartes:
who played a huge role in giving us the Scientific Method, but also entrenched in philosophy the falacy of mind/body dualism.
As with all things, you get the bad with the good...

[Lomax]

This week I read George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. The first half of the book is witty and amusing, and details the conditions of the working class in the 1930s. I always think that the best case for socialism can be made simply by observing the conditions for the working class in times when there were little or no socialist policies; for this reason, the first half of the Road to Wigan Pier makes a good companion to the second half of Marx's Capital (vol.1).

The latter, more controversial half of Orwell's book provides an insight into his autonomous form of socialism and his dissent from popular socialist currents; however, it reads like a long rant, and is as difficult for its poor style (in Orwell's defense, he didn't get time to second-draft the book because he went to fight in a war) as for its challenging content.

[the_stoic]

"A course in Miracles" is a thought provoking book. It gives instructions on how to view all things in the present, not the past. It is built to fit with a religious mind, but it's student workbook can make you wonder about your own existence.

[britt_1a]

The life you can save by Peter Singer

Focus on ethics, of people have to put on their mind that are obligate to donate to ones that never had the possibilities you're environment gave to you.