Books to read

robeiae

Touch and go
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
46,262
Reaction score
9,912
Location
on the Seven Bridges Road
Website
thepondsofhappenstance.com
One of my favorite subjects within the general fields of this forum is the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Especially with regard to his support of National Socialism.

As far as deconstructionist theory goes, I enjoyed this book immensely:

Historical Destiny and National Socialism in Heidegger's "Being and Time"

I think Fritsche is flat-out wrong in a number of ways, but it's a great read and very well researched, imo.
 

ColoradoGuy

I've seen worse.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
6,696
Reaction score
1,534
Location
The City Different
Website
www.chrisjohnsonmd.com
sunandshadow said:
I assume others are invited to recommend books too? If so, I would suggest

Simon O. Lesser's Fiction and the Unconscious

as an excellent book to introduce someone to the idea that fiction carries out social and psychological functions.
Sure, by all means. If we round up enough folks interested in any one book we could do a roundtable about it as a separate thread, either in the Book Club forum or in here. I don't think anyone posting in the more general Book Club forum would be interested in a specialized book like that, but it would depend on the book. If there's interest, I'll poll the other mods about the issue.
 

Deleted member 42

For a short, readable and not too jargon-laden introduction to literary /critical theory:

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. University of Minnesota Press; 2nd edition (November 1996). *



* AW Amazon Affiliate Link
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Higgins

Banned
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
4,302
Reaction score
414
Some POMO history of Science

And don't believe the Uchicago site blurbage for the first one: there is a lot of POMO
concerns that have been a big help in the History of Science.


Here's my bibliographic notes from another thread:

(see for example:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bi...i/00/15864.ctl

and such things as:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bi...cgi/00/757.ctl

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bi...i/00/13281.ctl

And this (all about reading and secret identities):

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14098.ctl

)
 
Last edited:

cooltouch

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
59
Reaction score
6
Location
Bubba City, TX
Website
michaelmcbroom.com
Okay, I've just started reading this book, and though it's not specific to the topics here, I think much will be applicable:

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Any book that quotes Hobbes before the tenth page must have something going for it...

Did anyone else read it?

Thanks for the link. I was unaware of Pinker's latest. I've read both The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works. My linguistics specialty is quite a bit different than most -- the biolgical origins of language and the evolution of language in humans, and because of this, Pinker was an early influence in my research. We even corresponded briefly as I was doing some of my graduate research.

I disagree with Pinker on a few things -- for one, I'm not a Chomskyite, and he is. But for the most part, I find myself in agreement with what he has to say.

Reading through the publisher's blurb and some of the comments regarding the above work, to me what he is expressing is just basic common sense. Way too many people believe that, for some strange reason, humans do not have instincts. This attitude amazes me. For example, the only way language acquisition makes any sense at all is if it is treated as instintive behavior.

Best,

Michael
 

Homewrecker

Intranational Mystery Woman
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
86
Reaction score
16
Location
Northern Idaho
Website
www.nwhellcats.org
I just recently read "Metaphors We Live By" by Lakoff and am struggling through Wittengenstein's "Philosophical Investigations."

The listing for Victorian Sensation rang my bell. Gonna have to grab a copy of that.

Thanks for the links.
 
Last edited:

ColoradoGuy

I've seen worse.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
6,696
Reaction score
1,534
Location
The City Different
Website
www.chrisjohnsonmd.com
Welcome to AW and our little corner of it. Robeiae is our resident Wittgenstein groupie, and most mentions of the name will draw him from his usual lair over in Office Party and Politics and Current Events.

In my crude understanding of these things, for Wittgenstein it was all about language, and most philosophical discussions were actually linguistic ones. So we can only think about things we can talk about. I see his point, but the mystic in me doesn't like it much.
 

Homewrecker

Intranational Mystery Woman
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
86
Reaction score
16
Location
Northern Idaho
Website
www.nwhellcats.org
Oooooo that sounds great. I'm relatively new to linguistic & phil of lang and don't feel very conversant in it yet. I will have to be tho' as part of my thesis will involve metaphor analysis. That being said, I'll probably be lurking here alot.
 

robeiae

Touch and go
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
46,262
Reaction score
9,912
Location
on the Seven Bridges Road
Website
thepondsofhappenstance.com
Welcome to AW and our little corner of it. Robeiae is our resident Wittgenstein groupie, and most mentions of the name will draw him from his usual lair over in Office Party and Politics and Current Events.
Old Chinese curse: may you always get what you ask for...

In my crude understanding of these things, for Wittgenstein it was all about language, and most philosophical discussions were actually linguistic ones. So we can only think about things we can talk about. I see his point, but the mystic in me doesn't like it much.
A good book to get started with Wittgenstein is this one:
Wittgenstein's Poker

It's a story about an argument between Karl Popper and Wittgenstein. The substance of that argument--more than anything else, imo--is why Wittgenstein infuriates so many and appeals to so many.

Welcome, Homewrecker.
 

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
20,322
Reaction score
3,513
Location
Transcending Canines
Firstly I've got two book titles to contribute to the thread (links to Amazon with reviews and such):

The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett
I found this whole book rather mind-blowing. Perhaps most applicable to this forum were the stories about robots - it's been a while since I read it, but one story describes a robot (not an android, but a mechanism moving on the floor like a Roomba) as if it were a living thing, and (I vagely recall that) another describes living things as "mere machines." The writing was effective at manipulating one's emotions enough that I can't give it a proper description here. This was influential for me many years ago when it was first published - I really need to reread it.

How Real Is Real? by Paul Watzlawick
This was a bit mind-blowing too (I read it more recently), but what I mostly liked was the first half of the book - the second half seemed to be going a bit afield of whatever the first half was about.

Also today I reread this thread:
"Privileged language, Register, and Humor (split from "A Little Support" in TIO)"
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82442
and I recall that there was a long thread started by Shweta from several years ago which was an informal but academic discussion of "language theory" or some such. Does anyone know what I'm talking about, and where that thread is? I read most of it here on AW earlier this year (there was a more recent thread that had a link to it), I hope it's not gone. That thread was a bit like a book itself.

In the above "Priveleged Language" thread, someone mentions that the words (epithets) are loaded , and that brings to mind a whole separate topic about which I'll start a new thread. Meanwhile, keep the book titles coming...
 
Last edited:

LaceWing

Banned
Flounced
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
2,212
Reaction score
272
Location
all over the map
Introducing Postmodernism, Totem Books, ISBN 1-874166-21-8

Better than mostly just talking about it, this book demonstrates its subject as well. It got me oriented to the topic.


From the back cover --
What is postmodernism? As we enter the 21st century, here is a graphic guide to the maddeningly enigmatic concept used to define our cultural condition.

Post modernism claims that "modernity", which grew from the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and Marxism, has collapsed. We now live in an endlessly "contemporary" culture full of contested meanings, parody, pastiche and cultural cross-over. This is a virtual world of "hyperreality" containing such strange phenomena as post Holocaust amnesia, Disneyland, cyberspace and Fukuyama's proclaimed "end of history".

Introducing Postmodernism, written by Richard Appignanesi and illustrated by Chris Garret, traces the pedigrees of postmodernism in art, theory and history, and takes us on a roller-coaster ride through structuralism, semiotics and deconstruction in the company of postmodern icons such as Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan and Lyotard. It is a crucial guide for anyone fascinated or exasperated by the hall of mirrors that is postmodernism.
 
Last edited:

dgiharris

Disgruntled Scientist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 24, 2006
Messages
6,735
Reaction score
1,833
Location
Limbo
I loved Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Was an interesting perspective on attaining enlightment.

That coupled with Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and I think you will have an interesting take on life the universe and everything :)

Mel...
 

Jt/Js

Temporarily discombobulated
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 18, 2008
Messages
58
Reaction score
4
Location
A lab that's cold enough to have it's own wind.
Okay, just to put my two cents in...

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

I've found it fascinating and it's definitely one of my favorite books. It's classified as a book on philosophy because it explores the use of logic in day-to-day life, the objective versus subjective, and the unifying element referred to as "Quality," which gives "meaning" to the decisions (both conscious and subconscious) we make. It just really makes you THINK. But I would suggest reading it a couple chapters at a time to digest it properly, instead of trying to read it all in one go.

Alrighty then, my two cents are in...oh dang now I don't have enough for the vending machine! ^_^
 

Popo Agie Flow

stream of consciousness
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
287
Reaction score
8
Location
Atlantic City, Wyo.
Website
www.minersdelightinn.com
Here's another a little out of the norm, nonetheless worthy.

Meditations on Hunting, Jose' Ortega y Gasset, Wilderness Adventures Press, Bozeman, MT, 1995

Gasset used hunting as a way to weave the act of being human throughout his thoughts. Genius.
 

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 17, 2005
Messages
4,827
Reaction score
336
Location
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Website
home.comcast.net
Interesting book I just read, The Midnight Disease by Alice W. Flaherty. About the drive to write, writer's block, hypergraphia, temporal lobe epilepsy, and bipolar disorder.