Reddit mentions: The best philosophy criticism books

The book I always recommend people start out with is Sophie's World, not because it's the most in-depth, but because it's the most accessible for a newcomer. It's also the most entertaining I've read. If you want something more in-depth, Russell's History of Western Philosophy is generally this subreddit's big recommendation, although I personally wouldn't say it's a great starting point. His reading of some thinkers is not great, and he's not quite as good at dumbing down certain ideas to an introductory level.

A good summary of philosophy will help you for a couple reasons. One, it will give you enough information to find out what thinkers and ideas interest you. If you're interested in a particular question or thinker, then that's obviously where you should go. Philosophy of religion? Logic? Aesthetics and art? Language? There's plenty written on all these topics, but it can be a bit overwhelming to try and just attack all of philosophy at once. Like any other field, there will be parts of it that click with you, and parts that don't really seem all that appealing. Find your niche, and pursue it. In addition to giving you an idea of where to go, a good overview will put ideas in context. Understanding Augustine and Aquinas will make more sense if you know that they're working with a foundation of the Greek thought of Plato and Aristotle. Descartes wrote his meditations during the enlightenment, and was a major contributor to much of the emphasis on reason that defined that era. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard's existentialist ideas become more powerful when you realize they're critiquing and challenging the technicality of Kant and Hegel. Ideas don't exist in a vacuum, and while you can't be expected to know all the details of everything, your niche area of interest will make more sense if you understand it's context.

As for easier texts that I'd recommend trying out (once you find an area of interest), here's a few that are pretty important and also fairly accessible. These are texts that are generally read by all philosophy students, due to their importance, but if you're just into this for personal interest, you can pick and choose a bit. Still, these are important works, so they'll be very good to read anyways.

Plato - Apology: not terribly dense, but an accessible text in which Socrates basically defends his pursuing philosophical thought. I'd recommend this as an accessible introduction that will get you to feel like philosophy matters; think of it as pump-up music before a big game.

Plato - The Republic: this is arguably Plato's most important work. In it, he talks about the nature of men, politics, education and art.

Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics: a text that deals with leading a life in accordance with virtue. Aristotle's style is a bit dry and technical, but he's also very important.

Augustine - On Free Choice of the Will: a dialogue similar to Plato's in which Augustine argues that the existence of God does not conflict with man having free will.

Aquinas - Selected Excerpts: he wrote a lot, so you don't wanna try reading a whole one of his works. This selects his key ideas and puts them in bite-sized chunks. He's a big Christian thinker, arguing for the existence and goodness of God and related theological concepts.

Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy: Descartes uses reason to prove he exists, along with some other things. Pretty easy to read, although it sparked a revolution in thought, making epistemology a central problem of philosophy.

Kant - Grounding for Metaphysics of Morals: one of his easier works, but it's still one of the more technical works I'm recommending, in which Kant demonstrates that morals are a priori.

Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling: one of my favorite books, Kierkegaard writes about the nature of faith using the story of Abraham and Isaac as his starting point. A huge critic of Kant's obsession with pure reason, he is generally considered to be the first existential thinker.

Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil: Nietzsche is one of the more controversial thinkers in history. Also a critic of Kant, he is one of the most profound critics of religion. This book is one of his more important, in which he talks about his problems of religion, the culture around him, and at times points us in the direction he wants us to go. Know that he doesn't write in a terribly direct manner, so if you choose to read him, come here for assistance. He's a bit different to read, and can be challenging if you're not ready.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and having a good reference to help you along will be very helpful.

For Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Kemp Smith and Guyer/Wood are both good options, but I would recommend the Pluhar translation.

If you want to try to read the Critique, you should first read Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. He wrote it to introduce the project of the Critique, and it does an excellent job at this. It's available in the Cambridge collection edition as part of Theoretical Philosophy After 1781 or on its own.

Secondary literature would also be a good idea. The best reference is Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism. Allison interprets Kant a very specific way on a number of contentious issues. For excellent references which adopt some alternate views, see Guyer's Kant and Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. All of these would be excellent secondary references and of great help in approaching the Critique. Guyer's Kant is probably the easiest read, so might be a good place to start.

For Descartes, you should get the first two volumes of the Cottingham edition called The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. The Discourse is an excellent place to start. With it you should also read The World and at least some of the Rules for the Direction of the Mind; perhaps the first six or so, or more if you find them interesting. These are all in the first volume. After these, you should read his Meditations, which are in volume two.

I've had a lot of long conversations about this, and it really seems to come down to one interesting and important point: the supervillain is the most important role in the relationship and the best ones are those whose motives and goals are heroic but methods are not. Many others have already pointed out something like this, and we're all right. Flawed heroes who do what they can for others (because they can) tend to be the best because they're the most relatable. Best hero? Batman. Best villain? Magneto. They exemplify precisely the traits that make villains and heroes interesting.

My wife actually suggested a book focusing on supervillains to a friend of mine and it ended up working out. I was able to write a chapter on Magneto (of course) and she's still bitter she didn't get a mention in the acknowledgments for suggesting it, but it's a fun read if you're interested (I have no financial stake in your buying or reading this): https://www.amazon.com/Supervillains-Philosophy-Sometimes-Popular-Culture/dp/0812696697

Sartre presented a lecture called "Existentialism and Humanism," which can now be found in print as Existentialism is a Humanism. It's almost like an Existentialism manefesto, per se. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus is a good treatise on existentialism (Absurdism, really, but it'll do).

I would not hesitate to start reading fiction novels that have Existentialist themes. Camus' The Stranger, Sartre's Nausea, and Dostyevsky's Notes From the Underground are just a few that will find your studies well.

As for secondary literature, the only text I can knowledgeably recommend is Existentialism For Dummies, as I'm currently working my way through it. It's actually not as bad as you might think coming from the "For Dummies" series. It doesn't go too in-depth, and ideas are very concise and oftentimes humorous.

I have also heard good things about David Cogswell's Existentialism For Beginners, though I have never read it myself.

If your niece feels comfortable with this level of writing and philosophical examination, it is almost imperative to read Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Fear and Trembling, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, among others. It is good to have some background understanding of Kant and perhaps have a few essays by Schopenhauer under your belt leading up to the more rigorous academics like Heidegger and Hegel.

Good luck, and happy reading!

Aristotle was probably one of the greatest minds that ever lived. He, by himself, created the logical frame work, vocabulary, and entire categories of philosophy and science from the bottom up. He literally, had no shoulders to stand on and created a seemingly logically consistent philosophy and addressed, formulated and expanded upon all of the problems of philosophy that for 2000 years people are still working on.

Aristotle was no Plato, if thats what you're thinking. Aristotle is pretty much in the middle ground of every philosophical debate we have today. He believed in a "first cause" not a god, if he lived today, physics could have been his first cause. He developed a category theory of biology that NEARLY stumbled upon Charles Darwin theory of evolution but Aristotle could not fathom great time lengths. He formulate a "soul" theory that is very much nearly like DNA. Charles Darwin was inspired by Aristotle and its very possible Darwin could have not made the connection without Aristotle. I believe Darwin noted this in his private writings.

The basis of Aristotle's philosophy was that our brains could be connected to outside world through what normally today is call congruence theory by Russel. It has been said Russel was also inspired by Aristotle.

I could go on and on, chemistry, love, justice, biology, physics, DNA. He created this from nothing! He was basically a freaking caveman! Spitfire, I don't know what you've been reading but Aristotle is one of the most, if not the greatest human that ever lived and I am very positive the world would have been very different, in a bad way, if he never lived.

I suggest, no I implore, you to read about this great man. I suggest the book by Christopher Sheilds, Aristotle.

Edit: It was Aristotle's incapability to fathom great time lengths that prevented him from positing a theory of evolution. Because of this, Aristotle comes off more of a deist to some people for the only reason that he was inclined to be skeptical about world without a planner and not just one with a "first cause" because of the ordered appearance of biology. It is clear that Aristotle would have been more of a naturalist with some quality data points like the Galapagos islands (The island that Darwin Observed).

What is it that you don't feel like you understand? It would be helpful if you could ask a more specific question. Hegel uses "consciousness" in the Phenomenology both in the more typical sense (meaning something like "an individual's awareness of the external world and of his/her own thoughts") and as a name for the "protagonist" of the Phenomenology, who progresses from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness to […] to Absolute Knowing. As we read the Phenomenology, we are watching as consciousness (in the second sense) makes a series of attempts to understand itself and its world, and we are watching as each of these attempts fails. Or do you specifically mean the "Consciousness" chapter (i.e., the chapter including the sections on "sense-certainty," "perception," and "force and the understanding")?

I'm not sure what else to add without knowing what, specifically, you're struggling with. As a general rule when you're talking about Hegel's philosophy of mind, it would certainly be helpful to know some Kant--particularly (and kind of unfortunately since it's probably the hardest part of Kant) the "Transcendental Deduction." Kant's ideas regarding the transcendental unity of apperception were hugely important to the post-Kantian idealists, including Hegel.

It would also help to know a little bit about K.L. Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie, and his analysis of representation as consisting in three parts: (roughly) 1) the representation, 2) a relating of the representation to a subject, and 3) a relating of the representation to an object. I think you can detect the Reinhold picture when Hegel says things like, "consciousness distinguishes something from itself and at the same time it relates itself to it. Or, as this should be expressed: There is something for consciousness; and the determinate aspect of this relating, that is, of the being of something for a consciousness, is knowledge. However, we distinguish being-in-itself from this being for an other; what is related to knowledge is likewise distinguished from it and is also posited as existing external to this relation; the aspect of this in-itself is called truth" (¶82).

Knowing some Fichte would be good too; ditto Schelling. Honestly, though, I'm afraid that I might be making reading the Phenomenology seem like an extraordinarily daunting task for which you need to spend years preparing yourself, but that's because your request for help is so broad that I don't really know where to focus my recommendations. The Phenomenology is definitely super hard, but you don't need to have memorized the whole history of philosophy to make any sense of it or something.

As I always do when people ask about the Phenomenology, I'll also recommend that you check out from your library or buy Michael Forster's Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit and Jean Hyppolite's Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The Forster is a great overview of what the Phenomenology as a whole is trying to do, though it won't help much with specific sections. The Hyppolite is a straight-up chapter-by-chapter commentary which you can read as you read the Phenomenology: read a chapter, then read the Hyppolite, then go back and read the chapter again--it's a bit time consuming, but you'll get a lot out of doing that. If you can't get the Hyppolite for some reason, go for either the Stern or the Kalkavage texts that do roughly the same thing.

If you want to respond or edit the OP with a more specific question, then I can try to address that more directly.

Yes. Trust me when I say that you'll need second literature if you are willing to understand one line of, for instance, the Critique of Pure Reason. There are good introductory books on Kant out there that can help you.

If you know almost nothing about his philosophy, I recommend Scruton's or Wood's books that approach his whole philosophy without any details, making it accessible. A good start. At the same time you could give the Prefaces A and B, and the Introduction of the first Critique a try.

For what I call "intermediary literature", there is Gardner's "GuideBook", and having "A Kant Dictionary" by your side would help a lot.

Some might recommend Allison's defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, I think it is great, started to read it some weeks ago, but as well as Strawson's The Bounds of Sense or Heidegger's Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics, it is way advanced.

The most important thing is that you (or any other who is reading this and is also interested in Kant) are motivated, that you don't quit when read at the first time and understand barely nothing. With effort and persistence it gets better.

p.s.: I do not intend to advertise for Amazon, you can read the synopses and reviews and buy somewhere else.

Russel is clearly a great philosopher, but he's very much of a different philosophic tradition than Hegel. Reading either requires a certain framework or point of view since they each approach philosophy in a different way. With that in mind, you're perfectly justified in wanting to avoid Russel when looking for a traditional interpretation of Hegel.

Edit: On topic, Hegel is definitely challenging to understand. The most I could contribute is explaining his dialetic (which it sounds like you already have a good definition of) and a little about his approach in The Science of Logic. But overall I am not too confident, I get the feeling Hegel takes a long time to really grasp correctly.

One book I would suggest, if you can find it at a library would be this: http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Hegels-Logic-Infinity-Philosophy/dp/1557532575

It gives some analysis and a traditional interpretation of the first part of the Science of Logic (if that's one of his works you're studying; it is his main work on metaphysics).

Sorry if my comment appeared flippant. I’m not an expert however so I think you should just google for material. I know of this guide but I cannot verify if it’s good or not. Also there are several companions from several academic publishers on Sartre himself. Use libgen to find these. Also perhaps reading the entry into the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy on Sartre could be helpful as well. Hope this is helpful in someway.

EDIT: Actually definitely take a look at the Stanford Encylopedia entry as it has a bibliography on the bottom that has great resources.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) gets taught very rarely in this department. The department recognizes the need to have a course on Kant's CPR (or, alternatively, on Kant's shorter version of the CPR, his "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics"), but the Maryland philosophy department (a) doesn't have many faculty who work on the history of philosophy, and (b) those faculty who do work in the history of philosophy either do work on ancient philosophy (Rachel Singpurwalla, Quinn Harr, Kelsey Gipe) or on Spinoza and other historical Jewish philosophers (Charles Manekin).

Sam Kerstein of course does work on historical Kant, but Sam's focus and interests in Kant is fairly exclusively directed towards Kant's moral philosophy. This is why Sam teaches a 400-level class on Kant's Groundwork every other year or so.

The upshot is that I am the first person to teach a course on Kant's CPR at this department in many years (6+). I'll probably teach the course again either next school year or, if not next year, then the following year. Unfortunately, that sounds like it might be too late for you (from what you've said, it sounds like you graduate this year).

Fortunately, I would argue that it is better for you to have taken a class on Kant's Groundwork before you graduate than Kant's CPR. Kant's ethics is more important to contemporary philosophy than his epistemology and metaphysics. That being said, I do hope you decide to give the CPR a read on your own time someday or at least read a secondary source on Kant that covers the important content from the CPR in detail.

If you decide to read Kant's CPR on your own, let me recommend some resources. First, I'd suggest you watch the following two videos about Hume and the following three videos on Kant as background (although, unfortunately there isn't a video connecting Kant to Hume through how Kant's CPR is in large part a response to Hume's skepticism):

• Hume's Skepticism 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QpUrSn3cWU
  
• Hume's Skepticism 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPlNsyXl-0c
  
• Kant's CPR 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZtQXteAE-w
  
• Kant's CPR 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQnG0fyEr_w
  
• Kant's CPR 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQnG0fyEr_w
  
  You might want to also read one general secondary source on Kant's whole philosophical system before the CPR. Here are a few suggestions to pick one from - all accessible to a upper-level undergraduate student or graduate student. I am not sure which one would be best to recommend:
  
  
• Paul Guyer's Kant https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Routledge-Philosophers-Paul-Guyer/dp/0415843456/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276067&sr=1-22&keywords=kant
  
• Roger Scruton's Kant: A Very Short Introduction https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Short-Introduction-Roger-Scruton/dp/0192801996/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276050&sr=1-4&keywords=kant
  
• Allen Wood's Kant https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Allen-W-Wood/dp/0631232826/ref=sr_1_27?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276277&sr=1-27&keywords=kant
  
  There are also several specific secondary sources aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that specifically cover Kant's CPR. One of these might be useful to have besides you as you read the CPR for those times you get lost:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Philosophy-GuideBook-Critique-GuideBooks/dp/041511909X/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276632&sr=1-12&keywords=kant+critique+of+pure+reason
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Kants-Critique-Pure-Reason-Introductions/dp/0521618258/ref=pd_sim_14_34?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DTHDDSHZVAW06VE9RC48
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Accessing-Kant-Relaxed-Introduction-Critique/dp/0199275823/ref=pd_sim_14_11?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AZ7XQ4TK2FHQPD91321D

Hi, I'm really glad you've asked! I'm not strictly a Hegelian, but through understanding what he's talking about I've understood what ALL philosophers were talking about a lot more. Especially how it all boils down to time.

I think the best way to get into reading Hegel's Phenomenolgy of Spirit is to read it in unison with Kojeve's "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit". I admit that I would not have been able to understand the Phenomenology of Spirit by just picking it up and reading from cover to cover. It may be availabe at your local library... here's the Amazon page (no referal mumbo jumbo don't worry) so you can see the reviews. Not too thick, either. I just looked on archive.org and the book's not there, sorry. Can't lend you mine, it was burned in a fire. :(

Leo Strauss is a guy who's earned a bad reputation recently, but if you stick to his pure philosophical scholarship and stay away from the ridiculous image which has grown around him, you'll learn a lot about Modernism and the Ancients.

I don't know if you've read Tocqueville, but the idea is: his work on "Democracy in America" is the best political scholarship on liberal democracy precisely because he was on the outside looking in. We are all Modernists, so to get the best understanding of our thought, we should try to look at how the Ancients thought, and look in from there.

Strauss actually argued against Kojeve, on the side of the Ancient philosophers, but some claim that he was in fact a Hegelian himself, just of a different nature than Kojeve. Unfortunately Strauss writes esoterically/exoterically so it's very difficult to get into. If you read the Hegel book and want to go "deeper" into this strain of political philosophy I can let you in on a few secrets... and no the secret is not that Strauss was a Machiavellian, it's completely different than that.

The other two writers who I strongly recommend, who are both in the same vein, are Carl Shmitt and Eric Voegelin. Schmitt is easy to read but is really fucked up -- he makes Heidegger look like a day at the park. Voegelin is inaccessible.

The strain of thought these four political philosophers have which is different from any other philosopher since Nietzche will become apparent with Kojeve's book. If I could state it very simply, it would be that they take the history of Western Philosophy seriously, unlike the "mainstream" which tends to say "OK this is what Artistotle thought, and the reason for this is that he existed within these historical circumstances." It does go much, much deeper than that but I don't want to give it away.

Kojeve's "introduction" is definitely what you're seeking, though. Hope I haven't scared you off.

Kant's most important contributions to philosophy are usually taken to be his ethical system and his epistemological/metaphysical ideas (to what degree transcendental idealism is epistemological or metaphysical is a subject of debate in the scholarship).

For an overview of Kant's philosophy, Paul Guyer's book is well-respected. Kant comes up with a lot of special vocabulary and this text does a good job of going over it.

As for primary sources, the two basic introductions Kant wrote to the types of philosophical investigations I mentioned at the beginning of the post are the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics... and the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.

What is your native language? There may be other sources in that language that would be more approachable for you, and I'm sure at least one of the commenters here would know about them.

Start with this and this. However, the two best books on the phenomenology are this and this. Personally, Quentin Lauer's commentary really helped me get a handle on Hegel and I think it is the best that is published. However, this will be the best commentary when it gets published (in full disclosure I was a student of Houlgate when doing my MA and learned Hegel from him and had access to the manuscript of this text learning a lot from it).

Good luck! It's a little scary how many books have been on sale on amazon.com lately. This is the Kaufmann edition, with an excellent introduction, good translation, and helpful notes: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Good-Evil-Prelude-Philosophy/dp/0679724656/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1492777277&sr=8-2&keywords=nietzsche+beyond+good+and+evil.

I enjoy critiques of intellectuals and learning relations between them. You should also check out The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism by him. Mark Lilla is very similar, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals and Politics and The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Of course philosophers and politics would be very lacking without Isaiah Berlin Also Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: The Thinkers of The New Left is very good. Lastly The Opium of Intellectuals of Raymon Aron is a must-read classic.

From what I've heard, Walter Kaufmann seems like the best Nietzsche translator.

Here is his translation of Beyond Good and Evil.

/u/MaceWumpus or /u/Snietzschean could give you a better answer than I, if they don't agree with me.

A pretty good book, available at Amazon. Before Ryan disappeared from the web he made it freely available, and that edition (via the Way Back Machine) is what I've linked to. I don't believe there are any differences between this and the published version.

Note that he's a little -- um -- weird; he attacks Rand from the position of an objective idealist, a style of philosophy that I don't believe curries much more favor with modern philosophers than objectivism itself. It's a great book mostly for pointing out the gaping holes in her arguments (and showing where she simply did not understand the arguments of those she attacked).

I would love this Zelda Philosophy book! Used of course. Thanks for the opportunity!

I usually recommend secondary sources to help, and fortunately there's an enormous body of secondary literature to help you navigate through Kierkegaard. I thought Jon Stewart's book on Kierkegaard was pretty readable, and it covers the key themes of his work. You might also check out John Caputo's How to Read Kierkegaard. If you want to start digging deeper, check out a Cambridge Companion, or just go check the SEP entry.

That's not true. He was referring to people like Heidegger and Paul de Man, left wing European intellectuals who were nazis and then became heroes to the new left and post modernists. Insinuating that anybody you disagree with is an anti semite or racist is a stalinist tactic of ziofascist neocons and establishment liberals. Richard Wolin has written about the phenonomena of nihilist, anti enlightenment, anti capitalist, and anti science romanticist European intellectuals who were first nazis and then whose ideas were supported in America by post modernists.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Seduction-Unreason-Intellectual-Postmodernism/dp/0691125996

http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Postmodernism-Skepticism-Socialism-Rousseau/dp/0983258406/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375668152&sr=1-1&keywords=stephen+hicks

http://www.amazon.com/Deconstruction-Literature-Criticism-after-Auschwitz/dp/0874515661/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375668256&sr=1-6&keywords=david+hirsch

http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Enlightenment-Tradition-Zeev-Sternhell/dp/0300135548/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375668499&sr=1-3&keywords=zeev+sternhell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Enlightenment

The two intellectual movements Molyneux was referring to. Supported by European intellectuals like Herder, Heidegger, and Fichte.

If this is of any help, Simon Blackburn is good at writing introductory texts and has contributed to the "how to read" series with the book "How to Read: Hume" which can be found here.

This gives you an idea of what order you may want to approach his ideas in and would be good to accompany the original texts.

The answer to that is a little complicated because Aristotle's use of "form" is different than Plato's. However, I'm pretty rusty on the specifics of Aristotle's metaphysics, so in an effort not to screw it up just to sound smart I'll just point you toward a couple sources that I find useful.
This series is pretty good for in depth introductions, and this one in particular is very readable.
This is a slightly more academic text, but it's highly regarded. Sorry I can't be of more help.

> I often discuss my general thoughts on life with my psychiatrist/psychologist and according to them I have inadvertently appropriated the mindset of Frederick nietzsche, despite never reading his work or anything, and I have been described as a nihilist fairly frequently.

This is very interesting. Nietzsche is one of my all-time favourite thinkers, and his message is often misunderstood as being nihilistic, whereas in general he is actually opposed to nihilism and suggests a path toward overcoming it. He certainly understands the drive toward nihilism though; he himself was crippled with multiple ailments to the point where he had to go on the 19th century version of "disability" (he received a pension from the university he taught at after retiring early due being unable to continue teaching). In the end he had to dictate a number of his later works since he couldn't even read anymore. He knows a lot about suffering, and yet still offers a message of hope and progress toward something better. I can't really recommend him enough, this might be a good place to start if you're interested.

> As a disabled person I've been told I'm not allowed to work, even voluntarily part time, or I lose my benefits.

It's really too bad that governments make it difficult for disabled people to make progress. My partner's brother has epilepsy and a bad back, and is thus unable to work in most jobs for which he's qualified, and is in a similar position. The aim should be to enable disability pension recipients, but unfortunately bureaucracy sometimes gets in the way. I can understand how this might make a person pessimistic toward the future.

> I guess it may not be western society as a whole, but it's marginalisation of people that don't fit the mould that have caused my sociopathic behaviour (well, and me, I'm definitely a constant factor).

That's right, it seems to be an unfortunate aspect of human nature that people who don't fit comfortably in to predetrmined categories are often marginalized for no good reason. There might be another factor involved in the sociopathic behaviour as well (and this is what I'm driving at), and that is, the sociopathic behaviour. It's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy where doing what you feel in deep down is wrong might actually make you more nihilistic, because somewhere in your heart, you know that there really are values worth holding on to, even if you determine these values for yourself.

Embarrassing Edit: Whoops. I was talking about this book. :|

First half was pretty good. Gets into 'the philosophy of art' mode far too easily for me.

But it was quite fun to find out that I agree and disagree with several interpretations of other fans about songs and albums.

I'd say pick it up.

Well, the gold standard is the 2 volume Oxford translation:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Aristotle-Vol-1/dp/069101650X

But the logical works are in a separate volume from the ethics and metaphysics.

Hackett is generally good too - this volume seems to have exactly what you're looking for:

http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Introductory-Readings-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872203395/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418606074&sr=1-1&keywords=hackett+aristotle

EDIT: Based on the Amazon reviews, these might be better alternatives to the Hackett edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Selections/dp/0915145677/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_i

http://www.amazon.com/New-Aristotle-Reader-J-Ackrill/dp/0691020434/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418606837&sr=1-2&keywords=ackrill+aristotle

Haven't read it but this looks pretty interesting

Since everyone keeps asking.

I got mine at a used book store a few years ago. It really is quite deep.

You guys might enjoy these, too: Final Fantasy, Doctor Who, Star Wars. I used to work at a bookstore and the "_____ and Philosophy Books" were some of my favorite to recommend to people.

Well, in very short terms, Kant considered space (and time) to be a formal condition of human cognition. Formal in the sense that it is the constant, unchanging form of otherwise ever changing perceptions. However, space is not a property of things in themselves, in other words, things in themselves have no spatial (nor temporal) properties. Think of space and time in Kant as a framework we add to the world in order to make it comprehensible. Furthermore, Kant believes that space is a priori (but, particular) and his proof of space being a formal condition of human condition can be found in Transcendental Aesthetic at the beginning of CPR if I remember correctly. There you will find he argues among other things, there is only one space and we could imagine space without objects, but not objects without space.

Here is an example off the top of my head, mind you I don't know a whole lot about non-Euclidean (or Euclidean in fact) geometry. Now if there were to exist some sound non-Euclidean view of geometry, say for example Riemannian geometry, that would allow for say wormholes to exist and this account would be radically different to that of Euclidean or Newtonian (and in some respect Leibnizian) views of space Kant accepted, you can probably see how this would undermine his position if it were a favoured view. It would perhaps allow for four-dimensional space-time to be bent and loop back on itself, therefore not being as linear (in case of time) as Kant argued it is.

I personally feel Kant was heavily influenced by Euclidean geometry and Newton's theory of space. Especially Euclidean geometry which he believed to be complete and unquestionable (for the most part at least), so much that he used it often in describing and arguing his fundamental philosophical ideas such as those of a priori judgments and obviously transcendental character of space and time as formal conditions of our cognition. Any account of geometry that would prove Euclidean geometry wrong or simply insufficient could therefore possibly object to Kant's "system" as you understandably put it.

I hope this brief and very informal interpretation of mine will help you frame the problem and understand why it exists in the first place (provided I am not mistaken in my understanding of Kant, of course). However, I am afraid it would not help you much if you didn't already, or don't currently study Kant, in which case I would direct you to Jill Vance Buroker's Introduction, Korner's Kant, and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Prolegomena. Links provided are of purely informative nature so you could see if your department's library has a copy or find them online; both have chapters or sections devoted to time and space, but I would advise reading the preceding chapters on Kant's critical project if you are not already acquainted with it. They may look daunting, but what you seem to need them for should not take up more than fifty pages in each.

To mention just one secondary source-I'm just about finished with Reginster's The affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. It's excellent both for the way it engages prominent interpretations of key concepts in Nietzsche's philosophy and for the defense of its own thesis about the problem of nihilism and reevaluation of values. http://www.amazon.com/The-Affirmation-Life-Nietzsche-Overcoming/dp/0674030648

I keep Radiohead and Philosophy in my bathroom. It's part of a series of pop culture "philosophy" books, and it's really just a collection of articles relating their music to philosophical ideas. It covers a little bit of everything through In Rainbows. Some articles are definitely better than others, not really a book to read from front to back in one sitting.

https://www.amazon.com/Radiohead-Philosophy-Happier-Deductive-Popular/dp/0812696646

Edit: Here's the entire list of those pop culture philosophy books if anyone is interested. Seems to be one for everything.

http://www.opencourtbooks.com/categories/pcp.htm

If you are interested in understanding Hegel, I recommend reading Kojève. He makes Hegel somewhat more intelligible.

I'd recommend utilizing some secondary literature as well. Angela Coventry has a good introductory book as does Simon Blackburn (but his is specifically for the Treatise).

this helped me out when I was in a similar position regarding Kant's work. You can find these nifty little introductory books at Barnes and Noble; the topics vary, but they are all good reads when you've got an hour or so to sit down with one.

OK I've been looking up left fascism and this is really fascinating.

This book especially:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Seduction-Unreason-Intellectual-Postmodernism/dp/0691125996

"or, better, one of those introductory books that begin with a short overview of the primary material that follows the intro."

Just to clarify for myself - you are talking about those books that explain the core concept of the book before the actual book begins, right?
As of right now, I have two books I would like to buy that deal with Nietzsche: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0631226540?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_6&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
and
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674030648?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_2&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Do you think I should only get one of them and then as a second book a book by Nietzsche with that introduction by someone else that explain the core idea briefly?

Richard Dien Winfield’s lecture course on the whole Phenomenology is excellent:
https://archive.org/details/LectureCourseInHegelsPhenomenologyOfSpirit

Stephen Houlgate’s reader’s guide to the Phenomenology is accessible and clear:
https://www.amazon.com/Hegels-Phenomenology-Spirit-Readers-Guides/dp/0826485111

For a first class, that's some heady reading. You might want to look at Kojeve's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, at least the first couple pages. He is easier than Hegel, and his reading was extremely influential for 20th Century philosophy that concerns Hegel.

Hopefully someone more versed in Sartre will be able to help you out. But based on my studying him at undergrad, the idea is that what's special about the for-itself is that it's able to think of things that don't exist (nothingness), and imagine possibilities for itself that aren't realised. So, I as a conscious human can imagine myself being other than I am, for example, as flying through the air even though I'm sitting. A stone, though, an in-itself, doesn't have this gap between what it is and what it can think itself as being.

So then I'd want to say 'nonself-identical' just means something like 'has consciousness and thus lacks any defined once for all essence because is able to contemplate alternate possibilities for itself' and 'internal negation' is the distance between oneself considered as in-itself and as for-itself brought about by this ability.

But I'm not a Sartre expert, and also personally I think looking too hard for precision here is a mistake. The textbook we used (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Dermot-Moran/dp/0415183731) wasn't too complimentary about Sartre's technical ontological skills, and I agreed with it, though you might check out https://www.amazon.com/Sartres-Being-Nothingness-Readers-Guides/dp/0826474691 and https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Jean-Paul-Sartres-Nothingness-Reprint/dp/0226096998/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JZ8S92AXKWP0FC21AAB7 for more sympathetic readings (I haven't read the former but guess it's good).

Kant's a hard read due to the structured state of his language and how this translates. Harder than most.

If you really wish to jump in, I recommend the following from the various attempts that I've taken at reading and understanding all of it properly:

http://www.amazon.com/Kants-Critique-Pure-Reason-Introductions/dp/0521618258

http://www.amazon.com/Kant-Metaphysics-Cambridge-History-Philosophy/dp/0521566738

http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Metaphysics-Morals-Immanuel-Kant/dp/0023078251

Reading Kant on your own would be difficult, especially without a concrete understanding of the philosophers who preceded him. My advice would be to start with shorter texts of his - such as his essays "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" and "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" - in order to get a feel for his style, and also to read and listen to introductions from experts:

• Geoffrey Warnock on Kant [1][2][3][4][5]
  
  
• Kant: A Very Short Introduction, by Roger Scruton
  
  
• Hegel on Kant
  
  
• Michael Sandel of Harvard: Introductory lecture on Kantian Ethics
  
  
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Kant
  
  With that being said, I would start with "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals" if you're interested in Ethics and "Prolegomena" if you're interested in Epistemology.

I’m a fan of starting with the Categories, then De Interpretatione, Posterior Analytics, parts of the Physics, then Metaphysics, De Anima, Ethics, and the rest according to your interests. But I’m not sure how much it matters. I started with Ethics and Metaphysics and then went backwards.

Translations matter, but most things written after the 1970s are decent enough. It’s a rookie mistake to think the unclarity comes from the translation: 9/10, it’s in the Greek itself! You have a good question about individual words, but it’s only a problem if Aristotle was actually systematic about using his terms consistently, and it’s not at all clear that he does that.

I can’t see what you linked to, but my thoughts are that you should spend some money (to force you to commit to reading it) if it’s not a big deal. If it’s between this and eating, though, obviously don’t sweat it!

Fine and Irwin’s Aristotle Anthology might be a good place to start. I’m not sure it’s better to start trying to rigidly complete whole texts than to look at key chapters to see the basic picture first: https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Selections/dp/0915145677

If you do want to know about Kant, first try: 'Kant: A Very Short Introduction' - Scruton -- 150 pages, $10, good summary.

Not sure about the specific concepts you're having a problem with, but I found Kojeve extremely helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Reading-Hegel-Lectures-Phenomenology/dp/0801492033

Introductory texts are always useful. In fact, there's a series called "How to read..." for various philosophers, which usually try to be as straightforward as possible. Here's the Kierkegaard one: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Kierkegaard/dp/0393330788, think there's a Nietzsche one too. There's also the Routledge guides which are really good and more complex than the "How to read" series, but really you should be able to find loads of introductory texts which suit what you need.

This one?

It's alright, an interesting read but a lot of time the author just seems to be saying things for the sake of saying things, their music really doesn't have to go incredibly deep. Parts where he talks about the deeper meaning of Creep for a chapter is pretty painful to read.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "modern." If, however, you are not excluding non-living philosophers, Alexandre Kojève was heavily influenced by Hegel. If you are interested here is a link to a book containing his lectures on Hegel.

I don't think we're exchanging gifts this year. We live together and money is tight trying to open a retail business together. In the past, some of the gifts I have given him include: a watch from Fossil, a Game & Watch game (huge portable video game fanatic), a game boy light with a Japanese Game Boy cartridge of Link's Awakening, an Ocarina, a briefcase, and Starcraft II. One year on Valentine's Day while we were in an LDR we exchanged the same exact book. The only thing that sucks is I will be out of town celebrating Christmas with my family for 5 days. I fly home on Christmas night. I'm really looking forward to December 25th.

I searched for 'books refuting objectivism' and there seemed to be several articles / webpages, but also this for sale at Amazon.

Suggested reading materials for compiling your course:


http://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Philosophy-Astonishing-Argument-Blackwell/dp/0470413409

http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Philosophy-Knight-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470270306

http://www.amazon.com/The-Avengers-Philosophy-Mightiest-Blackwell/dp/1118074572/ref=pd_sim_b_4/178-6318707-9774312

http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Philosophy-Reality-Blackwell/dp/0470482184/ref=pd_sim_b_3/178-6318707-9774312

http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Philosophy-Rorschach-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470396857/ref=pd_sim_b_8

http://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Philosophy-Inquiry-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470575603/ref=pd_sim_b_9

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Philosophy-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470575573/ref=pd_sim_b_13

http://www.amazon.com/Superheroes-Philosophy-Justice-Socratic-Popular/dp/0812695739

http://www.amazon.com/Supervillains-Philosophy-Sometimes-Popular-Culture/dp/0812696697/ref=pd_sim_b_7

http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychology-Superheroes-Unauthorized-Exploration/dp/1933771313/ref=pd_sim_b_12

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674030648?pc_redir=1409149865&robot_redir=1

Most if not all of the ideas in my post are from the book Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. It explores these ideas in much more detail including relevant ideas from Schopenhauer and Kant.

What works are collected in the Selections book you mentioned? Is it this book: https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Selections/dp/0915145677 ?

Is this the book you will be using?

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Good-Evil-Prelude-Philosophy/dp/0679724656

Amazon'd and purchased: http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Philosophy-Therefore-Popular/dp/0812696549/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344458007&sr=1-1&keywords=legend+of+zelda+philosophy

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Good-Evil-Prelude-Philosophy/dp/0679724656/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1503428516&sr=8-2&keywords=beyond+good+and+evil

Only thing that comes to mind:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Zelda-Philosophy-Therefore/dp/0812696549

I see your evidence, and interject with my 100% conclusive proof that there is still hope

Maybe some excerpts from Roger Scruton's "Kant: A Very Short Introduction".

https://www.amazon.com/Radiohead-Philosophy-Happier-Deductive-Popular/dp/0812696646

No question get this. He'll love it.

"Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality" is one of the few serious attempts at criticizing Objectivism: https://www.amazon.com/Objectivism-Corruption-Rationality-Critique-Epistemology/dp/0595267335

House and Philosophy

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Batman and Philosophy

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Watchmen and Philosophy

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The Office and Philosophy

Star Wars and Philosophy

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X-Men and Philosophy

The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy

Family Guy and Philosophy