Genealogy of Morals - Nietzsche Three Critics of the Enlightenment - Isaiah Berlin Truth and Predication - Donald Davidson Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - Wittgenstein Parerga and Paralipomena - Schopenhauer (Schopenhauer does not hold back here) Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason - Kant I'm sorry, I couldn't name just one.
I had a similar experience with the Philosophical Investigations--in an undergrad seminar we went paragraph by paragraph. That was a threshold experience for me, changing not only my appreciation and engagement with philosophy, but changing the way I thought about thinking.
Hey Jared. What a great video. I especially like the fact that you included Nietzsche’s "The Gay Science" in your list. I just recently finished that book and you're absolutely correct that it’s a great work. What I admire about Nietzsche’s books is that it often shatters our comfortable and self-assured convictions (which we think are self-evident). And you're correct that his philosophy is actually quite upbeat and positive. Thank you also for the suggestions you made on Boethius. I intend to read that. Although I'm not a theist, I deeply admire Kierkegaard who was a devout Christian. I am surprised "Fear and Trembling" or "Either/Or" did not make your list, but that's OK. 😊 By the way, I totally agree with what you said in this video about utilitarianism and kantianism. Personally, I'm not a follower of virtue ethics but I am fascinated by Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations (which I love). I'm sure you've covered him as well at some point. Many thanks again for your passion and work. Keep it going. Cheers.
I studied Philosophy for my Bachelor's and Master's as well, and the book that got me started was Bertrand's Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. I'm not saying it's one of the 'best philosophy books ever', just saying it's a great way to start.
Totally disagree. Bertrand Russell was a better than good mathematician, but absolutely obtuse as a philosopher. He misunderstood both ancient and modern philosophy. Thus, (compare Whitehead) Russell's take on Republic was that Plato was a "garden variety fascist". Similarly, Wittgenstein reportedly laughed at Russell and his esteemed UK university colleagues (GE Moore) by reckoning that none of them understood a word of Wittgenstein's thinking. @@WombatGamesChannel
@@geoffreyfaust3443I gotta agree with you. It was universally recognized during my entire philosophical career as an undergrad, a grad student, and eventually a philosophy instructor, that Russell’s work in the history of philosophy was just one bad take after another.
Hey Jared! This is my favorite video of yours so far. While your commentary on the books was great, the insights about transitioning out of academia that you interweave into the discussion were the most helpful. I am ABD in a humanities PhD program and am looking at transitioning away from academia as I write my dissertation part-time. Hearing your own reflections on grieving the loss of a career in academia, while also integrating your experiences and education into a new path forward is super helpful and encouraging. Keep up the good work and excellent videos!
I took intro to philosophy as a humanities elective in undergrad. I really enjoyed the class. Fast foward 20 years, and I'm working in IT, and I have taken a few free online philosophy courses that I really enjoyed. In a way my journey has been the opposite of Jared's journey. I envy Jared being able to study philosophy at a university. Life is short and a person should follow their passions as best they can. For me that means reading a snippet of the Nicomachean Ethics before bed each night. Thanks for sharing your knowledge in a welcoming fashion.
I studied history and philosophy and then history. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals was like dynamite to my very way of thinking. Working through Nietzsche is like iconoclasm to philosophy, from where we have to once again build up an understanding of the world. In a way I think it made me more receptive to my later study in history. I had a similar but different experience with Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (though I only read about half of it). There is an essay by Alain Badiou on Nietzsche which perfectly distills this sentiment
One of the things that helped me with Hegel most was a book called “Hegelianism: The Path toward Dialectical Humanism” by John Toews, which traces Hegel’s thought first in its own context and then in the context of dialogue with his students. It somehow was both one of the most lucid renditions of Hegel’s thought in terms of how vital it was in its own time, and one of the best treatments of German intellectual history between Napoleon and 1848 I’ve ever read.
One of the most beautiful things I ever read was Boethius’ Consolation in the Latin. Granted, my Latin was okay and it was tough, but it’s just incredible in the original.
Also loved the Philosophical Investigations and Treatise on Human Nature. I studied some narratology in my degree and Bakhtin's work has always stayed with me, particularly The Dialogic Imagination.
Interestingly I have all the books you cite. Künne’s brilliant Conceptions of Truth arrived a few months back. It’s difficult to prioritise although if I do then, like you, the teaching experience that embedded the works will help. But in no order: • Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Bounds of Sense, P.F. Strawson. • The Good & The True, Michael Morris. • Naming & Necessity, Saul Kripke. • Complete Works, Aristotle, esp. Metaphysics & Nicomachean Ethics • Treatise of Human Nature, Hume. • Continuants, David Wiggins. • Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans. • Phénoménologie de la perception, Merleau-Ponty. • Éssais, Montaigne.
Great info, Jared. I always asked my professors what philosophers they enjoyed the most when I was studying philosophy. You should continue on with the phil stuff; maybe some videos based on your dissertation. G.E. Moore (Principia Ethica) and RM Hare (Moral Thinking) was about as close as I got to the analytic philosophy stuff.
Always pains me to hear about people struggling through the Phenomenology as their introduction to Hegel. The transcripts of his lectures aimed at students have so many more example and context that make them more approachable and imo also have a lot of the most interesting and useful aspects of his philosophy. There’s really good histories on German Idealism like those from Beiser and Pinkard that give a really rich picture of all the discussions that happen between Kant and Hegel.
No phenomenology of spirit is the only acceptable book people need to understand that deep down all philosophy is as complicated as phenomenology of spirit
@@gerardlabeouf6075Haha in a sense yes, Hegel does get at some of the fundamental complicated problems underscoring what most philosophers uncritically accept.
Great video Jared! As a novice wanting to read more philosophy (I studied linguistics as an undergrad but took a few philosophy classes - on existentialism, modal logic, and philosophy of language - as electives) there are definitely some here I want to check out!
I read Nicomachean Ethics in college (or university idk what's the equivalent), ever since I've loved it and I think about it once in a while. And it's not even hard to read.
Thank you for mentioning the analytic influence. As someone interested in the continental side of things I have to say Anti Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari. Just a groundbreaking work and super interesting. Super polarizing too- some love and and some think the work is the scum of the earth
I'm taking my first philosophy class this semester, political and social philosophy, and in order to get an A you need to read an extra book from a long list and write a paper on it. Pretty much at random I picked Macintyre's Dependent Rational Animals. I haven't had much of a background in philosophy, just things here and there but I also was very attracted to virtue ethics and found his approach to them in this book appealing. A few days ago I had a conversation with my professor and apparently he had him as a teacher when he was a philosophy student.
Just recently discovered your channel and so far it is truly helpful so thanks a lot for your work. I've started to have an interest in Philosophy so I have been searching for books to get. So far I'm starting with The Enchiridion by Epictetus followed by Marcus Aurelius Meditations as I feel they are nice to begin with and not too complicated but any other suggestions are always welcomed. For my 3rd and 4th book hopefully Platos Republic and Platos 5 Dialogues as others have stated that they could be a bit more challenging. I do have a bit of knowledge on the subject as I took a course back in College although definitely want to gain more insight. I know there are many varieties as well but I think I will prefer to stick with the Ancient Philosophers as I find it more fascinating in general. Anyway apologies for the long comment just wanted to give some overview. Appreciate the channel.
Great list! I was enthralled by the existentialists in the early years of my philosophy undergrad. Albert Camus- The Stranger and Jean Paul Sartre- Nausea are still among my favorites, as is Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell was a great aid during my time as a T.A as well.
I found The Stranger kinda childish particularly the last part where he grabs a priest to yell in his face all his atheist hangups. Reminded me of something a teen would come up with for his novel, no subtlety. Sartre was on the other hand more mature but I didn't read his fiction just Existentialism is a humanism.
The stranger & Nausea are such good books. Nausea really stuck with me , I really need to read more of Sartre. Also Camus, The Plague. I think Camus had such a great understanding of the human condition.
@@NTNG13 Really I felt it was the character just leaving it all out, at a world in which it is so hypocritical and judgemental of anything or anyone who isn't seen as " normal" in the eyes of society. That's what's great about books everyone gets something different from them.
I was trained as an undergrad and grad in analytic departments. As an undergrad, these are the works that, not necessarily my favorites, but floored me for various different reasons: Ockham’s Summa Logicae; Peter Geach’s Logic Matters; Plato’s Euthyphro; Nagel’s Moral Luck paper; Chisholmes’ Problem of the Criterion paper; and both Frege’s and Russell’s stuff on sense, reference and definite descriptions. As a grad student, you actually have to do philosophy and that’s when Descartes Meditations, and especially Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, just blew my mind. Also, Cathrine Elgin’s work In ontology really affected me, too. I suppose I should also say that Blackburn’s quasi-realism seriously confounded me, even up to this day.
Took a grad seminar on Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit. Discovered two things after the 1st week and 300 pages of reading: Firstly, Hegel was way more of a bad-ass than I ever thought; secondly, I needed to go back and do Kant all over again.
Jared's list is: 10. Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit 9. Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations 8. Frege - Foundations of Arithmetic 7. Boethius - On the Consolation of Philosophy 6. Crispin Wright - Truth and Objectivity 5. Nietzsche - The Gay Science 4. Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature 3. Augustine - Confessions 2. Alasdair MacIntyre - After Virtue 1. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Good afternoon. I just wanted to thank you for your channel. I have hesitated about applying to the Open University to study a Philosophy module as I worried I might struggle. Your posts have helped me understand the ideas behind philosophy and so this March I will be signing up for the module. I will also be rewatching a lot of your posts to help me when I begin studying. I must admit my favourite posts on your channel has to be philosophy and science fiction, those posts I find the best and I do hope there will be more in the pipeline, maybe a post on philosophy and movies as well. Before I begin in October the OU have suggested two books: Think by Simon Blackburn and also Plato’s Crito. Have you read either of them? Thanks again Jared and may your channel continue to grow
Don’t stress too much man! Just read what you want and learn to think methodically and slowly. Philosophy isn’t the thing you study for or repeat, you just get it or you don’t; if the latter, you reread and discuss until you get it. Enjoy the ride!
I like Jared's list. I wanted to definitely second Nietzsche's The Gay Science. It's an easily overlooked book by Nietzsche (compared with, say, Genealogy of Morals or Zarathrustra). One of my all-time favorite quotes is in the second aphorism in Book One (on how most people lack what he calls an inttellectual conscience): ""[T]o stand in the midst of this . . . rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing--that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody." I have a merely tangential relationship to a formal study of philosophy, I have to admit (my background is in English Literature and Theory). I sometimes joke that my life was ruined at age 12 when I "accidentally" read Plato's Republic because I expected that high school or college would approach this same level of intellectual engagement (wow, was I disappointed!). Next, the college I attended (University of Washington) had a program called Comparative History of Ideas. Their introductory course featured Plato's Republic, Augustine's Confessions, Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality," and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents (I probably should have majored in this topic, but trying to explain to my parents what the hell "Comparative History of Ideas" felt a little intimidating compared with just "English"). (Based on watching Jared's video, I was reminded of how influential Augustine might have actually been on me since my dissertation was about how stories affect our perception of time.) I think that my personal list would be something like (in no particular order): * Zhuangzi * Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus * Wittgenstein, Phiosophical Investigations * Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" and other works * Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Appartuses" and other works Although I don't know that they're on my personal list, there are several works I find myself thinking about often such as selected essays by Montaigne, Discourse on Method by Descartes, Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, or various works by Adorno. I've been on a big Spinoza kick lately, but I mostly read secondary works about him as I find reading the primary text very challenging.
Great video! Wasn’t familiar with the #2 pick. Would love to see a video on virtue ethics, why you think deontology doesn’t work, and why utilitarianism is bankrupt. My picks would be: Euthyphro, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Problems of Philosophy, and Either/Or.
In my Phil class when we covered Hegel, I didn’t really buy the sauce he was selling with the whole “human evolution ended with Christ” deal; that God becoming Man was the pinnacle of humankind and everything after is meaningless. And then when we had to write a paper in class for the Phenomenology of Spirit, something just struck me like lightning. It just clicked and I had a pure stream of consciousness flow trying to simplify Hegel’s arguments that just worked. It was like I blacked out like Will Ferrel in Old School and nailed it. It’s one of my all time favorite “flow” moments of my life But none of it stuck. So you’ve inspired me to go back and try to catch lightning again :D
Haha I had a similar moment in paragraph 358. It’s the first time a whole system of thought clicked at a single moment for me and it’s a memory I’ll cherish since I just started laughing and smiling to myself. Hegel didn’t say the history of humanity culminated in Christ. Christ is an ideal, but he has to be realized through dialectical movements which attain the synthesis of concepts that is Christ. I’m no Hegelian myself, but just wanted to clarify.
thank for for sharing! I just went back to my copy of Phenomenology and read paragraph 358; I can totally see how that can spark such a happy epiphany :) And thank you for the clarification! I think my representation was me misclassifying my interpretation as the word of his work. IIRC the argument I made in my paper was that the summary of Hegel’s arguments led to a conclusion of mankind’s evolution ended with the life of Christ. That through the dialectic of God becoming Man, the ideal became manifest and there is no more “evolving” beyond that. That was about a decade ago at this point though so I trust your expertise more than my recollection haha
I’m here because of my 2 year long and ongoing fascination with Spinoza. Who should I read next? Spinoza has helped me recover from a religious upbringing.
I have so many books on my mind, but let's refer to 5 of them. 1)After Virtue -Alasdair MacIntyre 2)Natural Right and History- Leo Straus 3)Rationalism in politics and other essays- Michael Oakeshott 4)The Six Great Themes of Western Metaphysics and the End of the Middle Ages- Heinz Heimsoeth 5)The poverty of historicism- Karl Popper
@juliusseizure591 It's difficult to classify myself, but I appreciate a lot the conservative way of philosophical thinking. The same goes for some aspects of anarcho-liberal theories. The more I study, the more i contradict myself.
@@juliusseizure591 I also love #s 1 & 2, as well as MacIntyre's follow up Who's Justice, Which Rationality.. That's why I'm a left-wing conservative! (or that's why I love those books)
In the last year's of Pope Benedict XVI reign I went to Regensburg - where Joseph Ratzinger had been professor of Theology and in the theology section of the cathedral bookshop There was a huge amount of Nietzsche and I felt they were wrestling with it. I read Nietzsche as a "teenage" read not that you have to be a teenager to read it but that when you are looking critically into what you had received Nietzsche is a witty and sparkling critic who makes you think about what you believe. I think for me Nietzsche is someone whose writings I have returned to over and over again and gained from them though my philosophy hasn't moved to be like his he has influenced it.
MacIntyre's latest (last?) book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity is a good summing up of his career, even if it isn't as geared towards the public as he wanted it to be. He's just been writing for philosophers for too long. And for anyone looking for a good overall introduction to communitarian ethics, Michael Sandel does a great job in his book, Justice. There are also videos on UA-cam of his Harvard lectures from his very popular class on justice. They were shot for public TV and are very well done, capturing his amazingly skillful Socratic approach to teaching ethics (I'm a communitarian who taught intro to ethics courses at uni in Japan, and I stole some of his teaching ideas).
what works have most influenced your theism? when I was a teenager I caught the tail end of the "new atheist" movement and richard dawkins basically convinced me to become an atheist. later on I realized he wasn't the best philosopher, and recently I have begun reading various philosophical and religious texts to get a more broad perspective on the god debate. if you could recommend some books I would appreciate it.
Yeah Dawkins isn’t the greatest philosopher. Paints with a broad brush. Read up on Bertrand Russel’s “Why I’m not a Christian” to get a hint of the way the discussion is treated in more philosophical circles in terms of supporting atheism. But for theism, Kierkegaard is pretty important (Fear and Trembling or Either/Or) for getting at the lived experience of being a Christian and choosing love, etc. A truly stellar piece of atheist philosophy is Ludwig Feuerbach’s “Essence of Christianity” and “Essence of Religion”; both are just over a hundred pages and are stellar critiques as well as markedly beautiful in their prose. I did a lecture on my channel of the former if you’re curious what it’s about (mostly a humanist interpretation of Christianity).
The two most important philosophy books of the Twentieth Century being _Being and Time_ by Heidegger and _Being and Nothingness_ by Sartre, it's obvious that the first really important philosophy book of the Twenty-First Century will be called _Nothingness and Time._
Being and Nothingness has been a fringe in philosophical circles since its publication. It’s a misreading of Heidegger and is pretty niche. There are definitely more important works of 20th century philosophy.
It would be interesting to see a video on utilitarism. I'm close to graduating in economics and while I dislike utilitarism, I also can't figure out how to make a good critique of it.
Usually critiques go against the common currency of value. Utilitarians are essentially doing cost-benefit analyses, but in order to do that they must reduce the value of human life, economic decision, the environment, animals’ lives, etc to some common currency of value (some way to compare all the different values under a common guise). The problem is, this usually can only be done with much precision in economic terms (cost/benefit of choice A and cost/benefit of choice B) which inevitably means truncating the value of something like a human life may have, or the health of the Earth, and reduces it to monetary value (which aren’t the same things). Also, even though the monetary common currency of value is typically seen as the most precise, even then it’s ultimately arbitrary, for example, how much a human life is worth in monetary terms. This are the usual critiques.
I wish I was as well read as Jared. I’m too sporadically read. I try to make up for it as much as I can as an adult after college, though it’s tough because of jobs and kids and everything. I can feel a little better by watching one of Jared’s videos.
Beautiful your list. For me is always very difficult to think philosophical book how i think litterary book, because i think the first one how a series of problem, in fact i tend to forget where an author have write something (and this one is more true with analitic philosophy); hence my book shall have caracteristic not only tied of philosophical issue but well esthetics, and is title is Minima moralia
Thank you for the interesting video. I will read Macintyre's After Virtue. As a skeptic along the lines of Hume, I think like Aristotle we must try to live a virtuous life of good acts.
Hume and Aristotle are like perfect opposites ethically speaking. Hume thinks virtue is basically invented and a moral feeling we teach but not an imperative.
My favorite philosophy book thus far has been Philosophy as a Rite or Rebirth, by Algis Uzdavinys. Academically, it made a very compelling argument that the Western tradition of philosophy beginning with Plato, Pythagorous, et. al. is arbitrary at best, and even erroneous. He argues that much of the early Hellenic philosophy was heavily influenced by earlier Egyptian religon and philosophy. However, as interesting as I found the academic content, the far more interesting and important (to my mind) point of the book was his radical reframing of early philosophy, and to a lesser extent up through the Enlightment era, as being fundamentally different to how we conceptualize philosophy itself. For most of history, philosophy was a fundamentally practical and praxis based domain, largely indistinguishable from what we now call religion. Philsophy is not merely logic and epistomology, and the convoluted arguements over sementic quirk of language. Rather, philosophy was a practical methdology by which individuals pursued self-transendece and the maximization of well-being through active practice and action. It completely changed my perception of and approach to philosophy, and by extension, it has greatly improved my own life through its application. Even from a strictly academic standpoint, it was still a fascinating read, and I can not recommend it highly enough.
@alan6747 To paraphrase the formal definition in psychology, self-transcendece refers to shifts in personal psychological attributes and perspectives, including but not limited to decreases in personal identification with the individual Ego, increased compassion, empathy, and resilience, and increased identification with the broader world. Basically, it's shift in personal psychology that decrease self absorption, and increases identification with and concern for others and the world. There's a whole lot of woo bullsh*t that gets associated with the term, so you have to be careful to sort out the good from the bad and the true from the asinine and ridiculous when dealing with "spirituality."
I have read the first 6 pages of the first chapter of 'Beyond Good and Evil' by Friedrich Nietzsche. I found it hard going. I have read a few pages of 'The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination' by Jacob Bronowski.
What's your opinion of early 20th Century Pulp novels. I have only discovered them recently and I have to say they're great fun. A tonic in a world of seriousness...
Jared, Great channel and great episode as always. I have a question for your viewers (Jared, you can answer too)... Do you guys power through books that you don't like, or do you quit and move on?
I am not surprised you only recently read Fred, but read more it will make you think, in so doing grow as a person. Often misunderstood - but after decades of being frustrated by so many misunderstood ideas, AI makes learning about what Fred really taught much easier. He is much more faithful, in reality I would compare Bonhoeffer's Religion-less Christianity to Nietzsche. Amor Fati. Leave the dogma, live the 'red letter' life: like Tolstoy.
So you've dismissed A.J. Ayer? Is that the accepted wisdom of trained philosophers? Language, Truth and Logic is the second most important philosophical book to me, right after Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion.
Rant. I've never been able to understand this obsession with ethics which philosophers have. So much so, that they study book after book on it! My philosophical obsessions were always epistemological - mainly because it's so simple, but so many people get it so wrong. It leads to a puzzle. Why are you - the rest of you - so bamboozled over what is real? Most of us (AKA: you) have an epistemology which is back to front. It follows, that my obsessions revolve around: why do we (AKA: you) get reality so wrong? As I see it - misunderstanding epistemology, in practice, philosophical systems always lead philosophers misunderstanding reality? For me, this obsession with ethics the rest of the human race has is a kind of sin because it leads so many of you to evil: to want to impose your views on everyone else - always badly - because you misunderstand reality so badly too. Although I am an atheist, when I talk about most people 'getting reality wrong' I'm referring to both the common people and the intelligentsia. So my study of epistemology - doesn't lead to a theory of knowledge but to theories of error, or mis-knowledge. Misinformation, as the media call it. I'd be interested in what happens when ethics meets misinformation. AKA: Lies and deception. Because one sure way to get followers is to taut one's ideas as ethical - when - if they're based on misinformation - they must surely be anti-ethical. Which leads to a question for Jared, or anyone: What is a good book on Bad Ethics?, on Ethics gone wrong? So Jared's choices are alien to me. Yet I still love that he gave us this video. Of the books in the list, the only one I object to is Hegel. Because Hegel's meta-story of human nature inverts reality. It cons its readers into thinking they're seeing through to an underlying reality (or chain of causation) when they're merely being told a tall story by a master storyteller. Alternatively to #10, one may as well have added Tolkien or J.K. Rowling as Hegel. But hey, thank God there's no Heidegger in your list. Heidegger - even more of an anti-philosopher than Hegel!
Nichomachean Ethics was probably the 7th or 8th philosophical text I read and it changed my life. In fact, I read the first 2 chapters at the archaeological site of the Lyceum in Athens last year. A bit sad to know it's all downhill from here 😅
Justice by Michael Sandel offers a crystal clear introduction to virtue ethics and the communitarianism of MacIntyre (while also covering the pros and cons of utilitarianism and categorical moral theories). You can even find the beautiful series of videos made of his Harvard class on justice for public TV here on UA-cam. He's a brilliant teacher and the videos are very well made. And MacIntyre's latest (and probably final) book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity is a good career summation of one of the key philosophers in the virtue ethics revival. He presents the book as his attempt at writing for a popular audience (like Sandel), but he's just too used to wriiting and debating philosophers, so it fails on that account. It is still quite clear and readable, however.
Am I able to undertake philosophy study as a hobby, and tackle it myself? Or would you recommend scooping up formal education? I’m 35 and established, so not looking for much more than just pure enjoyment. I bring up formal education, because, money is not an object and I wouldn’t be opposed to scooping up classes at the local community college. Thanks man!
If u don't mind me giving a response to your question i think both are valuable. Doing it by urself is good because you can go at ur own pace and take ur time with things. For example, jered over here mentions that he still is trying to understand Hegel even though he took a seminar about Hegel in the past. This is the problem with formal education. They give u 1 semester to learn Hegel and then its on the next course about something completely different! So what happens is u have to rush from topic to topic without sometimes having the time to really grasp things fully. But formal education makes u more competitive and that is not always bad. I remember i loved competing against my fellow classmates and that pushes u to become better faster. Also the fact that formal education rushes u makes u do things u might think u r not prepared to do when in fact u were prepared. For example once i had to turn in an essay for a Derrida seminar and i had no idea how i was going to do it, but given that i had a deadline i pressured myself and forced my self to write and it came out great, it was like i didn't know i had it in me and i wouldn't have ever known had it not been for the deadline. So i think u should balance it out. Take one course here and there but i don't think u need to get a degree. Only do it if u find that u enjoy the college u r attending but it is not necessary to become a good philosopher. Another thing philosophy is not a hobby, once u start liking, once u light that fire it becomes who u r, and it becomes more than a hobby. U start thinking u can't see the world the same way u used to and u r forever changed.
Education is fun and helps give an established circle of people who can engage in discourse with you, but 100% you can do it yourself. There’s treasure troves of information online and the only think standing in your way is your own understanding. Just learn to learn well and teach yourself complex topics with examples and references to secondary literature as needed and you’ll be set! I’m a freshman philosophy student but have been teaching myself for about 2 and a half years now and have gotten (if I can be humble while saying this) fairly far; you can check out my channel just for reference if you’re curious what can be done with no education (virtually nothing I do lectures on I’ve learned in university), but it’s definitely doable.
What is a good book on Bad Ethics?, on Ethics gone wrong? On ethical systems which people, or societies, thought they had but which turned out to be actually evil.
The Christian Apologist, William Lane Craig, woke me from my dogmatic slumbers. I used to think many years ago that Craig’s arguments for the existence of God were good. But then I studied them and thought about them at more depth than I had previously. I found that the Moral Argument for the existence of God and the Ontological Argument just don’t work. Also, God being Timeless doesn't work. And God being Omniscient leaves God and Man both without free will. This all radically changed my life. My thinking has completely shifted from being a Christian Theist to now being a Theist / Agnostic.
IMO, WLC is the textbook example of a sophist. Add to that an insufferable demeanour and voice, and some dubious takes on various Biblical passages, and you have the ingredients for avoidance at all costs.
Certainly agree. WLC is an unfortunate excuse for a philosopher, clearly motivated by his theistic motives to misrepresent or include bad arguments for God. There are much more nuanced discussions focusing other places. Glad to see you can grow in your theism as a response.
I am fascinated how an intelligent, knowledgeable, and analytical thinker can be a theist. I rejected theism when I was age 13. I reached a conundrum when considering that the ancient Greek gods were now treated as mythological, yet the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god (YHWH/Jesus/Allah) was believed to be real. To me the only rational solution was rejection of belief in all gods as mythological (i.e., human conceived). Now I can appreciate experiencing spirituality in the sublimeness of the universe or in the experience of selfless love. I cannot understand someone believing in a hand-me-down god or in a self made god, but only though indoctrination and suspension of disbelief (i.e., fiction) or from social or financial incentive (my experiences in life have conditioned me to be a cynic).
Agreed. But people have different reasons for holding their faith. Sometimes it’s a just a genuine question of the opposition not being as hard-hitting as it was for us🤷♂️
I saw on your website that you'd describe yourself as an anarchist in regards to politics and that you'd like people "to live their lives without coercive interference", then I'd guess that you aren't averse to libertarianism? Is there any recommendable literature you would like to share? Best regards from Germany!
Nietzsche said, 'learn how to read me'. When I read him as a ranting railer he doesn't sound like an ugly grrl friend. When I read him as an ugly grrl friend, he sounds like a goddamn butler, not a little pastor!
how are you enjoying it? I have stopped halfway as I am can't get into these intro books to philosophy for some reason... however they should be what I read as I am beginner. Also read Nagel's book
@@tiagobarbosa6623 I like it. It gives you an overview on main philosophical issues and he deliberately starts from Descartes which he claims his way of thinking is more modern and relatable . Maybe you are more inclined to read primary text off the bat, which nothing wrong with that! But I do think this book can help you see stuff clearer as you move into primary text
I started with Plato and history overviews like Sophie's World and Russell's History. Gave me a bunch of names to look out for and, more importantly, link together.
Sorry to hear that Hegel is on your list. Glad to hear that you dont understand him, so i know you are not lying to yourself. You cant understand Hegel because he himself didnt even knew what to think of his words. Its nonsense and thats why it you cant get any meaningful thoughts out of it. Its build on nothing thats the Problem. On top of that its such a pity to even mention Kant in a sentence with Hegel, because Kant is the real Philosopher. Hegel is only a real dirty Sophist. And Fichte, Schelling and Hegel really did their best to undermine the real truth and worth of Kants work. I am so sad. And i try to get Hume, Locke, Spinoza, Cartesius, Aristotle and Platon back on track and not those shameful Clowns.
why did you study philosophy? What is so intelectual about this (let's say) art? I used to believe that people prone to these activities such as arts, music, philosophy etc, are not so intellectual at all.
What are your favorite philosophy books?
Hobbes’s Leviathan. Like most, I’m not in agreement with much of what Hobbes wrote, but Leviathan is so compelling it must be wrestled with.
Being and time by Heidegger,even though, I didn't understand anything.
Genealogy of Morals - Nietzsche
Three Critics of the Enlightenment - Isaiah Berlin
Truth and Predication - Donald Davidson
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - Wittgenstein
Parerga and Paralipomena - Schopenhauer (Schopenhauer does not hold back here)
Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason - Kant
I'm sorry, I couldn't name just one.
I had a similar experience with the Philosophical Investigations--in an undergrad seminar we went paragraph by paragraph. That was a threshold experience for me, changing not only my appreciation and engagement with philosophy, but changing the way I thought about thinking.
History of Sexuality by Foucault
Hey Jared. What a great video. I especially like the fact that you included Nietzsche’s "The Gay Science" in your list. I just recently finished that book and you're absolutely correct that it’s a great work. What I admire about Nietzsche’s books is that it often shatters our comfortable and self-assured convictions (which we think are self-evident). And you're correct that his philosophy is actually quite upbeat and positive.
Thank you also for the suggestions you made on Boethius. I intend to read that.
Although I'm not a theist, I deeply admire Kierkegaard who was a devout Christian. I am surprised "Fear and Trembling" or "Either/Or" did not make your list, but that's OK. 😊
By the way, I totally agree with what you said in this video about utilitarianism and kantianism. Personally, I'm not a follower of virtue ethics but I am fascinated by Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations (which I love). I'm sure you've covered him as well at some point.
Many thanks again for your passion and work. Keep it going. Cheers.
I studied Philosophy for my Bachelor's and Master's as well, and the book that got me started was Bertrand's Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. I'm not saying it's one of the 'best philosophy books ever', just saying it's a great way to start.
A History of Western Philosophy is a great book for everyone to start
Totally disagree. Bertrand Russell was a better than good mathematician, but absolutely obtuse as a philosopher. He misunderstood both ancient and modern philosophy. Thus, (compare Whitehead) Russell's take on Republic was that Plato was a "garden variety fascist".
Similarly, Wittgenstein reportedly laughed at Russell and his esteemed UK university colleagues (GE Moore) by reckoning that none of them understood a word of Wittgenstein's thinking.
@@WombatGamesChannel
Bertrand Russell also had some really suspicious connections, as did Aldous Huxley. Basically evil people, seemingly.
@@geoffreyfaust3443I gotta agree with you. It was universally recognized during my entire philosophical career as an undergrad, a grad student, and eventually a philosophy instructor, that Russell’s work in the history of philosophy was just one bad take after another.
It's so clearly written. I've read it twice now.
Hey Jared! This is my favorite video of yours so far. While your commentary on the books was great, the insights about transitioning out of academia that you interweave into the discussion were the most helpful. I am ABD in a humanities PhD program and am looking at transitioning away from academia as I write my dissertation part-time. Hearing your own reflections on grieving the loss of a career in academia, while also integrating your experiences and education into a new path forward is super helpful and encouraging. Keep up the good work and excellent videos!
I took intro to philosophy as a humanities elective in undergrad. I really enjoyed the class. Fast foward 20 years, and I'm working in IT, and I have taken a few free online philosophy courses that I really enjoyed. In a way my journey has been the opposite of Jared's journey. I envy Jared being able to study philosophy at a university. Life is short and a person should follow their passions as best they can. For me that means reading a snippet of the Nicomachean Ethics before bed each night. Thanks for sharing your knowledge in a welcoming fashion.
Jesus Saves
I studied history and philosophy and then history. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals was like dynamite to my very way of thinking. Working through Nietzsche is like iconoclasm to philosophy, from where we have to once again build up an understanding of the world. In a way I think it made me more receptive to my later study in history. I had a similar but different experience with Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (though I only read about half of it).
There is an essay by Alain Badiou on Nietzsche which perfectly distills this sentiment
Nietzsche is a agent for Satan. He is one of the greatest deceivers of all time. It’s no coincidence he lost his mind randomly and died young.
One of the things that helped me with Hegel most was a book called “Hegelianism: The Path toward Dialectical Humanism” by John Toews, which traces Hegel’s thought first in its own context and then in the context of dialogue with his students.
It somehow was both one of the most lucid renditions of Hegel’s thought in terms of how vital it was in its own time, and one of the best treatments of German intellectual history between Napoleon and 1848 I’ve ever read.
Looking really sharp, Jared!
One of the most beautiful things I ever read was Boethius’ Consolation in the Latin. Granted, my Latin was okay and it was tough, but it’s just incredible in the original.
Also loved the Philosophical Investigations and Treatise on Human Nature. I studied some narratology in my degree and Bakhtin's work has always stayed with me, particularly The Dialogic Imagination.
I recieved my B.S. in Philosophy in 2020, and became very attached to Nietzsche. The Joyous Science is probably the most profound work I've ever read.
Interestingly I have all the books you cite. Künne’s brilliant Conceptions of Truth arrived a few months back.
It’s difficult to prioritise although if I do then, like you, the teaching experience that embedded the works will help. But in no order:
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• Bounds of Sense, P.F. Strawson.
• The Good & The True, Michael Morris.
• Naming & Necessity, Saul Kripke.
• Complete Works, Aristotle, esp. Metaphysics & Nicomachean Ethics
• Treatise of Human Nature, Hume.
• Continuants, David Wiggins.
• Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans.
• Phénoménologie de la perception, Merleau-Ponty.
• Éssais, Montaigne.
Great info, Jared. I always asked my professors what philosophers they enjoyed the most when I was studying philosophy. You should continue on with the phil stuff; maybe some videos based on your dissertation. G.E. Moore (Principia Ethica) and RM Hare (Moral Thinking) was about as close as I got to the analytic philosophy stuff.
Always pains me to hear about people struggling through the Phenomenology as their introduction to Hegel. The transcripts of his lectures aimed at students have so many more example and context that make them more approachable and imo also have a lot of the most interesting and useful aspects of his philosophy. There’s really good histories on German Idealism like those from Beiser and Pinkard that give a really rich picture of all the discussions that happen between Kant and Hegel.
No phenomenology of spirit is the only acceptable book people need to understand that deep down all philosophy is as complicated as phenomenology of spirit
@@gerardlabeouf6075Haha in a sense yes, Hegel does get at some of the fundamental complicated problems underscoring what most philosophers uncritically accept.
Thanks for doing this. Illuminating and inspiring.
Great video Jared! As a novice wanting to read more philosophy (I studied linguistics as an undergrad but took a few philosophy classes - on existentialism, modal logic, and philosophy of language - as electives) there are definitely some here I want to check out!
I read Nicomachean Ethics in college (or university idk what's the equivalent), ever since I've loved it and I think about it once in a while. And it's not even hard to read.
Thank you for mentioning the analytic influence. As someone interested in the continental side of things I have to say Anti Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari. Just a groundbreaking work and super interesting. Super polarizing too- some love and and some think the work is the scum of the earth
I'm taking my first philosophy class this semester, political and social philosophy, and in order to get an A you need to read an extra book from a long list and write a paper on it. Pretty much at random I picked Macintyre's Dependent Rational Animals. I haven't had much of a background in philosophy, just things here and there but I also was very attracted to virtue ethics and found his approach to them in this book appealing. A few days ago I had a conversation with my professor and apparently he had him as a teacher when he was a philosophy student.
Excellent video! I enjoyed this one more because of your honesty about your journey. Thank you for being vulnerable, my friend.
Hagel is a great choice. All philosophy after him is an ode to his concept of 'Geist' it still fascinates me.
By far my favourite philosophy channel
Just recently discovered your channel and so far it is truly helpful so thanks a lot for your work. I've started to have an interest in Philosophy so I have been searching for books to get. So far I'm starting with The Enchiridion by Epictetus followed by Marcus Aurelius Meditations as I feel they are nice to begin with and not too complicated but any other suggestions are always welcomed. For my 3rd and 4th book hopefully Platos Republic and Platos 5 Dialogues as others have stated that they could be a bit more challenging. I do have a bit of knowledge on the subject as I took a course back in College although definitely want to gain more insight. I know there are many varieties as well but I think I will prefer to stick with the Ancient Philosophers as I find it more fascinating in general. Anyway apologies for the long comment just wanted to give some overview. Appreciate the channel.
Great content ! If I may, including shots of actual books you’re discussing would add to the experience. Keep up the great work 👍
Usually, I would. Unfortunately about 99% of my books are currently in storage as I'm about to move!
If you are interest in the topic of friendship, read “Of Friendship” by Montaigne
Great list! I was enthralled by the existentialists in the early years of my philosophy undergrad. Albert Camus- The Stranger and Jean Paul Sartre- Nausea are still among my favorites, as is Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell was a great aid during my time as a T.A as well.
I found The Stranger kinda childish particularly the last part where he grabs a priest to yell in his face all his atheist hangups. Reminded me of something a teen would come up with for his novel, no subtlety. Sartre was on the other hand more mature but I didn't read his fiction just Existentialism is a humanism.
The stranger & Nausea are such good books. Nausea really stuck with me , I really need to read more of Sartre. Also Camus, The Plague. I think Camus had such a great understanding of the human condition.
@@NTNG13 Really I felt it was the character just leaving it all out, at a world in which it is so hypocritical and judgemental of anything or anyone who isn't seen as " normal" in the eyes of society. That's what's great about books everyone gets something different from them.
@@thejugde859 I mean the dude was an unrepentant murderer without motive. He was being adequately judged on his lack of morality.
I was trained as an undergrad and grad in analytic departments. As an undergrad, these are the works that, not necessarily my favorites, but floored me for various different reasons: Ockham’s Summa Logicae; Peter Geach’s Logic Matters; Plato’s Euthyphro; Nagel’s Moral Luck paper; Chisholmes’ Problem of the Criterion paper; and both Frege’s and Russell’s stuff on sense, reference and definite descriptions.
As a grad student, you actually have to do philosophy and that’s when Descartes Meditations, and especially Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, just blew my mind. Also, Cathrine Elgin’s work In ontology really affected me, too.
I suppose I should also say that Blackburn’s quasi-realism seriously confounded me, even up to this day.
Took a grad seminar on Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit. Discovered two things after the 1st week and 300 pages of reading: Firstly, Hegel was way more of a bad-ass than I ever thought; secondly, I needed to go back and do Kant all over again.
Dude, completely captured the mindset of every incoming philosophy grad student:
They couldn’t solve it, but I’ll bet I can!
Thank you for doing this video. The personal element really adds weight and value to this, though I imagine it wasn't always easy to bare your soul.
Jared's list is:
10. Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit
9. Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations
8. Frege - Foundations of Arithmetic
7. Boethius - On the Consolation of Philosophy
6. Crispin Wright - Truth and Objectivity
5. Nietzsche - The Gay Science
4. Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
3. Augustine - Confessions
2. Alasdair MacIntyre - After Virtue
1. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Thanks for the video. I'd be curious to hear your explanation / reasoning for being a theist.
I second that
Good afternoon. I just wanted to thank you for your channel. I have hesitated about applying to the Open University to study a Philosophy module as I worried I might struggle. Your posts have helped me understand the ideas behind philosophy and so this March I will be signing up for the module. I will also be rewatching a lot of your posts to help me when I begin studying.
I must admit my favourite posts on your channel has to be philosophy and science fiction, those posts I find the best and I do hope there will be more in the pipeline, maybe a post on philosophy and movies as well. Before I begin in October the OU have suggested two books: Think by Simon Blackburn and also Plato’s Crito. Have you read either of them? Thanks again Jared and may your channel continue to grow
Don’t stress too much man! Just read what you want and learn to think methodically and slowly. Philosophy isn’t the thing you study for or repeat, you just get it or you don’t; if the latter, you reread and discuss until you get it. Enjoy the ride!
@@gavinyoung-philosophy thanks Jared
@@mikeprendergast1826 Not Jared lol
I like Jared's list. I wanted to definitely second Nietzsche's The Gay Science. It's an easily overlooked book by Nietzsche (compared with, say, Genealogy of Morals or Zarathrustra). One of my all-time favorite quotes is in the second aphorism in Book One (on how most people lack what he calls an inttellectual conscience): ""[T]o stand in the midst of this . . . rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing--that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody." I have a merely tangential relationship to a formal study of philosophy, I have to admit (my background is in English Literature and Theory). I sometimes joke that my life was ruined at age 12 when I "accidentally" read Plato's Republic because I expected that high school or college would approach this same level of intellectual engagement (wow, was I disappointed!). Next, the college I attended (University of Washington) had a program called Comparative History of Ideas. Their introductory course featured Plato's Republic, Augustine's Confessions, Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality," and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents (I probably should have majored in this topic, but trying to explain to my parents what the hell "Comparative History of Ideas" felt a little intimidating compared with just "English"). (Based on watching Jared's video, I was reminded of how influential Augustine might have actually been on me since my dissertation was about how stories affect our perception of time.) I think that my personal list would be something like (in no particular order):
* Zhuangzi
* Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus
* Wittgenstein, Phiosophical Investigations
* Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" and other works
* Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Appartuses" and other works
Although I don't know that they're on my personal list, there are several works I find myself thinking about often such as selected essays by Montaigne, Discourse on Method by Descartes, Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, or various works by Adorno. I've been on a big Spinoza kick lately, but I mostly read secondary works about him as I find reading the primary text very challenging.
Right on w D&G💪
Great video! Wasn’t familiar with the #2 pick. Would love to see a video on virtue ethics, why you think deontology doesn’t work, and why utilitarianism is bankrupt.
My picks would be: Euthyphro, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Problems of Philosophy, and Either/Or.
In my Phil class when we covered Hegel, I didn’t really buy the sauce he was selling with the whole “human evolution ended with Christ” deal; that God becoming Man was the pinnacle of humankind and everything after is meaningless.
And then when we had to write a paper in class for the Phenomenology of Spirit, something just struck me like lightning. It just clicked and I had a pure stream of consciousness flow trying to simplify Hegel’s arguments that just worked. It was like I blacked out like Will Ferrel in Old School and nailed it. It’s one of my all time favorite “flow” moments of my life
But none of it stuck. So you’ve inspired me to go back and try to catch lightning again :D
Haha I had a similar moment in paragraph 358. It’s the first time a whole system of thought clicked at a single moment for me and it’s a memory I’ll cherish since I just started laughing and smiling to myself. Hegel didn’t say the history of humanity culminated in Christ. Christ is an ideal, but he has to be realized through dialectical movements which attain the synthesis of concepts that is Christ. I’m no Hegelian myself, but just wanted to clarify.
thank for for sharing! I just went back to my copy of Phenomenology and read paragraph 358; I can totally see how that can spark such a happy epiphany :)
And thank you for the clarification! I think my representation was me misclassifying my interpretation as the word of his work. IIRC the argument I made in my paper was that the summary of Hegel’s arguments led to a conclusion of mankind’s evolution ended with the life of Christ. That through the dialectic of God becoming Man, the ideal became manifest and there is no more “evolving” beyond that.
That was about a decade ago at this point though so I trust your expertise more than my recollection haha
I’m here because of my 2 year long and ongoing fascination with Spinoza. Who should I read next? Spinoza has helped me recover from a religious upbringing.
I have so many books on my mind, but let's refer to 5 of them.
1)After Virtue -Alasdair MacIntyre
2)Natural Right and History- Leo Straus
3)Rationalism in politics and other essays- Michael Oakeshott
4)The Six Great Themes of Western Metaphysics and the End of the Middle Ages- Heinz Heimsoeth
5)The poverty of historicism- Karl Popper
I take it you're a conservative?
@juliusseizure591 It's difficult to classify myself, but I appreciate a lot the conservative way of philosophical thinking. The same goes for some aspects of anarcho-liberal theories. The more I study, the more i contradict myself.
@@juliusseizure591 I also love #s 1 & 2, as well as MacIntyre's follow up Who's Justice, Which Rationality.. That's why I'm a left-wing conservative! (or that's why I love those books)
In the last year's of Pope Benedict XVI reign
I went to Regensburg - where Joseph Ratzinger
had been professor of Theology
and in the theology section of the cathedral bookshop
There was a huge amount of Nietzsche
and I felt they were wrestling with it.
I read Nietzsche as a "teenage" read
not that you have to be a teenager to read it
but that when you are looking critically into
what you had received
Nietzsche is a witty and sparkling critic
who makes you think about what you believe.
I think for me Nietzsche is someone
whose writings I have returned to over and over again
and gained from them
though my philosophy hasn't moved to be like his
he has influenced it.
Oh! We got an philosophical hot take in this video! Curious to hear your take on Kant's ethics?
I love your videos.
MacIntyre's latest (last?) book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity is a good summing up of his career, even if it isn't as geared towards the public as he wanted it to be. He's just been writing for philosophers for too long.
And for anyone looking for a good overall introduction to communitarian ethics, Michael Sandel does a great job in his book, Justice. There are also videos on UA-cam of his Harvard lectures from his very popular class on justice. They were shot for public TV and are very well done, capturing his amazingly skillful Socratic approach to teaching ethics (I'm a communitarian who taught intro to ethics courses at uni in Japan, and I stole some of his teaching ideas).
what works have most influenced your theism? when I was a teenager I caught the tail end of the "new atheist" movement and richard dawkins basically convinced me to become an atheist. later on I realized he wasn't the best philosopher, and recently I have begun reading various philosophical and religious texts to get a more broad perspective on the god debate. if you could recommend some books I would appreciate it.
Yeah Dawkins isn’t the greatest philosopher. Paints with a broad brush. Read up on Bertrand Russel’s “Why I’m not a Christian” to get a hint of the way the discussion is treated in more philosophical circles in terms of supporting atheism. But for theism, Kierkegaard is pretty important (Fear and Trembling or Either/Or) for getting at the lived experience of being a Christian and choosing love, etc. A truly stellar piece of atheist philosophy is Ludwig Feuerbach’s “Essence of Christianity” and “Essence of Religion”; both are just over a hundred pages and are stellar critiques as well as markedly beautiful in their prose. I did a lecture on my channel of the former if you’re curious what it’s about (mostly a humanist interpretation of Christianity).
The two most important philosophy books of the Twentieth Century being _Being and Time_ by Heidegger and _Being and Nothingness_ by Sartre, it's obvious that the first really important philosophy book of the Twenty-First Century will be called _Nothingness and Time._
Being and Nothingness has been a fringe in philosophical circles since its publication. It’s a misreading of Heidegger and is pretty niche. There are definitely more important works of 20th century philosophy.
It would be interesting to see a video on utilitarism. I'm close to graduating in economics and while I dislike utilitarism, I also can't figure out how to make a good critique of it.
Usually critiques go against the common currency of value. Utilitarians are essentially doing cost-benefit analyses, but in order to do that they must reduce the value of human life, economic decision, the environment, animals’ lives, etc to some common currency of value (some way to compare all the different values under a common guise). The problem is, this usually can only be done with much precision in economic terms (cost/benefit of choice A and cost/benefit of choice B) which inevitably means truncating the value of something like a human life may have, or the health of the Earth, and reduces it to monetary value (which aren’t the same things). Also, even though the monetary common currency of value is typically seen as the most precise, even then it’s ultimately arbitrary, for example, how much a human life is worth in monetary terms. This are the usual critiques.
For me its definitely PI and OC by Wittgenstein, as well as Knowledge and its limits by Williamson.
I'm glad for you that you rediscovered your love of philosophy. Good on you.
I wish I was as well read as Jared. I’m too sporadically read. I try to make up for it as much as I can as an adult after college, though it’s tough because of jobs and kids and everything. I can feel a little better by watching one of Jared’s videos.
Beautiful your list. For me is always very difficult to think philosophical book how i think litterary book, because i think the first one how a series of problem, in fact i tend to forget where an author have write something (and this one is more true with analitic philosophy); hence my book shall have caracteristic not only tied of philosophical issue but well esthetics, and is title is Minima moralia
No Kant? 😢
What did u expect the man started of with Hegel
"The trencsendent wisdom" by the great Mulla Sadra
Thank you for the interesting video. I will read Macintyre's After Virtue. As a skeptic along the lines of Hume, I think like Aristotle we must try to live a virtuous life of good acts.
Hume and Aristotle are like perfect opposites ethically speaking. Hume thinks virtue is basically invented and a moral feeling we teach but not an imperative.
I have a phd in philosophy nietzsche, Hume, sarter, are all my favourite
thank you so much Jared! I always look forward to your recommendations, however you ended the video a bit abruptly hahaha
My favorite philosophy book thus far has been Philosophy as a Rite or Rebirth, by Algis Uzdavinys.
Academically, it made a very compelling argument that the Western tradition of philosophy beginning with Plato, Pythagorous, et. al. is arbitrary at best, and even erroneous.
He argues that much of the early Hellenic philosophy was heavily influenced by earlier Egyptian religon and philosophy.
However, as interesting as I found the academic content, the far more interesting and important (to my mind) point of the book was his radical reframing of early philosophy, and to a lesser extent up through the Enlightment era, as being fundamentally different to how we conceptualize philosophy itself.
For most of history, philosophy was a fundamentally practical and praxis based domain, largely indistinguishable from what we now call religion.
Philsophy is not merely logic and epistomology, and the convoluted arguements over sementic quirk of language.
Rather, philosophy was a practical methdology by which individuals pursued self-transendece and the maximization of well-being through active practice and action.
It completely changed my perception of and approach to philosophy, and by extension, it has greatly improved my own life through its application.
Even from a strictly academic standpoint, it was still a fascinating read, and I can not recommend it highly enough.
What do you mean by self-transcendence in the context of the book u a talking about?
@alan6747 To paraphrase the formal definition in psychology, self-transcendece refers to shifts in personal psychological attributes and perspectives, including but not limited to decreases in personal identification with the individual Ego, increased compassion, empathy, and resilience, and increased identification with the broader world.
Basically, it's shift in personal psychology that decrease self absorption, and increases identification with and concern for others and the world.
There's a whole lot of woo bullsh*t that gets associated with the term, so you have to be careful to sort out the good from the bad and the true from the asinine and ridiculous when dealing with "spirituality."
Great video! Can someone explain to me why Nietzsche wouldn’t be aligned with virtue ethics? I always thought he’d fit right in with that crowd.
I have read the first 6 pages of the first chapter of 'Beyond Good and Evil' by Friedrich Nietzsche.
I found it hard going.
I have read a few pages of 'The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination' by Jacob Bronowski.
Definitely read the Genealogy of Morals first. Beyond Good and Evil is tied with Thus Spoke Zarathustra for his hardest work.
@@gavinyoung-philosophy
Thank You! It seems like you really know your onions!
Good list.
What's your opinion of early 20th Century Pulp novels. I have only discovered them recently and I have to say they're great fun. A tonic in a world of seriousness...
Consider People in Quandaries, Wendell Johnson, 1946, General Semantics.
Jared, Great channel and great episode as always. I have a question for your viewers (Jared, you can answer too)...
Do you guys power through books that you don't like, or do you quit and move on?
Science as Social Knowledge by Helen Longino. Which in my opinion should be equally as cited by scientists as Kuhn and Popper are.
Try First Principals and First Values by David J Temple
Nice content. Have you read Charles Taylor’s work/s?
For me, it's Jean Baudriilard's America.
Re Crispin Wright: How close is Wright's Truth Pluralism to the claim of Dummett than one can be a realist about some things and not others?
I am not surprised you only recently read Fred, but read more it will make you think, in so doing grow as a person. Often misunderstood - but after decades of being frustrated by so many misunderstood ideas, AI makes learning about what Fred really taught much easier. He is much more faithful, in reality I would compare Bonhoeffer's Religion-less Christianity to Nietzsche. Amor Fati. Leave the dogma, live the 'red letter' life: like Tolstoy.
So you've dismissed A.J. Ayer? Is that the accepted wisdom of trained philosophers? Language, Truth and Logic is the second most important philosophical book to me, right after Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion.
why is the Eudemian Ethics so overshadowed by nicomachean ethics?
Rant.
I've never been able to understand this obsession with ethics which philosophers have. So much so, that they study book after book on it! My philosophical obsessions were always epistemological - mainly because it's so simple, but so many people get it so wrong. It leads to a puzzle. Why are you - the rest of you - so bamboozled over what is real? Most of us (AKA: you) have an epistemology which is back to front. It follows, that my obsessions revolve around: why do we (AKA: you) get reality so wrong? As I see it - misunderstanding epistemology, in practice, philosophical systems always lead philosophers misunderstanding reality? For me, this obsession with ethics the rest of the human race has is a kind of sin because it leads so many of you to evil: to want to impose your views on everyone else - always badly - because you misunderstand reality so badly too. Although I am an atheist, when I talk about most people 'getting reality wrong' I'm referring to both the common people and the intelligentsia.
So my study of epistemology - doesn't lead to a theory of knowledge but to theories of error, or mis-knowledge. Misinformation, as the media call it. I'd be interested in what happens when ethics meets misinformation. AKA: Lies and deception. Because one sure way to get followers is to taut one's ideas as ethical - when - if they're based on misinformation - they must surely be anti-ethical. Which leads to a question for Jared, or anyone: What is a good book on Bad Ethics?, on Ethics gone wrong?
So Jared's choices are alien to me. Yet I still love that he gave us this video. Of the books in the list, the only one I object to is Hegel. Because Hegel's meta-story of human nature inverts reality. It cons its readers into thinking they're seeing through to an underlying reality (or chain of causation) when they're merely being told a tall story by a master storyteller. Alternatively to #10, one may as well have added Tolkien or J.K. Rowling as Hegel. But hey, thank God there's no Heidegger in your list. Heidegger - even more of an anti-philosopher than Hegel!
really interesting video. The thing is I am afraid of starting "following" that list. IT will be probably to hard ...
I’d recommend looking at some of my more beginner-oriented videos if you wanted to ease yourself in.
You've never read Satre? Especially his fiction. Or war diaries?
Would you ever want to publish?
Nichomachean Ethics was probably the 7th or 8th philosophical text I read and it changed my life. In fact, I read the first 2 chapters at the archaeological site of the Lyceum in Athens last year. A bit sad to know it's all downhill from here 😅
Aristotle Poetics
Kierkegaard - Philosopical Fragments
Augustine - City of God
The list of endless …..
What are the best books (Besides After Virtue and Nicomachean Ethics) to get started with Virtue Ethics, like an intro book?
Aristotle’s “Politics”. Frames virtue ethics as a way to create the ideal society.
Justice by Michael Sandel offers a crystal clear introduction to virtue ethics and the communitarianism of MacIntyre (while also covering the pros and cons of utilitarianism and categorical moral theories). You can even find the beautiful series of videos made of his Harvard class on justice for public TV here on UA-cam. He's a brilliant teacher and the videos are very well made.
And MacIntyre's latest (and probably final) book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity is a good career summation of one of the key philosophers in the virtue ethics revival. He presents the book as his attempt at writing for a popular audience (like Sandel), but he's just too used to wriiting and debating philosophers, so it fails on that account. It is still quite clear and readable, however.
@@timothypollock9560 I concur on Sandel. A very approachable thinker with a fairly equitable account of a variety of ethical frameworks.
Truth pluralism, could be related to perspectivism.
Or vagueness
-"First one is Hegel's Phenomenology of The Spirit" .
*Closed video immediately
Jared, this has nothing to do with books, but have you seen the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie Poor Things?
No Heidegger?
Am I able to undertake philosophy study as a hobby, and tackle it myself? Or would you recommend scooping up formal education? I’m 35 and established, so not looking for much more than just pure enjoyment. I bring up formal education, because, money is not an object and I wouldn’t be opposed to scooping up classes at the local community college. Thanks man!
If u don't mind me giving a response to your question i think both are valuable. Doing it by urself is good because you can go at ur own pace and take ur time with things. For example, jered over here mentions that he still is trying to understand Hegel even though he took a seminar about Hegel in the past. This is the problem with formal education. They give u 1 semester to learn Hegel and then its on the next course about something completely different! So what happens is u have to rush from topic to topic without sometimes having the time to really grasp things fully. But formal education makes u more competitive and that is not always bad. I remember i loved competing against my fellow classmates and that pushes u to become better faster. Also the fact that formal education rushes u makes u do things u might think u r not prepared to do when in fact u were prepared. For example once i had to turn in an essay for a Derrida seminar and i had no idea how i was going to do it, but given that i had a deadline i pressured myself and forced my self to write and it came out great, it was like i didn't know i had it in me and i wouldn't have ever known had it not been for the deadline. So i think u should balance it out. Take one course here and there but i don't think u need to get a degree. Only do it if u find that u enjoy the college u r attending but it is not necessary to become a good philosopher. Another thing philosophy is not a hobby, once u start liking, once u light that fire it becomes who u r, and it becomes more than a hobby. U start thinking u can't see the world the same way u used to and u r forever changed.
Education is fun and helps give an established circle of people who can engage in discourse with you, but 100% you can do it yourself. There’s treasure troves of information online and the only think standing in your way is your own understanding. Just learn to learn well and teach yourself complex topics with examples and references to secondary literature as needed and you’ll be set! I’m a freshman philosophy student but have been teaching myself for about 2 and a half years now and have gotten (if I can be humble while saying this) fairly far; you can check out my channel just for reference if you’re curious what can be done with no education (virtually nothing I do lectures on I’ve learned in university), but it’s definitely doable.
I would say modern neural network thinkers would have Humean philosophy of mind.
Spinoza's Ethics.
Hegel is difficult. It is language structure
What is a good book on Bad Ethics?, on Ethics gone wrong? On ethical systems which people, or societies, thought they had but which turned out to be actually evil.
The Christian Apologist, William Lane Craig, woke me from my dogmatic slumbers. I used to think many years ago that Craig’s arguments for the existence of God were good. But then I studied them and thought about them at more depth than I had previously.
I found that the Moral Argument for the existence of God and the Ontological Argument just don’t work. Also, God being Timeless doesn't work. And God being Omniscient leaves God and Man both without free will. This all radically changed my life. My thinking has completely shifted from being a Christian Theist to now being a Theist / Agnostic.
IMO, WLC is the textbook example of a sophist. Add to that an insufferable demeanour and voice, and some dubious takes on various Biblical passages, and you have the ingredients for avoidance at all costs.
Certainly agree. WLC is an unfortunate excuse for a philosopher, clearly motivated by his theistic motives to misrepresent or include bad arguments for God. There are much more nuanced discussions focusing other places. Glad to see you can grow in your theism as a response.
I am fascinated how an intelligent, knowledgeable, and analytical thinker can be a theist. I rejected theism when I was age 13. I reached a conundrum when considering that the ancient Greek gods were now treated as mythological, yet the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god (YHWH/Jesus/Allah) was believed to be real. To me the only rational solution was rejection of belief in all gods as mythological (i.e., human conceived). Now I can appreciate experiencing spirituality in the sublimeness of the universe or in the experience of selfless love. I cannot understand someone believing in a hand-me-down god or in a self made god, but only though indoctrination and suspension of disbelief (i.e., fiction) or from social or financial incentive (my experiences in life have conditioned me to be a cynic).
Agreed. But people have different reasons for holding their faith. Sometimes it’s a just a genuine question of the opposition not being as hard-hitting as it was for us🤷♂️
I saw on your website that you'd describe yourself as an anarchist in regards to politics and that you'd like people "to live their lives without coercive interference", then I'd guess that you aren't averse to libertarianism? Is there any recommendable literature you would like to share? Best regards from Germany!
Anything written by Ryan Holiday or Robert Greene gets my bowels moving.
@itmofo In a good way or bad way?
bad way I hope
Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit. Not even a work of philosophy according to some people.
For me so far it has been. On the genealogy of morals. Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche said, 'learn how to read me'. When I read him as a ranting railer he doesn't sound like an ugly grrl friend. When I read him as an ugly grrl friend, he sounds like a goddamn butler, not a little pastor!
Kant and Hegel… *Nietzsche grins*
Plato's Symposium and Spinoza's Ethics describe the kingdom of God much better than Christian doctrine.
Me half way through Think by Simon Blackburn as this drops: 🫠
There is always more to read!
Didn't watch the whole vid; what are you referring to?
how are you enjoying it? I have stopped halfway as I am can't get into these intro books to philosophy for some reason... however they should be what I read as I am beginner. Also read Nagel's book
@@spruitje1000 it is an introductory book. A recommendation he made in a previous video. It is clear and concise, I like it!
@@tiagobarbosa6623 I like it. It gives you an overview on main philosophical issues and he deliberately starts from Descartes which he claims his way of thinking is more modern and relatable . Maybe you are more inclined to read primary text off the bat, which nothing wrong with that! But I do think this book can help you see stuff clearer as you move into primary text
I started with Plato and history overviews like Sophie's World and Russell's History.
Gave me a bunch of names to look out for and, more importantly, link together.
i like the rankings... and i like hierarchy too it's kind interesting.
Sorry to hear that Hegel is on your list. Glad to hear that you dont understand him, so i know you are not lying to yourself. You cant understand Hegel because he himself didnt even knew what to think of his words. Its nonsense and thats why it you cant get any meaningful thoughts out of it. Its build on nothing thats the Problem. On top of that its such a pity to even mention Kant in a sentence with Hegel, because Kant is the real Philosopher. Hegel is only a real dirty Sophist. And Fichte, Schelling and Hegel really did their best to undermine the real truth and worth of Kants work. I am so sad. And i try to get Hume, Locke, Spinoza, Cartesius, Aristotle and Platon back on track and not those shameful Clowns.
Would consider yourself a theist or a deist
Marx??
why did you study philosophy? What is so intelectual about this (let's say) art? I used to believe that people prone to these activities such as arts, music, philosophy etc, are not so intellectual at all.
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