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Philosophy and Spirituality Book/Article Thread

I just finished Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte. I would recommend it to others as it is very concise and quite entertaining. It isn't a textbook and is very accessible, you don't need any familiarity with logic to understand it with ease. It's main focus is examining various logical fallacies which are frequently employed in every day discourse.

Although it is not a major focus of the book, at several different points the author highlights different kinds of fallacies which are often employed by those who advocate the prohibition of drugs, for this reason it may hold a little bit more interest for bluelighters than the average book on logical fallacies.
 
Sigmond said:
If you haven't read any of these philosophers its a decent introduction although I wouldn't buy the book.
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any recommendations of reads on Epicurus? i have always been interested on his thoughts on happiness, but never found anything to read on it directly from him - not mentioning or interpreting him / his philosophy - other than that one book by Diogenes. is it all there is to read on epicurism?
 
I did a quick search, there is a book called The Art of Happiness which is supposed to be the work of Epicurus, I am not sure if it is a single work or a compilation. It was translated by John K Strodach. This documentary may interest you as well.

If you manage to hunt down a good book on the subject please share the title here. :)
 
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ah thanks a lot for the tip! i just searched that book and found that it's from the Penguin Classics collection, and seemingly is pocket. couldn't be better. for this type of reading i prefer physical books (i was expecting to have to read a PDF or something), and pocket is even better.

i just bought and started reading the Social Contract yesterday. i always disliked political philosophy, but last week was thinking about civilization and order and thought it'd be a convenient read :\
 
I believe the Epicurean ideals could be considered simple living + "healthy" hedonism. I am trying to commit "philosophical suicide" for perhaps the 10th time in as many years. I am convinced the answer to the question "Did all that philosophizing make Aristotle any happier?" is no.

Political Philosophy is good because you can actually find some truth there. (Marxist alienation for example.)

Happy New Year!
 
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Having a difficult time putting together a coherent post..someone mentioned the social contract earlier...You can find the Discourse on Inequality free on kindle.

A lot of the males I have encountered throughout my life claim that just about everything they do is simply to attract women. If all you care about in life is food and sex are you any different than the male in a state of nature? From now on I am calling these people the "civil savages"...bit of an oxymoron which seems appropriate.
 
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Whilst not strictly philosophy, and written from an atheistic perspective, this book- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is an excellent read. The main thrust of the authors argument is that, whilst we are physically not especially powerful, and whilst our extensive use of language is unique, the main thing that humans have is the ability to discuss, debate and BELIEVE in things for which their is no real physical basis such as money, laws, religion, human rights, capitalism... Better known as the tinkerbell effect... He posits that homo sapiens gained an ability for abstract thought approximately 70,000 years ago; prior to that, all evidence suggests that homo sapiens were not the exceptional animal we have turned into. Is it because of input from other extant hominid species? Could homo sapiens breed with and create fertile offspring with neanderthals or denisovan's? Or would we have created 'mules'?

Other interesting ideas arising in this book; the notion that natural selection, as the primary evolutionary drive, is being replaced by intelligent design courtesy of the human mind. That our use of language is unique; many animals have language that conveys simple, binary descriptions of the physical landscape ("Quick, run, a lion!!"). Early humans may have been able to expand on that ("When down by the river yesterday, I saw a lion hunting. I wonder if it will be there today?), but only homo sapiens appear to be able to say "When down by the river yesterday, I saw a flying eagle with a lions head and if we ask for favours from this creature, and present to it burnt offerings, it will lead us to heaven". Only humans live in an entirely fictitious world of limited liability corporations and mass religion and heaven/hell. Furthermore, it is through our ability to share fictions that we are able to unite huge groups of strangers (under the banner of nationalism, religion, sports teams). This might be the only reason we have survived- our imagination.

Interesting read, that is for sure...
 
Be Here Now by Ram Dass
Healing & Recovery by David Hawkins

Absolutely fantastic books. Can't say enough amazing things about them.
The whole time you will be like 8(8o:?8( lol. Be Here Now is a MUST READ for everyone in my opinion. Life changing.

Is anyone here familiar with David Hawkins and/or The Map of Consciousness?
If so, I'd love to hear any feedback.. This book, too, is packed with so much complex information.. I have trouble keeping up at times. :\
 
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Regarding Thoth: I suppose The_Kybalion is similar?

If you have a kindle you can get The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The wisdom of life. It might be a somewhat dated but it's a quality in depth book about being human. If you're familiar with Schopenhauer he was basically a nihilistic misanthrope which in my opinion gives him some credibility.

I would be intrigued to read a review of this book: On Myself and Other, Less Important Subjects - Caspar Hare.

Caspar Hare makes an original and compelling case for "egocentric presentism," a view about the nature of first-person experience, about what happens when we see things from our own particular point of view. A natural thought about our first-person experience is that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present to me."

Hare, however, goes one step further and claims, counterintuitively, that the thought should instead be that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present." There is, in other words, something unique about me and the things of which I am aware.

On Myself and Other, Less Important Subjects represents a new take on an old view, known as solipsism, which maintains that people's experiences give them grounds for believing that they have a special, distinguished place in the world--for example, believing that only they exist or that other people do not have conscious minds like their own.

Few contemporary thinkers have taken solipsism seriously. But Hare maintains that the version of solipsism he argues for is in indeed defensible, and that it is uniquely capable of resolving some seemingly intractable philosophical problems--both in metaphysics and ethics--concerning personal identity over time, as well as the tension between self-interest and the greater good.

This formidable and tightly argued defense of a seemingly absurd view is certain to provoke debate.
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I tried to read an essay by Mr. Hare but unfortunately it is posted on a site where they want you to pay $30 just to look at the paper. :\

a few days later...

If you're new to philosophy and are interested in a quick overview of the thinkers from the Greeks to modern philosophers I would recommend this book:
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another free kindle book: Dhammapada, a collection of verses; being one of the canonical books of the Buddhists
 
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Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything

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Ervin Laszlo makes elegant argument for an "interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information." Basically, he rediscovers the akashic record, which has been claimed by others in metaphysical terms. Laszlo's arguments are rooted in quantum mechanics, cosmology, evolution and consciousness studies and shows that how this idea ties disparate fields together in a way that gives purpose to existence. An enjoyable read. Even if you find his argument unconvincing his overview of our current understanding of the nature of reality is very nicely presented.
 
levelsbeyond I added that to my 'to-read' list, thanks for the recommendation!

The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
The High Mountains of Portugal + Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon
Zen in the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel
The Drunkard's Walk - Leonard Mlodinow
 
i just saw "the Drunkard's Walk" on the library the other day. i can't shake my prejudice against pop math books though.
"Siddhartha" is on my list too... started reading it a while ago... never finished.

Sigmond said:
I am trying to commit "philosophical suicide" for perhaps the 10th time in as many years. I am convinced the answer to the question "Did all that philosophizing make Aristotle any happier?" is no.
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and on this ^ (a little late hehe)... have you not heard about quietism?
 
yea pop math books are boring and difficult to get through, that one uses intriguing examples to explain probability and randomness as it relates to real life. might be a decent book for people who believe they're responsible for whatever 'status' they have achieved. those books were taken from my goodreads shelf i think the only one i read recently was The High Mountains of Portugal - which I highly recommend.

My two favorite pop math books are probably The Man Who Loved Only Numbers and A Mathematician's Apology: both might make you look at math in a different way. some mathematicians approach the discipline as an artist others believe they're serving or even communicating with God.

haven't been philosophizing much lately, i end up forgetting a lot of books I read, conclusions i made, explanations accepted. so i end up returning..
also on the subject of math: i don't have the skills to delve into advanced science on my own - hence philosophy :\
 
hah, actually, i love math, and i do agree it has many similarities with art, since there is huge room for imagination and curiosity in it, as well as a whole lot of awe and mystery. i think that there is "bad" use of math sometimes though. that is what i was getting at. game theory for example. i think it is nice as a thought experiment but not only dehumanizing but also bad as a way of modeling human behavior.

and i know that feeling of forgeting conclusions reached and ending up in previously solved puzzles. i personally write the important ideas in hope to help me at times of, eh, "philosophical darkness". i mentioned quietism because, quoting Wikipedia: "Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. By re-formulating supposed problems in a way that makes the misguided reasoning from which they arise apparent, the quietist hopes to put an end to humanity's confusion, and help return to a state of intellectual quietude.". sounded like what you were getting at. Aristotle didn't get happier from philosophy but he just couldn't help but return to it after being perplexed by his contemplation of the world, i guess?
 
neurotic said:
Aristotle didn't get happier from philosophy but he just couldn't help but return to it after being perplexed by his contemplation of the world, i guess?
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Of course i cannot speak for Aristotle but since so much of philosophy leads to belief, not truth, if you don't enjoy it after a certain point its going to cause more harm than its worth. Which to some extent is what quietism is getting at. nowadays i stick with existential phenomenology and occasionally logic; logic when my benzombified brain is up to the challenge.
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