# In which js\_africanus ponders making '04 the Year of Philosophy; what should he read? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 11, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731 "2003-07-11T15:41:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/21 "2003-07-13T15:28:06Z")
Oh, one more work that is a must for anybody who reads philosophy: _Gulliver’s Travels_, unabridged, of course. Swift was a friend of at least some of the great epistimologists, metaphysicians, and political philosophers of his day, and he presents their ideas in very informative inversion. In essence, it’s an antidote to prevent excess poisoning of the psyche by philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/22 "2003-07-13T16:02:20Z")
One problem with Ayn Rand, among others, is that she admittedly didn’t even read most of the philosophers she fulminated against. She detested Kant yet never seemed to muster up the ability to actually _read_ him. Her epistemology is incomplete, and an unfortunately high proportion of her works are riddled with, well, problematic logic. She appeals to moody, elitist teenagers. Her works can be a fun read as a counterpoint to more canonical works of the west, but I wouldn’t spend too much time with it. Love the Consolation of Philosophy, by the way. It is one of my favorite books ever written. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/23 "2003-07-13T22:34:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tusculan \* > **Since I’ve never read Ayn Rand, I can not personally comment on the intrinsic value of her books. I should still give the warning (given the OP’s stated objectives) that it is not considered part of the Western philosophical canon in the usual sense of the word. From what I’ve heard second-hand, her approach to philosophy is… rather original? so it would not directly help you to get an understanding of what Western philosophy is about. Her terminology seems to be at odds with what is current in the normal philosophical debate.** You’ve just provided several excellent reasons to read her. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/24 "2003-07-14T12:32:28Z")
I’d like to apologize for the tone of my previous post. During grad school I got a book of her essays from the library, hoping to get the gist of her thought without wasting time with all the plot of her novels. I was extremely dissapointed. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/25 "2003-07-14T14:43:27Z")
As an admitted neophyte, I thoroughly enjoyed _A History Of Western Philosophy_ by Bertram Russell. Reading it’s chronological discussion of the contributions of leading thinkers, I felt like I’d become witness to the development of religion. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/26 "2003-07-14T18:53:31Z")
As always, my own favourite is left off all the lists. He’s a good antidote to Nietszche, Ayn Rand, Plato, and many of the others who are name-dropped on suggestion lists like this. I’m of course talking about **John Ralston Saul** , the humanist philosopher who believes we made a slightly wrong turn at the Enlightenment and that we’re no veering wildly off course. He considers our society to be too-heavily dominated by reason – and argues, quite well I think, that many modern evils are rooted in turning reason into a religion. He suggests that reason has pushed our other qualities to the margin, and we need them back – namely ethics, common sense, intuition, (historical) memory, and imagination. His first philosophical work is **Voltaire’s Bastards: the Dictatorship of Reason in the West**. He writes in plain English, and with a vicious sense of humour. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/27 "2003-07-14T20:59:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by js\_africanus \* > \*\*I’d like to apologize for the tone of my previous post. During grad school I got a book of her essays from the library, hoping to get the gist of her thought without wasting time with all the plot of her novels. I was extremely dissapointed. \*\* Well, if you’re looking to familiarize yourself with the Western philosophical canon and to be able to hold your own in conversations about philosophy, there’s really no need to force yourself through Rand. If you enjoyed her work that would be one thing, but if you don’t like her don’t bother because (in my experience, at least) no one other than her fans is ever going to want to discuss the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/28 "2003-07-14T21:23:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tusculan \* > \*\* > Some other great works that are among the classics, but which I would consider to be too hard are: > > - Spinoza, Ethics > - Kant, Critique of Pure Reason > - Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit > - Heidegger, Being and Time > - Sartre, Being and Nothingness > > If you feel up to it, do go ahead and leaf through them, just to see what they are like. Parts of those are readable on its own, but you have to know which parts. Generally they are best approached with a basic general knowledge, a good commentary, and lots of patience. > \*\* In rereading this thread, I thought this was worth seconding. There are important philosophical works that are extremely boring to read. The ideas are often very interesting, but the writing may not be, and it can be difficult to figure out what the point is without help. I’d consider Kant and Heidegger the two best (worst) examples of this. I have a very high opinion of Spinoza as a thinker, but his writing style was often almost ridiculously dull. Locke can be pretty bad that way too. IMHO, the philosophers who are the most enjoyable to read are Plato, Descartes, and Hume. Nietzsche is also fairly easy to read but much more difficult to interpret. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731/29 "2003-07-15T16:05:45Z")
In addition to being tedious, Kant is also remarkably dogmatic. As a later commentator had to say regarding Kant’s categories of “analytic knowledge” and “synthetic knowledge”: “That Kant could not imagine a four-dimensional space does not mean such could not exist. It only means that Kant didn’t have much of an imagination.” or words to that effect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-js_africanus-ponders-making-04-the-year-of-philosophy-what-should-he-read/187731.md?page=1)