Peter Sloterdijk - Rules for the Human Zoo

It's fairly accessible, entertaining, and created a huge stir in German when it was released. It's intentionally provocational but still quality stuff (kinda like the philosophical equivalent of a Lars Von Trier film.)

It's intentionally provocational but still quality stuff (kinda like the philosophical equivalent of a Lars Von Trier film.) — csalisbury

Off topic (and spoiler): I only saw Von Trier's Dogville, and watched it two or three times. I was quite moved by it, emotionally, but also intellectually. The final pitch from Grace's father to her, in his car, about "arrogance" seemed to me, in light of the previous unfolding of events that furnished context to it, thought provoking and pregnant with philosophical implications about freedom, determinism (of the social conditioning sort) and moral responsibility. Maybe I'll start a thread on that eventually.

Michel Bitbol - "Ontology, Matter and Emergence" (on emergence and causation): http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4006/1/Emergence1.pdf — StreetlightX

I would likely endorse that too ;-)

Also down with that Bitbol piece.@Pierre-Normand I only saw dogville once when I was 17 and trying wayyy too hard to immerse myself in highbrow culture (prob to escape the psychological fallout of a comfy middle-class to food-stamps-might-not-even-cover-us-this-week slide). I liked it a lot then because it felt necessary to like it a lot but nothing stuck in memory. I really wanna see it now when i might *actually* appreciate it. In any case, I'd heartily reccomend Melancholia, Antichrist, and Nymphomaniac vol. 1 ( vol 2 is so-so but 1 is greeeat. It feels in some ways like a cinematic take of W.G. Sebald's prose style (who I'd also heartily reccomend.)

Hey @Pierre-Normand, I'm thinking about putting the Haugeland reading on there, but does it require familiarity with Dennett in order to read? Might it be worth putting Dennett up there instead?

Having read most of the Haugeland piece, I don't really think the Dennett piece *must* be read ahead of time. Also, the Dennet essay is much harder to find online. I really like the Haugeland essay.

Haugeland's Pattern and Being was first published in the volume Dennett and His Critics, before it was reprinted in Haugeland's Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. But it really stands on its own. Dennett was dubious at first, if I remember, but then, when he reviewed Haugeland's volume of essays, and saw the paper in a broader context, he commented approvingly, on the lines of: 'I now see what you mean, this is indeed what I always have been recommending myself -- objective perception is an achievement'. Haugeland's core original insights didn't seem to leave a discernible mark on Dennett's subsequent thinking about the mind, though.

There is one standalone piece by Dennett that is both available online and that is quite recommendable. This is his sharp critique of Harris' Free Will.

For further months:

J. P. Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism
Michel Foucault - What Is Enlightenment?
Daniel Dennett - Intentional Systems Theory
Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference
John Searle - Minds, Brains, and Computers
George Lakoff and Vittorio Gallese - The Brain's Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge

U. G. Krishnamurti - Mind Is a Myth

U. G. Krishnamurti - Mind Is a Myth — The Great Whatever

Whoa, I went and read some of that. Pretty extreme stuff. Would make for an interesting conversation.

David L. Anderson - What is Realistic about Putnam's Internal Realism?

David L. Anderson - What is Realistic about Putnam's Internal Realism? — Michael

I wouldn't mind discussing that. But it's worth noting that Putnam has, meanwhile, distanced himself significantly from his earlier accounts of "internal realism" -- enough so to even repudiate the label. He has rather come to endorse a form of pragmatism, though of a different form than the social institutional pragmatism endorsed by Rorty and Brandom.

U G's a fraud. Yeah he didnt peddle snakeoil feelgood spiritualism - and good on him for that - but he tries to portray himself as this dude who realized the vanity of quests for truth and didnt even care about propagating his message - people just came to him! - but then dictated his "swan song" which reads like dimestore cioran spiced with buddhism. Dude loved his persona and loved ppl having trouble with it.

I think that the power of UG lies in his straight up calling people like Jiddu what they were, hacks and frauds. I think the phrase 'jokers and bastards' should be canon. Reading UG woke me from a sort of dogmatic slumber, and I now think a large number of philosophers in the West are 'jokers and bastards' in his sense of the term, and that Westerners are enthralled by the 'genius' of hacks like Kant and Wittgenstein just as Easterners are enthralled by the 'enlightenment' of hacks like Jiddu.

Kant didn't promise enlightenment. Nor did Wittgenstein. I have my problems with both thinkers but at least they're interesting. UG just isn't very interesting. The hypocrisy of wisdom-peddlers is interesting, the first time you come across it. Calling out people for being 'jokers' in interesting the first time you meet a no-holds-barred straight-talking dude. My very close friend is a lobsterboat fisherman and his colleagues are strictly no-bullshit and you like them for it. But the ideas get old really fast.

Cioran had very well-styled hair - like Schopenhauer - and wrote very lyrically about how hard it was to deal with the pain of thought. And how beautiful it is to deal with the pain of thought. But after a certain level of exposure, Cioran gets to seem a lot like a suburban kid in a band who sings about how hard his well-cut peacoated life is. Sorry Cioran, seems tough. But you already made your point in the first 1000 words you wrote. Why go on? Why go on UG? The suspicion is they go on because, cold and bold as they are, they cant do without people talking about them. My hunch is UG resented J Krishnamurti's success. Which isn't to say I buy into J's ideas. It's just painfully obviously that UG has a bone to pick.

There's a hilarious Cioran quote where he talks about seeing Samuel Beckett on a park bench and he's just in awe of how much he seems to be suffering. You can feel the jealousy. UG seems to have the same lyrical attachment to suffering EC does, just in an eastern register. And it couldn't be more boring.

Kant didn't promise enlightenment. Nor did Wittgenstein. — csalisbury

Forgive the contradiction, but they absolutely did. It is apparent from their writings that they saw themselves as exalted -- Kant as a historic 'Great Man' who would culminate metaphysics, and Wittgenstein as a solipsistic genius figure.

I have my problems with both thinkers but at least they're interesting. — csalisbury

I think their insipidity is hard to get to because of the mystique surrounding them. Part of it comes from the refusal to consider the possibility that you might be talking to a 'joker and bastard;' the assumption is that if they were mistaken, they were nonetheless 'deeply' so, their profundity being assumed.

But if you read Kant as a diluter of better minds, regurgitating more radical and interesting philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, to make them palatable to mainstream Christianity, everything he says makes more sense. And if you read Wittgenstein as a man with mental illness, ditto.

Cioran had very well-styled hair - like Schopenhauer - and wrote very lyrically about how hard it was to deal with the pain of thought. And how beautiful it is to deal with the pain of thought. But after a certain level of exposure, Cioran gets to seem a lot like a suburban kid in a band who sings about how hard his well-cut peacoated life is. Sorry Cioran, seems tough. But you already made your point in the first 1000 words you wrote. Why go on? Why go on UG? The suspicion is they go on because, cold and bold as they are, they cant do without people talking about them. My hunch is UG resented J Krishnamurti's success. Which isn't to say I buy into J's ideas. It's just painfully obviously that UG has a bone to pick. — csalisbury

I don't really feel like I have to defend Cioran, because I agree he lacks substance, even if he was sometimes a great writer. Maybe UG also wasn't a great thinker -- but then, neither was Kant or Jiddu, and UG has a kind of humor and honesty most people don't.

ha, well I can agree with Wittgenstein as a guy with mental illness. (Have you ever read Thomas Bernhard's The Loser? ((An analogue of )W's the loser) It's brilliant and pessimistic and very funny. I honestly think you'd like it. )

No, that sounds fun. I am taking a break from 20th century writing for a while, though, at least the 'real literature' stuff, and reading fantasy, epics, and religious texts for a while, to get into worldbuilding and lore over psychological and self-indulgent stuff. I will put it on a list, but sometimes I never get to things on these lists...

I want to write a high fantasy novella / Gnostic fairy tale!

duuude write it! what fantasies/epics/religious texts have you been reading?

Bible, Iliad, Gilgamesh, Gnostic Gospels / Apocryphon, and I'm starting LotR and after the Worm Ouroboros. I also read A Song of Ice and Fire, but it struck me 'modernist' by high fantasy standards.

There are also a couple of 'modern Gnostic' books I want to look into, like the Illuminatus! trilogy, but that's more pomo (a long time ago I had an interest in chaos magic and Discordianism, which seems to be in the same vein). I like the connection between actual myth and 'fictional myth,' including parody myths, which is in a way what high fantasy is -- and I'm trying at the same to to go through Borges in the native Spanish, which is making the desire for mythmaking fresh for me.

The Illumintatus! trilogy is a little too cutesy for my taste. It feels like having a conversation with an aging hippy you meet at a bar and he's just so sure his style and anecdotes are gonna dazzle you but it feels like he's done this routine a million times before. It's just too slick. In terms of pomo gnosticism, I'd recommend P.K. Dick's Valis and his Exegesis. The Exegesis is endlessly fascinating (and explicitly gnostic). Dick obviously passionately believed in the truth of his 'revelation.' Wilson ---idk, he feels a bit opportunistic.

I'm envious about reading Borges in the original though. Have you read Calvino's Invisible Cities? It's got a Borges feel but is also its own thing.

No, I haven't. I'm looking at the wiki page on it, it seems interesting. Reading is just so hard though. And yeah, Borges is kind of my standard, not only the mythology, but the use of terse academic prose to hint at painful underlying realities. Even if Illuminatus! turns out to be cute as you put it, I still feel like it's part of my education to read it. No luck with anyone getting interested in my writing yet, but I feel like sometimes reading things you don't completely like is still a necessary part of the job, and I want to work actively at being better at it (and free up the schedule by reading a lot less philosophy!)

Where are your comments on Schopenhauer? Or did you give up on them because you realized it was hopeless?

ha no still planning on responding re: schopenhauer. Just havent had the time to do it right. Its a delicate thing.

No it's not, quit stalling. Unless he intimidates you (which is why you have ot insult his hair).

Do you know where he explains his change?

Do you know where he explains his change? — Michael

Renewing Philosophy, HUP, 1995, and The Threefold Chord, Columbia UP, 2001 provide useful statements of his mature philosophy.

The book Hilary Putnam, Cambridge UP, 2005, by Yemima Ben-Menahem also likely is useful but, although I own it, I haven't read it yet.

Thanks

Has a decision been reached on what we are to read? I hate when I read the wrong thing because I was only half way paying attention.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Has a decision been reached on what we are to read? I hate when I read the wrong thing because I was only half way paying attention. — Hanover

The reading for February was Pattern and Being by John Haugeland, but the conversation hasn't quite left the ground yet.