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Eminent Philosophers Name the Most Important Philosophy Books from 1950-2000
- hknust 8y agoHave your book list posted on HN with Amazon (affiliate) links => Profit :)
- raincom 8y agoSince R.M. Hare's "Language of Morals" is on the list, I recommend Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue" should be on the list for any one who want to study Moral Philosophy today. Along with Popper and Kuhn's works on that list, read Larry Laudan's "Progress and its problems" and "Science and Relativism: some key controversies in the philosophy of science". This goes under Philosophy of Sciences.
- igravious 8y ago> Since R.M. Hare's "Language of Morals" is on the list, I recommend Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue" should be on the list for any one who want to study Moral Philosophy today. “After Virtue” is a legit recommendation. > Along with Popper and Kuhn's works on that list, read Larry Laudan's "Progress and its problems" and "Science and Relativism: some key controversies in the philosophy of science". This goes under Philosophy of Sciences. I demur. Comparing two giants of the Philosophy of Science (nb: not plural) to a relative unknown. I would recommend instead “Against Method” (1975) by Paul Feyerabend or “The Sleepwalkers” (1959) by Arthur Koestler.
- no_identd 8y agoI'd recommend against starting with "Against Method". Instead, go directly for the 'sequel' both to Feyerabend's "Against Method" and to two paper/essay collections (both published in 1976, two years after his death) that essentially originated from Lakatos, although they contain numerous contributions, among others by Feyerabend, "Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences: The Critical Background to Modern Science 1800–1905" (edited Colin Howson) and "Method and Appraisal in Economics" (edited by Spiro J. Latsis), namely, "For and Against Method: Including Lakatos's Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence" 'by' both Imre Lakatos AND Paul Feyerabend, which Matteo Motterlini painstakingly assembled from the drafts for the book (which Lakatos and Feyerabend both wanted to produce, but which never produced a finished result in their lifetimes, primarily due to Lakatos' unexpected death in 1974.) I say this because of what I personally like to think of as 'paraduality' in science which both Lakatos and Feyerabend discuss & address, but from 'opposite' ends. I put "opposite" in single quotes here because I find too difficult to phrase the point I wish to make, so I can only allude to it: Reading Feyerabend without reading Lakatos carries with it the same (and not just similar or the opposite) problems as reading Lakatos without Feyerabend does - and vice versa. The same applies to science itself, which kind of sums up the problem both of them approached, from 'different' sides. I thus find it rather helpful to read the entire matter chronologically 'backwards', starting with 'For and Against Method' and then going back from there.
- igravious 8y agoThank you for your in-depth comment. I did not mean to imply starting immediately with ”Against Method”, what I meant is that after exploring Kuhn and Popper by all means move onto Feyerabend. I do appreciate your suggesting Lakatos. I was under the impression that one had to read Feyerabend first, then Lakatos. The work by Lakatos I have made note of that came up in my travels is “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers”. Would you be able to recommend that text as well or are you sticking to the ones you have suggested? If I had to pick one I think you are saying to go with “For and Against Method[…]”† because it contains both sides of the coin. Thank you Oh random internet person for such helpful advice! † http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3629717.html http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3629717...
- no_identd 8y agoOn the notion of Moral Philosophy, for a 21st century perspective (unlike, but not as opposed to, the 20th century perspective given by the list in question), I'd also recommend "Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought" by Alice Crary, a review of which one may find here: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/inside-ethics-on-the-demands-of-moral-thought/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/inside-ethics-on-the-demands-of-mor...
- gaius 8y agoAll those “philosophers” are mere ants compared to Nietzsche
- namlem 8y agoYou must be joking.
- justin66 8y agoI'm pretty sure he was quoting the "Life in Hell" comics by Matt Groening, for some reason. Although that's the kind of thing people sometimes just say (see also: Kevin Kline's character in A Fish Called Wanda.)
- Analemma_ 8y ago> Eminent Philosophers Name the Most Important Philosophy Books from 1950-2000
- dang 8y agoPlease be more like Nietzsche and don't post unsubstantive dismissals to Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- btcindivist 8y agoWeird, no Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, one of the best applications of utilitarianism.
- Mediterraneo10 8y agoAnd no A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari, in spite of having an impact on the anti-globalization movement over the last two decades-plus that is hard to overestimate. Plus, that work isn’t just relevant for contemporary political disputes or the perennial question of how to organize human societies; Deleuze and Guattari’s epistemology is a major contribution to human thought in general.
- hoshigakii 8y agoDoes anyone have recommendations for a layman interested in philosophy?
- harwoodjp 8y agoBertrand Russell - The Problems of Philosophy
- mark-wagner 8y agoI would recommend against that book. Through slightly changing claims he's "established" he concludes for the need for "sense data" which is nonsense. Also, white paper looks yellow under a yellow light because it white. White is the color of the paper.
- harwoodjp 8y agoThe book is an example of philosophy being done in a lucid, beginner-friendly manner. It's opinionated and conclusions are drawn. You might not agree with them. It's a fine introductory text for getting a sense of argumentative form and a decent sampling of contemporary philosophical debates.
- gowld 8y agoWha's wrong with "sense data" ?
- Analemma_ 8y agoAlso by Russell: A History of Western Philosophy. It has various critics, for good reasons, but it's as good a walkthrough of philosophical developments in the West as anything you'll find.
- dmreedy 8y agoI want to second this one, if for nothing else than the fact that in addition to being a wealth of information about the philosophies themselves, it's also a fascinating (granted, biased) perspective about how philosophical developments might map to political and cultural developments, and vice versa. Again, with a nod to its critics. Also, Russell is, as always, a charmingly witty writer.
- anschwa 8y ago> Solomon maintains that “nothing has been more harmful to philosophy than its ‘professionalization,’ which on the one hand has increased the abilities and techniques of its practitioners immensely, but on the other has rendered it an increasingly impersonal and technical discipline, cut off from and forbidding to everyone else.” > As an addendum, Ho adds that “most of the works on the list are analytic philosophy,”... Interesting that analytic philosophy is both seen as being the most harmful yet also most prestigious.
- dandersh 8y agoI have to agree. I noticed with more recent philosophy works (including some on this list) it could feel like the philosophers were more interested in arguing with one another than educating the reader. I also think this is part of the reason why philosophers like John Dewey aren't as well regarded as they should be and/or used to be.
- beedeebeedee 8y agoI agree with that. I studied philosophy in college and it was all insider baseball. It was a breath of fresh air when I came across Dewey and William James.
- exelius 8y agoIronically, I took multiple philosophy courses at the university of Texas taught by both Bob Solomon (one of the “eminent philosophers”) and his wife. I graduated from the philosophy program with a profound distaste for analytical philosophy, believing it to be pedantic BS that really only shows the limitations of whatever language you’re using for discourse. Hence the abstraction into symbolic logic, but symbolic logic only works as a pure abstraction: any link to the real world becomes limited by the language constructs you can use to describe the world, the subject/object relationships, etc. There are many languages and writing systems in the world. I expect the peculiarities of each to rear its head when attempting to use them to do “real” philosophy (I honestly view most of the analytical offshoots of philosophy as mathematics; somewhat telling, the university disagreed and forced all CS majors to take logic classes in the philosophy department).
- aphextron 8y agoI'd argue that every programmer interested in language design needs to read Wittgenstein. His later work in ethics and epistemology (that the article recommends, Philosophical Investigations) is hit or miss, but his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which deals with the nature of language as it relates to our ability to think and formulate ideas, is undeniable. He essentially builds a framework for breaking reality down into logically composable components which can be reasoned over in their own right, regardless of semantics. See this article which was posted here a few years ago: Wittgenstien for Programmers http://www.hxa.name/notes/note-hxa7241-20110219T1113Z.html http://www.hxa.name/notes/note-hxa7241-20110219T1113Z.html
- kiliantics 8y agoAs I understand it, the Investigations arrives at opposing conclusions to Tractatus and Wittgenstein believed he was mistaken in his premises for the earlier work.
- aschampion 8y ago> which deals with the nature of language as it relates to our ability to think and formulate ideas, is undeniable Except by Wittgenstein himself, who largely renounced this philosophical project in the second half of his career. Still essential reading, though.
- philwelch 8y agoWittgenstein is like a rock band that abruptly changes style at some point in their career, alienating many of their fans but gaining new ones. One of my philosophy professors used Radiohead as an example, with (I believe) OK Computer as the turning point, but I don't know Radiohead well enough to judge that particular analogy.
- carlob 8y agoProbably Kid A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_A
- nivexous 8y agoGiven the introduction, how did Ayn Rand and Objectivism not make that list? It has to be one of the most, if not the most, influential philosophical contributions in the real world in the past 100 years. Edit: Getting downvotes. You mention Ayn Rand anywhere, this is what happens.
- anielsen 8y agoNot to the field of philosophy itself.
- nivexous 8y agoTo philosophers discredit. Her work changed the real world and that makes it important. It should have made the list.
- namlem 8y agoI mean, so did Hitler's Main Kampf.
- justin66 8y agoPeople are sensitive about Godwinning but you didn't really deserve to be downvoted for that comment. Rand's Objectivism and Hitler's mind droppings have at least two important things in common: they're derivative of Nietzschean existentialism and they've been used to rationalize varieties of political extremism.
- musage 8y agoWriting that "changed the world" isn't philosophy or worth reading for insight just because it changed the world. You can make that point with anything that sucks or isn't philosophy but "changed the world", Mein Kampf being one of them. As for Godwin, as any discussion gets longer (infinitely), the probability of any comparison "approaches 1". That should net a few coins to buy ice cream, not minting a "law". Reading people like Erich Fromm, Arno Gruen, Sebastian Haffner, Hannah Arendt, I look around the world I live in, consider the cute idea that Nazi comparisons aren't allowed for a few moments, and move past it.
- pmoriarty 8y agoUnsurprisingly, this list is heavily biased towards analytic philosophers. They don't even mention Heidegger, the most influential 20th Century philosopher in the Continental tradition. Being and Time is his most influential book. They don't mention Sartre, who probably comes in 2nd. Being and Nothingness is his most famous book (you can tell the Heidegger influence just from the title). Their token Continentals are Foucault, Derrida, Habermas, and Ricouer... out of a list of 30. Update: Looks like I misread the title of the article as being about philosophers from 1900-2000, but it's from 1950-2000. Sorry. My bad.
- Paul-ish 8y agoBeing and Time was published in 1927. They were limited to books published after 1950.
- aschampion 8y agoThe list is analytically tilted, but you're talking about early 20th century philosophers for a list of books 1950-2000.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ternaryoperator 8y agoStill, I'd have expected Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reasoning, which came out in 1960, to be on the list.
- pasabagi 8y agoI don't think Heidegger is the most influential 20th century philosopher, and I don't think he belongs on any list, except perhaps a list of Nazis. Foucault is definitely more influential, as is Derrida, if you take the number of citations as evidence of influence. If you want to look at genealogy of specific philosophers, Foucault would have his closest influence in Althusser, and Deleuze would probably have his closest forbear in Whitehead, and Derrida, probably in Levinas.
- nwhitehead 8y agoI would recommend all the works by Robert Nozick, listed at #14 on the list for "Anarchy, State and Utopia". While that might be his most influential book, I found his other books more fun to read.
- webwanderings 8y ago*Western. There's a whole wide world out there.
- mcguire 8y agoCan I suggest Angus C. Graham's translations and work around Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters and Companion to Angus C. Graham's Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters, collected by Harold Roth)? In particular, the essay, "Taoist Spontaneity and the Dichotomy of 'Is' and 'Ought'" (IIRC) is ... really nice.
- qntty 8y agoMuch of the thinking that we call philosophy was created to make sense of the apparent conflict between particular western institution, like (western) science and religion. There are thinkers in other parts of the world who are interested in similar issues, but it might not be right to categorize it as philosophy because they don't have the same sort of clash in their culture to make sense of. That is, western philosophy was consciously created to oppose religious dogma and scientific reductionism, but the same can't be said about (say) Buddhist philosophy, even though they ask similar questions. In other words, part of what makes philosophy "philosophy" is that it insists that it's something different than religious or scientific theory.
- Ngunyan 8y agoNonsense. If there is such a thing as Scholastic philosophy, which is heavily on the religious side, as opposed to other western philosophies, then there is such a thing as Eastern philosophy. Buddhist philosophy, Jain philosophy, and Taoist philosophy all do not believe in a god, while others like Hindu philosophy and Confucian philosophy do.
- tathougies 8y agoWhat utter rubbish. Every culture has their own philosophical issues that they grapple with. This does not mean these thoughts cannot be labeled "philosophy". "Philosophy", means love of knowledge... the seeking of knowledge is not limited to the West, and there have been philosophers from all around the world. > That is, western philosophy was consciously created to oppose religious dogma and scientific reductionism, Where are you pulling this stuff from? Western philosophy traces its roots to mainly Catholic (and some Islamic) philosophers, many of whom were very religious. These philosophers often drew upon earlier philosophers (the Catholic Church is probably the reason why Aristotelian philosophy survives to the present day). These earlier philosophers were also religious. The separation between philosophy and religion (And between philosophy and science for that matter) is something that has only arisen in the present day, and -- in my opinion at least -- is unlikely to last very long, if history is any indication. > In other words, part of what makes philosophy "philosophy" is that it insists that it's something different than religious or scientific theory. These are your own thoughts and opinions on the subject. You are unnecessarily antagonizing science, philosophy, and religion, and I think this perhaps stems from the very western desire to segregate and classify everything.
- galeforcewinds 8y agoZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, What Color is Your Parachute are both absent. Also, science fiction.
- baking 8y agoRichard Rorty "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" Need a little Pragmatism on this list.
- woodandsteel 8y ago>Need a little Pragmatism on this list. Quite so. Except Rorty later admitted that he was not really a Pragmatist. I would say he was more of a liberally-oriented Existentialist.
- mcguire 8y ago"As an addendum, Ho adds that “most of the works on the list are analytic philosophy,” therefore Prof. Chen asked Habermas to recommend some additional European thinkers, and received the following: “Axel Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (1992), Rainer Forst, Kontexte der Cerechtigkeit (1994) and Herbert Schnadelbach, Kommentor zu Hegels Rechtephilosophie (2001).”" Note also that this list was collected "at the behest of a Chinese publisher seeking important philosophical works for translation", so the fact that A.C. Graham is missing doesn't disturb me much.
- zamazingo 8y ago> two professors emailed sixteen philosophers in the U.S., England, Australia, Germany, Finland, and Brazil, asking specifically for "ten of the most important and influential philosophical books after 1950." "They received recommendations,” writes Ho, "from twelve philosophers, including: Susan Haack, Donald M. Borchert (Ohio U.), Donald Davidson, Jurgen Habermas, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, Peter F. Strawson, Hilary Putnam, and G.H. von Wright." (Ho was unable to identify two other names, typed in Chinese.)
- spodek 8y agoCan we estimate in any way about how happy these people were? I doubt there's an objective measure, but I feel like how to be happy and to live a good life are among of the main goals of philosophy. Are they? Did many of them succeed?
- KSS42 8y agoHow happy are you?
- empath75 8y agoIs wager that there is a pretty strong correlation between depression and deep introspection.
- artpepper2 8y agoBut "what is happiness" and "what is the good life" are themselves philosophical questions.
- paganel 8y ago> but I feel like how to be happy and to live a good life are among of the main goals of philosophy. Afaik Socrates was saying something about philosophy being the quest for finding out what is "good" and then trying to "reach" it, so nothing directly related to happiness. I'm not a philosopher by any means but I found this description about what philosophy should be as the one closest to the truth. Also, as a pseudo-Kantian I also think that philosophy should have the task of teaching us about our sense of "duty" when pursuing said "good". Putting the two above concepts together you could say that "inquiring what good is and then trying to pursue and reach it out of a sense of innate duty" is what a "good life" should be, so in that respect I think you're correct.
- ctchocula 8y agoThis is an interesting perspective, because in his book, "The History of Western Philosophy" recommended elsewhere in this thread, Bertrand Russell makes this one of the metrics by which he rates historical philosophers. For example, he rates Schopenhauer: > He habitually dined well, at a good restaurant; he had many trivial love-affairs, which were sensual but not passionate; he was exceedingly quarrelsome and unusually avaricious. ... It is hard to find in his life evidences of an virtue except kindness to animals ... In all other respects he was completely selfish. It is difficult to believe that a man who was profoundly convinced of the virtue of asceticism and resignation would never have made any attempt to embody his convictions in his practice.
- mcguire 8y agoThe original post: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/the-most-important-philosophical-books-since-1950.html http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/the-most-impor...
- baking 8y agoThe comments there are fairly extensive with suggestions for additions. Quite worthwhile if your made it this far in the HN comments.
- hestefisk 8y agoThis being HN, I can’t believe anyone hasn’t mentioned Searle (on the list) or Hofstaedter yet as prominent thinkers on computing, philosophy of maths, and the limits of the ongoing AI summer. In ‘Goedel, Escher, Bach’ Hofstaedter has entire chapters dedicated to LISP and its philosophical implications / foundations, ie homoiconicity, metacircularity.
- ahussain 8y agoWhich chapter is that? I'm looking through the table of contents but none of these terms are mentioned there explicitly. Does he talk about LISP directly or only in passing?
- kitten-fine 8y agoDavid Armstrong and David lewis for metaphysics! Quine word and object is great, but some of his short essays are more accessible. For a good logic book graham priest an intro to non classical logic. Russell is pleasant intro, but you'll probably want to go deeper.
- 8bitsrule 8y agoNo Paul Feyerabend, I see.
- tim333 8y agoIt's nice and all that but I think there has been far more influence on what would be called philosophical questions like why are we here, how should we live, why is there evil, what is consciousness and the like from scientific discovery than from any of the books in the list. Things like the discovery of DNA, the big bang, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience have had a big impact on how we see the world. Those books I'm not so sure.
- namlem 8y agoGlad to see Parfit on the list. Reasons and Persons could honestly be the foundational text of a civilization.
- sunstone 8y agoE.O Wilson's (the Nobel prize winner) book "Consilience" should be on a list like this but probably isn't. He's a biologist after all, not a philosopher. But a lot of thoughtful people would likely find a lot more to ponder than in it than most of the 'real' philosophy texts.