They were all pretty alright, I wouldn't take any off unless it was a matter of replacing them with anything else.
If I had to choose, I'd get rid of Ayer, because that guy hardly had an original thought in his head and I'd rather read the original stuff like Bertrand Russel, and Hume (which we did).
But they all gave us a pretty wide selection of different approaches in writing style and ideas, so I can't really knock the selection.
i would have said lao tzu but i loved that it added an eastern elimate that we would maybe not otherwise have been able to read... they all gave new thoughts and it was enlightening.... my favourite were plato, freud, descartes and satre.... those really got to me....:D
Although all the readings were equally confusing the one that seem to give me most, "what the" moments was Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Now I know this is suppose to be Eastern philosophy at its best and I do not doubt that. However the fact is that I could never figure out what Lao Tzu was trying to draw us too.
Yes I found out some meaning of what the Tao is, which I simply take as "the way, that must be know but ye remain unknowable, used but left untouched, and so on and so forth which continues with the same rhetorical rhetoric that leave us or at least myself rite where I started. That is to say right at the beginnings of this question, “what exactly is the Tao?”
Although I must say the Lao Tzu does use a convincingly charming system of almost poetic description of telling us what the Tao might be. But again charming or not I found that the structure of the text when seemed almost all random adhering to sequence of expectation, well at least from the couple of read through I did.
Therefore, being that I am not the most endowed philosophical thinker (not even close) the Tao Te Ching has to be a piece of philosophic inquiry that gets tossed into the flames.
I will take off Ayer. he has tried to concluded many philosophical problems as language confusion or fiticious problems. and it is not that convincing. though his idea of exploring what is the real range of philosophy is a isssue others has never considered and should be considered, he is really restrict himself to some certain laws. it is like instead of solving the problem, he just eliminate the problem. his arguemtns are interesting, but seems too rational, scientific in dealing with philosophy which contains many things are not regularly arranged, not normal existed.
I don't think i would take any of the books off the reading list because they seemed to tie to together in same way, well at least second semester they did.
While some people say they would get rid of Ayer, I think it was a good thing to read in order to compare it with Hume and look at a different empiricist approach.
I definitly would not get rid of lao tze because that was probably my favourite thing to read. I liked getting the chance to read eastern philosophy because it was so different from the rest of the books we read.
All books I read for this course had unique elements and I enjoyed reading them all… They are all different (though Ayer is similar to Hume) and they told me that there are a lot of ways trying to understand the world. But if I were to off one book, I would say Descartes. Although I totally didn’t understand things discussed in Tao Te Ching, because they were so abstract and seemed making no sense to me (e.g. Tao is nothing but the source of everything--?), I wouldn’t take it off because it’s the only Eastern philosophy we’ve studied (I am sure not all Eastern philosophy are like that though.) and it is interesting to compare it to Western philosophy. But Descartes—it’s a great example of rationalism and is interesting in a way in which he tries to prove God’s existence rationally, but I wasn’t convinced of his argument saying that God exists because we need some being that preserve us since life is continuation of instances, the perfect notion of God embraces God’s existence in itself, and in order for us to understand that we are finite, there must be something infinite--? I don’t think we can disapprove God’s existence, but I think Descartes’ notion of God is only suitable for Judeo-Christian world.
If I could take anything off the reading list it would be Ayer for mostly the same reasons as Brendan. It seems crazy to me to completely disregard any statement that doesn't pass the verificationist theory of meaning. Philosophers have to leave room for emotions in there theories, it's such a big part of human life. Why do we need to disragrard statements that have nothing to do with empirical evidence? What if they provoke thought and might lead to empirical proofs later?
If I had to get rid of any of the books it would have to be Aristotle. That book put me to sleep more times than I can remember and it was so ridiculously boring it killed me. However, Plato, Sartre, and Lao Tzu, werae all philosophers I loved reading about. Plato had some awsome ideas and the whole theory about the allegory of the cave is still one of my favourites. Lao Tzu provided a very interestine perspective for me...it was my spiritual escape in sense and allowed me to think about many things i wouldn't have before...and Sartre had a play about Hell and three idiots who are down there making the moves on one another which i thought was pretty funny.
I would cut locke. we barely talked about him, he wasn't really on either exam, and I find he's only really interesting to look at in comparison with hobbes. While most of the first term reading material asks how we as human beings ought to live, Locke's political philosophy seems genuinely out of place. While both Plato and Aristotle talked about the Polis, each was using it as a means to come to how we ought to live. It doesn't even seem that great as a segue to hume, another enlightenment thinker. Locke is also very complex, and to skim over his ideas (which I DO enjoy) like we did was kind of an injustice, considering the time we spent on Kant and Plato. Locke doesn't belong on the first year reading list, unless the focus is shifted or more time is allotted to him. Perhaps another humanist such as voltaire might provide a good replacement, and add some more allegorical philosophy to the mix.
I would unquestionably commit Kant to the flames (the person, not the book). I grant that my knowledge of philosophy is limited, but the impression I get is that Kant’s influence on the whole of the subsequent philosophical tradition has been enormous, and if this is so then the damage he must have done is incalculable.
I am speaking specifically about his moral philosophy.
Kant valued the intention of an action over the actual consequence. This means that physical reality takes a back seat to the ephemeral functions of your mind. Kant saw the height of moral goodness as that action which is undertaken to the detriment of your own well-being. An action that was ‘morally good’ but that also benefited the agent in some way was not as commendable as the one that made the agent a sacrificial being. This means that, for Kant, that which is morally good is at base that which only benefits the other. If morality is an ethical issue, and ethics is concerned with how one should act in order to live and live well, then Kant has no answer to the ethical question – he merely begs us to bleed for our fellow man and depend on their inclination to do the same. He provides no formula for how one should act in order to preserve and enjoy his life. He simply asks us to give our lives away.
Kant, if not morally reprehensible, is at the very least a destructive influence.
10 comments:
They were all pretty alright, I wouldn't take any off unless it was a matter of replacing them with anything else.
If I had to choose, I'd get rid of Ayer, because that guy hardly had an original thought in his head and I'd rather read the original stuff like Bertrand Russel, and Hume (which we did).
But they all gave us a pretty wide selection of different approaches in writing style and ideas, so I can't really knock the selection.
i would have said lao tzu but i loved that it added an eastern elimate that we would maybe not otherwise have been able to read... they all gave new thoughts and it was enlightening.... my favourite were plato, freud, descartes and satre.... those really got to me....:D
Although all the readings were equally confusing the one that seem to give me most, "what the" moments was Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Now I know this is suppose to be Eastern philosophy at its best and I do not doubt that. However the fact is that I could never figure out what Lao Tzu was trying to draw us too.
Yes I found out some meaning of what the Tao is, which I simply take as "the way, that must be know but ye remain unknowable, used but left untouched, and so on and so forth which continues with the same rhetorical rhetoric that leave us or at least myself rite where I started. That is to say right at the beginnings of this question, “what exactly is the Tao?”
Although I must say the Lao Tzu does use a convincingly charming system of almost poetic description of telling us what the Tao might be. But again charming or not I found that the structure of the text when seemed almost all random adhering to sequence of expectation, well at least from the couple of read through I did.
Therefore, being that I am not the most endowed philosophical thinker (not even close) the Tao Te Ching has to be a piece of philosophic inquiry that gets tossed into the flames.
I will take off Ayer. he has tried to concluded many philosophical problems as language confusion or fiticious problems. and it is not that convincing. though his idea of exploring what is the real range of philosophy is a isssue others has never considered and should be considered, he is really restrict himself to some certain laws. it is like instead of solving the problem, he just eliminate the problem. his arguemtns are interesting, but seems too rational, scientific in dealing with philosophy which contains many things are not regularly arranged, not normal existed.
I don't think i would take any of the books off the reading list because they seemed to tie to together in same way, well at least second semester they did.
While some people say they would get rid of Ayer, I think it was a good thing to read in order to compare it with Hume and look at a different empiricist approach.
I definitly would not get rid of lao tze because that was probably my favourite thing to read. I liked getting the chance to read eastern philosophy because it was so different from the rest of the books we read.
All books I read for this course had unique elements and I enjoyed reading them all… They are all different (though Ayer is similar to Hume) and they told me that there are a lot of ways trying to understand the world.
But if I were to off one book, I would say Descartes. Although I totally didn’t understand things discussed in Tao Te Ching, because they were so abstract and seemed making no sense to me (e.g. Tao is nothing but the source of everything--?), I wouldn’t take it off because it’s the only Eastern philosophy we’ve studied (I am sure not all Eastern philosophy are like that though.) and it is interesting to compare it to Western philosophy. But Descartes—it’s a great example of rationalism and is interesting in a way in which he tries to prove God’s existence rationally, but I wasn’t convinced of his argument saying that God exists because we need some being that preserve us since life is continuation of instances, the perfect notion of God embraces God’s existence in itself, and in order for us to understand that we are finite, there must be something infinite--?
I don’t think we can disapprove God’s existence, but I think Descartes’ notion of God is only suitable for Judeo-Christian world.
If I could take anything off the reading list it would be Ayer for mostly the same reasons as Brendan. It seems crazy to me to completely disregard any statement that doesn't pass the verificationist theory of meaning. Philosophers have to leave room for emotions in there theories, it's such a big part of human life. Why do we need to disragrard statements that have nothing to do with empirical evidence? What if they provoke thought and might lead to empirical proofs later?
If I had to get rid of any of the books it would have to be Aristotle. That book put me to sleep more times than I can remember and it was so ridiculously boring it killed me. However, Plato, Sartre, and Lao Tzu, werae all philosophers I loved reading about. Plato had some awsome ideas and the whole theory about the allegory of the cave is still one of my favourites. Lao Tzu provided a very interestine perspective for me...it was my spiritual escape in sense and allowed me to think about many things i wouldn't have before...and Sartre had a play about Hell and three idiots who are down there making the moves on one another which i thought was pretty funny.
I would cut locke. we barely talked about him, he wasn't really on either exam, and I find he's only really interesting to look at in comparison with hobbes. While most of the first term reading material asks how we as human beings ought to live, Locke's political philosophy seems genuinely out of place. While both Plato and Aristotle talked about the Polis, each was using it as a means to come to how we ought to live. It doesn't even seem that great as a segue to hume, another enlightenment thinker.
Locke is also very complex, and to skim over his ideas (which I DO enjoy) like we did was kind of an injustice, considering the time we spent on Kant and Plato.
Locke doesn't belong on the first year reading list, unless the focus is shifted or more time is allotted to him. Perhaps another humanist such as voltaire might provide a good replacement, and add some more allegorical philosophy to the mix.
I would unquestionably commit Kant to the flames (the person, not the book). I grant that my knowledge of philosophy is limited, but the impression I get is that Kant’s influence on the whole of the subsequent philosophical tradition has been enormous, and if this is so then the damage he must have done is incalculable.
I am speaking specifically about his moral philosophy.
Kant valued the intention of an action over the actual consequence. This means that physical reality takes a back seat to the ephemeral functions of your mind. Kant saw the height of moral goodness as that action which is undertaken to the detriment of your own well-being. An action that was ‘morally good’ but that also benefited the agent in some way was not as commendable as the one that made the agent a sacrificial being. This means that, for Kant, that which is morally good is at base that which only benefits the other. If morality is an ethical issue, and ethics is concerned with how one should act in order to live and live well, then Kant has no answer to the ethical question – he merely begs us to bleed for our fellow man and depend on their inclination to do the same. He provides no formula for how one should act in order to preserve and enjoy his life. He simply asks us to give our lives away.
Kant, if not morally reprehensible, is at the very least a destructive influence.
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