Background
If you seriously want to be concerned with
philosophy, which may be for the moment defined as the conscious search for
answers to the questions what reality is like, what man should and should not
do, and how one should reason, then you must be intelligent, serious and
willing to work and think hard.
Also, it helps a lot to have lived a lot,
and to have acquired as much knowledge of science as one can manage, and to
have read considerably in books of history, psychology and mathematics.
One needs science, because many
philosophical questions have at least partial scientific answers, and anyway
science is humankind's conscious attempt to understand reality based on
logical reasoning and empirical experiment and investigation.
One needs history, because the best way to
come to understand men and women in general, and what they can and cannot do,
is to know what they have and have not done, and how they have survived so far
as a species.
One needs psychology, because this contains
most of the knowledge of the mental facilities, possibilities, and gifts and
shortcomings of men and women in general.
One needs mathematics, because it is the
science of arbitrary structures, and it would seem as if anything whatsoever
is a structure of some kind, while mathematics is the queen of the sciences,
and seriously involved in any real science.
Science
Toraldo di Franca: The investigation of
the physical world
Feynman: Lectures on Physics (3 vols)
Gardner: Science: Good, Bad and Bogus
Toraldo is an Italian physicist, and the
book is an excellent introduction to physics, philosophy of science and
philosophy in general. Feynman was an American physicist and Nobel-price
winner, and these three volumes are his course of physics for any intelligent
reader. Gardner used to have a mathematics column in "Scientific American". He
wrote quite a few books relating to science, all worth reading. (His own
opinions are in "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener".)
History
Thucydides: The Pelopponesian War
Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Burckhardt: Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien.
Thucydides participated in a later phase of
the war he describes. This book dates back to 400 B.C. and - when well
translated as e.g. by Rex Warner - is great literature and a very realistic
introduction to politics. Gibbon was an 18th century Englishman. The original
is in some seven volumes, but there are excellent abbreviations. It is very
fine writing, but one probably has to get used a little to the style, which
was quite ironical, because of all manner of censorships that existed
when the books were first published. Burckhardt was a 19th century Swiss
professor of history, who was much admired by Nietzsche (one of the not so
many things Nietzsche got right), and the book I list made him famous. I read
it in German, but it has been translated into many languages, including
English. (Get a lavishly illustrated edition if you can!)
Psychology
Anastasi : Individual Psychology
James : The Principles of Psychology (2 vols)
Lindsay & Norman: Human Information Processing
Anastasi is a fairly old introduction to the
psychological study and knowledge of the differences between individuals.
There are many other instances of this type of book that are more recent, but
I did not read them, and it is unlikely they are as balanced as this one.
Also, since Anastasi wrote, there has not been produced that much new
knowledge into the field, which indeed may also be said of William James's
text, which was written in the late 19th century. Most in it is still true,
and if not true still sensible, and all of it is better written than almost
any other writer in science. The last text I give is the most recent, though
probably somewhat outdated now, unless new editions have been made since I
went to university. It is a good, lively and interesting introduction to
psychology on the basis of recent insights about information processing.
Mathematics
Newman Ed.: The World of Mathematics
Aleksandrov, Kolmogorov & Lavrent'ev:
Mathematics: Its Content and Meaning (3 vols)
Griffith &
Hilton: A Comprehensive Textbook of Classical Mathematics - A
contemporary interpretation
Newman was published some 5 decades ago, but
remains a very fine introduction to most aspects of mathematics. Aleksandrov
et al. is the answer of Soviet-Russia to it (and who was really intelligent
and averse to politics while living under state socialism had a good
probability of ending up a pure mathematician). It is very well done, and
explains a lot of mathematics really well, and is a fine supplement to Newman's
collection. Griffith & Hilton is a fairly recent summary of all or most of the
mathematics required for a B.A. or M.A. in pure mathematics, all given on
modern logical and set-theoretical principles.
It also helps if one knows something about politics, for human beings are a species that is prone to science, art and war
upon other human beings, and there is some, mostly bitter but well-founded
political history and political science. I give a summary of books I found
interesting or useful in this field in
Politics and have
a section Politics on
this site.
Books
If you want to be a philosopher,
it helps a lot if you are a genuine booklover. A practical test is that by and
large you much rather read good books than watch TV. And indeed, through books
one can find the best texts by the best minds, whereas TV exposes you to what
the lowest common denominator of people like, which tends to be boring trash.
Here are some tips concerning
excellent collections of books, all of which are comparatively cheap, and many
of which are available in antiquarian bookshops (in England or Holland) and
concerning some books that are helpful with the serious study of philosophy.
Everyman's Library:
This is an English attempt that started in the beginning of the 20th Century
to provide an edition of the classics in most fields of science and literature
in around 1000 volumes, originally hardbound, small enough to be carried in a
pocket, attractively printed and fairly priced. It was an excellent effort to
make the mainstays of Western civilization available to the public, and you
may still find many of its volumes in English antiquarian bookshops. One
reason to list it here is that it contains most of the philosophical classics.
Dover Paperbacks:
This is an edition of reprints of important or interesting texts of very many
kinds, including mathematics. Standard editions are cheap, but unlike ordinary
paperbacks well-bound and printed on good paper.
The volumes of the books of both series usually contain an extensive catalogue
of other titles in the series. If you want to expand your mind, these two
series give you excellent opportunities to do so, in very many subjects.
R.M. Hutchins: 1. The
Great Conversation. 2. The Great Ideas - Syntopicon I 3.
The Great Ideas - Syntopicon II.
These are three volumes of a much larger series of classical texts to which
they formed a systematic introduction, based on the premisses that science and
art are the product of human conversation and that one can give an
alphabetical list of the great ideas. It's a bit professorial and pedantic,
but even so it gives a good survey of terms and concepts that have seriously
mattered to many men in many generations.
P.
Edwards Ed.: Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This is - by far - the best
encyclopedy of philosophy I have seen, and also one of the fattest. It was
compiled in the 1960ies, and first edited in 8 volumes, but the edition I have
binds these in 4. I have found nothing like it on the internet, though I
suppose the internet
Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
is much influenced by it.
Philosophers
Personally, I find it very
difficult to take a serious interest in philosophers who have no head for
mathematics, no genuine knowledge of science, or who cannot write clearly.
These are not mere prejudices, for I did try to read the unmathematical,
unscientific or unclear philosophers, but found it mostly a waste of time.
Here are some 20th Century
philosophers who knew mathematics and science and who wrote well, with the
titles of some of their books. I do not suggest that you believe or follow
them, but I do suggest that you read them - if you are seriously interested in
philosophy. If it then turns out that the great minds for you have the size of
those of Heidegger, Foucault or Liotard, at least no one can say that you
prefer these luminaries because you are too stupid to do serious mathematics,
logic or philosophy of science.
Russell: 1. History of Western Philosophy.
2. Analysis of Matter. 3. Human Knowledge - its scope and limits. In
fact, Russell published over 70 books, so this is a small selection. For the
History of Western Philosophy Russell received the Nobel Prize of
Literature, and indeed that is the strength of the work: It is very
well-written, and the only history of philosophy that made me laugh. In terms
of balanced academic judgement there may be better histories of philosophy
(such as by Father Copleston), but not in terms or reading pleasure. The
Analysis of Matter is Russell's most serious and longest reflection on
what physics (of which Russell had a good knowledge) has to do with
philosophy. It is in some respects outdated, being written in the 1920ies, but
it is still well worth reading. Russell's last serious book in philosophy was
Human Knowledge, and it was not as well received as many of his other
books, because the then popular linguistic approach to philosophy in English
and American universities found fault with Russell's scientific and realistic
attitudes. I don't, and find this one of Russell's most interesting books.
Broad: 1. The Mind and its
Place in Nature. 2. Five Types of Ethical Theories. Broad was British,
worked at Cambridge University, and was an approximate contemporary of Russell
and Wittgenstein, by whom he was somewhat overshadowed. This is a pity, for
Broad wrote a very clear English, had a great talent for impartial analysis,
was skeptical in a sane commonsensical manner about most issues, did have some
personal courage, and knew quite a lot of science. The Mind and its Place
in Nature is given to the analysis of what its title indicates, and is the
best book in philosophy of mind I have read. His Five Types of Ethical
Theories is a serious discussion of ethics, and again much clearer and
more complete and thorough than nearly all other texts on ethics I read.
Bunge: 1. Causality 2.
Treatise of Basic Philosophy. Bunge is an Argentinian theoretical
physicist with a strong taste and talent for philosophy. He became fairly well
known with
Causality (also available in Dover
Paperbacks) which is a well-written survey of various ideas of and approaches
to causality. His
Treatise of Basic Philosophy is a much
greater effort, in about 10 volumes, and attempts to give basic philosophy on
the basis of fundamental mathematical, logical and scientific concepts. I like
it, but it seems not to be popular with academic philosophers, and indeed I
never met anyone who read it.
Even so: It exists; it is well-written and quite clear if you know some basic
mathematics and science; and it seems more sensible even where it is mistaken
than most other philosophy published in the 20th Century.
Stegmüller: Probleme und Resultaten der analytischen und
Wissenschaftsphilosophie. This is German (I am told it was all
translated into English, but never have seen an edition), and available in
four thick hardbound volumes or some thirty thinner paperbound ones, called
"Studienausgabe". The title translates as "Problems and results of analytical
philosophy and philosophy of science", and indeed this is what it gives an
introduction to and survey of. It is very well done, and explains a lot of the
background (e.g. in mathematical logic and probability theory) that is
normally presupposed but not stated in academic papers in the subjects
Stegmüller treats.