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Philosophy - Books

Under the above heading I give a series of bookreferences that concern philosophy in general.

It should be noted that - in spite of this general aim - my general perspective and background is Western, non-religious and non-political. And personally I think scientific realism and analytic philosophy are normally more sensible than other approaches to philosophy: Human civilization is founded on science (knowledge of reality) and science is found and tested by logical argumentation.

My limitations are in part due to my own background (I am Dutch), limitations (I only read Western languages) and interests (I am neither religious nor a volontary member of any political organization); and in part due to the fact that either more philosophy was done in the West or more was published and researched in universities.

My philosophical preferences are founded on 35 years of serious reading in philosophical, logical, mathematical and scientific literatures. I may be mistaken but I am reasonably well informed.

For non-Western, or religiously or politically motivated philosopy see Books - Special . And note there are no clear, simple and clean divisions here: Western Medieval philosophy was Christian; published philosophy in 20th Century socialist countries was Marxist. Also, there are no value-judgements: Very interesting and valuable work was done in Christian, Islamic, Hinduistic, Buddhistic and Chinese backgrounds. (To see this all one has to do is to read it with a clear mind.)

The other entries in the left panel - Ancient, Medieval, Modern and 20thC  - all concern Western philosophy.

Here is also an older file that lists part of my philosophical library with comments.

And here is a link to sites concerned with philosophy in general.

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Russell

 

 

last update: Nov 23 2003