Best thought philosophy books according to redditors
We found 313 Reddit comments discussing the best thought philosophy books. We ranked the 113 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 313 Reddit comments discussing the best thought philosophy books. We ranked the 113 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Some responses and questions for your thoughts here (thanks for being thorough, by the way):
You say:
> 1) The polarization of society shows that… moral standards are being strengthened rather than lowered.
> a) To say that [moral standards] are lower because they are not Catholic is to [claim that the] Church [is] right because it says it is right, not because it is [demonstrable.]
I say:
First, “polarization of society” does not equal a “strengthening” of Catholic moral standards. Just because two groups hold competing and increasingly hostile views does not mean that either of those groups hold to the fullness of any particular moral standard, let alone Catholic ones.
As an aside, I’d also be interested in what you mean by “polarization of society.” Which society? What kind of moral structure do these two polarities adhere to? Are there really only two dominant competing moral theories that exist?
Second, how would you suggest we demonstrate the superiority of a particular moral position in a way that is intelligible to those who lack the moral language or conceptual framework to grasp it? Alasdair MacIntyre writes about this problem in the important work After Virtue—one cannot simply “demonstrate” the superiority of a moral position because we do not have a common lexicon in which to understand these positions.
I mention this because saying something is “not Catholic, and therefore not right” seems to me a very valid way of expressing one’s moral perspective. It doesn’t “prove” anything, but it encapsulates a moral position succinctly and objectively, something more than most modes of modern moral theory can muster. (I had to keep my m’s going there.)
You say:
> 2) In the 50’s and 60’s Kinsey found that 50% of married men had cheated on their spouses. In 1990 Lauman discovered the number to be 25%, and another report by Treas in 200 showed the number of people who had cheated to be 11%, which shows a decline in infidelity over that period.
I say:
These statistics do not account for the rise of internet pornography, ease of access to said pornography, and certainly doesn’t reflect the actual state of affairs (excuse the pun) between men and women today versus 60 years ago.
As for the first point regarding pornography: “Infidelity” is an amorphous moral term, because it always references how we conceptualize “fidelity”. Does a man remain faithful to his wife if he doesn’t sleep with another woman, but masturbates to pornography in the confines of marriage? As the taboo against porn has waned, so has the increase of its consumption (an easily searchable statistic.) It has become easier and “safer” to satisfy extramarital sexual desire through the use of the internet, so it follows that the more “risky investment” of an affair would fall.
Finally, the statistics you mentioned, especially Kinsey, cannot account for the actual occurrence of infidelity. Most are already aware of Kinsey’s methodological problems, and of course the very nature of infidelity is one that is shrouded in deceit.
Therefore, it isn’t helpful to use statistics surrounding infidelity and illegitimacy when discussing morals unless: 1) there is an agreed upon understanding of what constitutes infidelity and 2) there are a number of more reports regarding infidelity with varying methodologies that might be compared.
You say:
> 3) …even though they are not married, [couples with children are] still performing the same roles as if they were married
I say
This isn’t relevant to the thesis that “love, marriage, sex and procreation are all things that belong together” for the simple reason that, even if marital “roles” are established, the sacrament of marriage, which is an essential component of a “right” moral structure (as it relates to the identity of the human person, which relates to the identity of God, which relates to the ultimate happiness of the human person) is deemed unnecessary. This deeming rejects a sacramental word-view, which in turns rejects the foundation of Catholic moral theory (again, as it pertains to human flourishing in relation to the Sacred/Divine).
You say
> 4) “…with the expansion of women’s rights we are… objectifying women less than when Humanae Vitae was written.”
I say
As you mentioned, this is your opinion, and one I can appreciate—but disagree with. I agree with you that this is a “touchy” subject primarily because we haven’t done a good job defining what it means to “objectify” the human person. I think it’s clear this kind of objectification has always been present in human history, but I also think it’s clear that it has grown worse in the 20th century moving forward. Simply look at the “adult entertainment” industry for proof of this: There is literally a multi-billion dollar industry that revolves around turning the bodies of men and women into consumable objects. Not to mention the sex-trafficking industry is operating at an all-time high and demand is ever-growing. These kinds of industries have always existed, to be sure, but never before on such a massive scale and with so much tacit support from the general population.
You say
> 5) “Government coercion in reproductive matters [seem] hardly tied to expansion [of] birth control…children are expensive and as society becomes more consumeristic… people would rather spend their money on more things rather than more children.”
I say
Two things: First, I agree that people would rather spend their money on things than children. This fact supports the thesis that birth control has a corrupting and constricting effect on the morality of a nation, not a liberating one. Orienting people’s desires towards products rather than people is a commonly mentioned moral transgression, in and outside of a Christian ethical schema.
Second, it’s hard to prove “government coercion” when it comes to the expansion of birth control. In fact, countries like Japan are now having to encourage that their citizens not use birth control because of the devastating effect of population decline on the economy. But when the aforementioned consumeristic ideology has taken root even in the minds of those who control government, it’s clear to see why dispensing contraceptives becomes a priority, even to the point of elevating them to the status of a “woman’s health product.”
Finally:
I think that your conclusion that “the prophecies of Humanae Vitae did not come true” is unsubstantiated and, perhaps more unfortunately, a misunderstanding of a component of the document’s argument. The idea that “increased birth control is an effect and not a cause of the shift in moral standards” glosses over the reality that moral standards are tied to material changes. The advent and widespread dissemination of artificial birth control was a catalyst, not an effect for the growth for the already-present disordered sexual ethos found natively in virtually every culture.
> 4.Which is a better outcome
The best outcome is following the truth about homosexuality and abortion, don't you think?
And truth can't be "made more accessible" or changed for utilitarian ends like bringing people back. It just is true.
I would highly recommend some good books, such as What is Marriage: Man and Woman, a Defense and Persuasive Pro-Life by Trent Horn. It may help to understand why pro-lifers and people who believe in natural marriage hold the views they hold, before suggesting they change them.
Furthermore, many liberal denominations are in decline, even though they changed their teachings to be more accommodating to outsiders. The Catholic Church does not need to become more liberal or accommodating to current trends to thrive and be successful: https://onenewsnow.com/church/2016/11/20/study-churches-with-conservative-theology-grow-faster
I'm afraid you're seriously mistaken. Two people of the same sex can't be married. It's like how a square can't be a circle. It just goes against the definition of the term.
If you want to understand why I say this, I highly recommend this book. It explains why it is illogical to consider anything other than an exclusive man-woman union as a marriage.
This isn't about "tolerance". This is about the meaning of the term marriage.
It sounds to me like somebody's been attemptin' some philosophy on the side. 😜
But seriously, I'd recommend reading some good philosophy to help wrap your mind around these questions - what it is to be has been around since Descartes, if not earlier. I'm reading Feser's Philosophy of Mind and it deals directly with that question.
As to other advice, pray even louder when all you can pray is, "WHY?" And perhaps think about how no matter what, you must exist, or you couldn't be doubting that you exist, because who'd be doing the doubting?
> I mean I've been an atheist for a long time but it didn't occur to me until recently what the absence of a higher power entail. ... Everything we hold dear only has any meaning because we tell ourselves it has.
I don't see how having "a higher power" would solve this. Suppose God existed, and said that "the purpose of life is to figure out how many asteroids there are in the asteroid belt." Even if we knew this, most people would think "well that sounds like a waste of time." It's not clear how having a higher power telling you what to do would solve this. And even if God were to tell us "the meaning of life", a natural follow up question would be, "Okay. And how is that meaningful?"
You asked for some literature on the subject, so here are some things that come to mind if you're interested in reading more on it:
Thomas Nagel's The Absurd
Susan Wolf's Meaning in Life and Why It Matters
Thaddeus Metz's Meaning in Life
Additionally, Thaddeus Metz has also written the SEP article on the meaning of life, so that may be a good place to start.
EDIT: Fixed formatting.
The "secular" argument against the redefinition of marriage is based on the discussion about what marriage is. The moment you frame the discussion around "equality of marriage" you're already taking a step beyond the basis that form marriage in the first place, so it's question begging.
One must first define what marriage is and then we can begin to discuss whether people have a "right" to it. The secular argument is based on natural law (regardless if people think or don't understand it).
I have yet to have a single pro-gay-marriage person give a definition of marriage that ultimately doesn't make marriage meaningless, which would mean they're advocating something they don't believe exists in the first place, which is absurd.
BTW, this is a secular defense of traditional marriage: http://amzn.com/1594036225
Philosophically Catholics (should) hold that AI is not possible; that intelligence is an aspect of a rational soul, and so the only way to have a true "thinking machine" is either to somehow have a human or angel soul therein (think cyborg or demon-possessed object).
Feser's Philosophy of Mind goes much deeper into it.
Now, of course, none of this prevents sci-fi stories about AI (some of RA Lafferty's are great), but it does mean that true AI is not possible without an immortal soul (because of the universals, basically).
Have you read A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality? Because that is a huge discussion between the characters in the book.
Also, I have to say that I agree that a copy of me offers no comfort in looking forward to its experiences.
A text that might interest you is Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self, which is a philosophical history of what it means to be a self. Be warned that it is a big book, and while the writing style is not very hard, it is certainly dry.
Another book that might interest you is Herbert Fingarette's Self-Deception. It's not exactly about personal identity as such, but it is about the philosophically and psychologically tricky notion of what it means to deceive oneself. The central question Fingarette explores is what it could mean to be both the deceiver and the deceived at the same time. The book crosses the line between philosophy and psychology, which is why it might appeal to you. It's also fairly small and the writing style is not too turgid.
Ignorant? That was the published opinion of Alisdair MacIntyre, the greatest (and most respected) moral philosopher of the last 100 years in what is generally considered the most important book on moral philosophy in that time period, After Virtue.
Ignorance is not even knowing the basics of the conversation, its terms, its players, and what is or is not actually up for debate. Go spend time on /r/badphilosophy and see how often your own view point comes up.
Woooooo!
So, Merleau-Ponty is basically merging Husserl, Heidegger, and psychology. Reading a bit of Husserl or Heidegger helps get a picture of his project on a whole. The PoP is also MP's critique of both rationalism (idealism/dualism a la Kant) and empiricism/naturalism (materialism/dualism a la Russell).
Don't worry about struggling, one MP scholar noted that his works "fall somewhere in the range between formidable and impossible." That is, without a good background.
For the 'minimal work' to get at the primary text, I'd suggest
The Hass book is a great secondary source that covers more than the PoP and traces the growth of MP's thought. The Gallagher book is a pretty good introduction to the vocabulary and dialogue that the PoP was written in. While his moves won't come easy unless you are familiar with Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre (maybe some Scheler or Stein) [oh, and psychoanalysis!] - the Gallagher book should get your feet wet enough to feel more comfortable diving in, though.
Edit/PS; MP just tosses out (as in citing and using) famous psych and neurology studies from his time, it isn't terribly important to look them up, though it is fun to see what the running french theories were.
Of course.
Aquinas
The Last Superstition
His blog (check out his latest blog post, actually, and read (or listen to) his speech)
Philosophy of Mind - not directly related to religious belief, but gives background to understand some of the inconsistencies in an atheistic worldview
Depends on who you ask (obviously). I think there is a trend in materialist philosophy of mind, supported by neuroscience that sees the sense of self as an illusion created by the brain. Some go so far as to call consciousness itself an illusion. I have also heard the complaint that dualist theories of mind are misrepresented or underrepresented in philosophy.
For a counter perspective, you can read Philosophy of mind : A beginner's guide by Ed Feser. I have not read it personally, but Feser is a sharp and clear thinker, and his prose is readable to boot.
Since you're studying non-duality, Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions is an important read. It contains papers on comparisons of various Buddhist, as well as Advaita Vedantic, Nyaya and other theories of the Self. I have read and highly recommend it.
This is a good introductory essay by Nick Bostrom from The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence. And this is a relevant survey essay by Drew McDermott from The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness.
If folks aren't taking well to the background reading, they might at least do alright jumping to Section 5 from the Descartes' Discourse (they can use this accessible translation). One little snippet:
>I worked especially hard to show that if any such machines had the organs and outward shape of a monkey or of some other animal that doesn’t have reason, we couldn’t tell that they didn’t possess entirely the same nature as these animals; whereas if any such machines bore a resemblance to our bodies and imitated as many of our actions as was practically possible, we would still have two very sure signs that they were nevertheless not real men. (1) The first is that they could never use words or other constructed signs, as we do to declare our thoughts to others. We can easily conceive of a machine so constructed that it utters words, and even utters words that correspond to bodily actions that will cause a change in its organs (touch it in one spot and it asks ‘What do you mean?’, touch it in another and it cries out ‘That hurts!’, and so on); but not that such a machine should produce different sequences of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to whatever is said in its presence—which is something that the dullest of men can do. (2) Secondly, even though such machines might do some things as well as we do them, or perhaps even better, they would be bound to fail in others; and that would show us that they weren’t acting through understanding but only from the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need some particular disposition for each particular action; hence it is practically impossible for a machine to have enough different •organs to make •it act in all the contingencies of life in the way our •reason makes •us act. These two factors also tell us how men differ from beasts [= ‘non-human animals’].
That sets the stage for historically important essay from Turing of Turing-Test-fame. And that essay sets up nicely Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment. Scientific America has two accessible articles: Searle presents his argument here, and the Churchland's respond.
As always, the SEP and IEP are good resources for students, and they have entries with bibliographies on consciousness, the hard problem of consciousness, AI, computational theories of mind, and so on.
There are countless general introductions to philosophy of mind. Heil's Philosophy of Mind is good. Seager's introduction to theories of consciousness is also quite good, but maybe more challenging than some. Susan Blackmore's book Conversations on Consciousness was a very engaging read, and beginner friendly. She also has a more textbook-style Introduction that I have not read, but feel comfortable betting that it is also quite good.
Searle's, Dennett's and Chalmer's books on consciousness are all good and influential and somewhat partisan to their own approaches. And Kim's work is a personal favorite.
(sorry for the broad answer--it's a very broad question!)
While some of OP's responses make me question that this is being asked in good faith, I will nonetheless try to answer.
First, one needs to consider the fact that there is literally a book on non-religious reasons why Gay marriage is bad policy. This is a pdf of the article that the book was later spun into with more arguments and sources. It is only 43 pages long and easy to understand.
Ultimately, it comes down to a couple of things: if you think there is value in humans procreating, then marriage policy should encourage biological sex (reproduction) in any shape or form to the exclusion of other relationships, otherwise, there is no added incentive to have children.
Similarly, you need to think of people as having natural ends, limited as they may be. Biologically, humans tend towards survival, reproduction, and expansion. If you do not think humans are supposed to, by our nature (because you deny that humans have a particular nature, which many people do and have done) do anything of the aforementioned, then this argument will ring hollow to you. You might say, is a computer natural? I would say yes, any tool is a natural expansion of our desire to survive and expand. Computers included.
Therefore, you might see then that while a liberal approach (classically speaking) might want to leave gay people alone to enjoy their rights to self determine, the same people might not want to extend incentives designed to reward a stable family unit to a relationship that will neither result in children, nor can.
From the article above:
> A thought experiment might crystallize the central argument. Almost every culture in every time and place has had some institution that resembles what we know as marriage. But imagine that human beings reproduced asexually and that human offspring were self‐sufficient. In that case, would any culture have developed an institution anything like what we know as marriage? It seems clear that the answer is no....The essential features of marriage would be missing; there would be no human need that only marriage could fill....Because marriage uniquely meets essential needs in such a structured way, it should be regulated for the common good, which can be understood apart from specifically religious arguments. And the needs of those who cannot prudently or do not marry (even due to naturally occurring factors), and whose relationships are thus justifiably regarded as different in kind, can be met in other ways.
You can take it or leave it, but it is rather meaningless now that gay marriage is the law of the US.
These two books cover essentially the same material (The Last Superstition is a little broader in scope, but this ground is also covered by Feser in Philosophy of Mind); large passages are word-for-word the same. The main difference is that The Last Superstition links together these long, dry passages with gratuitous insults for marketing purposes. There is really not that much polemic relative to the substantial passages, but what there is will be insufferable to some readers. While I share Anthony Kenny's judgement that The Last Superstition "would have been a better book if it had never mentioned Dawkins and co at all", they are both very good books.
>What is this and how does it work?
The phenomenological reduction is the turning of our attention to how we are experiencing, and to how things appear in experience. Once one has turned their attention to the how of their experiencing, they can start to do phenomenology, and describe their experience.
In order to get to this stage where one can be in a position to adequately describe their experience one has to put aside, suspend, or bracket what is referred to as the natural attitude. The natural attitude refers to any beliefs, judgements, opinions, or theories, that we have which go beyond what is immediately given to us in experience - and thus aren't useful for us in describing experience. The central attitude we take which goes beyond direct lived experience is that we live in a real world. That the objects that we perceive exist out there in the world, and continue to exist when we aren't perceiving them. When one returns to their rice boiling on the stove for example, it isn't a surprise that the rice has now cooked, because it is assumed that when we weren't perceiving the rice, it continued to exist and cook. Likewise if one comes across a bear in the wild one does not start to ponder whether or not the bear is something that actually exists, rather we act as if it does exist, and run the hell away from it. So we bring many beliefs, judgements, opinions, or theories about how things work, to our experience, whether they are based on science or common sense, and these are all collectively referred to as the natural attitude. Importantly this natural attitude goes beyond what is directly given in experience. Whether or not the rice continues to exist or not when we don't perceive it, or whether or not the rice we experience on the stove is real or a hallucination, are questions that go beyond what is immediately given in experience. But since the aim here is to describe experience itself, we must put aside the natural attitude and any assumptions it brings to the table. This process of bracketing the natural attitude is called the epoché (a Greek word for suspension of belief - pronounced ep-okay).
>Why does Husserl think it is the necessary first step in the practice of phenomenology?
It is a necessary first step because to engage in phenomenology is to describe experience as experienced, and in order to do that we have to put aside things that don't aid us in our descriptions, such as metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. This putting aside of things that go beyond what is immediately given in experience is the phenomenological reduction.
At this point it might help to say something about why one might want to do phenomenology in the first place. Why might one want to describe experience as it is experienced. I think this quote from Shaun Gallagher's book Phenomenology will help to answer to this question:
>Consciousness is like our window onto the world. Of course we are usually interested in the things we perceive through that window; maybe we are fascinated with the stuff that we find around us. But how do we know that we are getting a good view through our window? For example, what if the window is dirty, or colored, or distorted. What if the way the window is designed, or the window frame, keeps us from seeing everything we want to see. The phenomenologist suggests that before we study the things that we see when we look outside the window, we should first be concerned about the condition of the window – whether it’s dirty, colored, distorted, or structured in such a way that it gives us only poor access to the objects on the other side of it. Returning from the metaphor, the phenomenologist thinks that the first step in understanding the basis for knowledge is to study the conditions imposed by consciousness – and specifically the structural features of consciousness, the way it works, and perhaps the systematic distortions that might bias it.
>What are some reasons why one might disagree with Husserl, even while remaining sympathetic to the general idea of phenomenology?
One way that someone might disagree with Husserl, in terms of the general approach of phenomenology is to claim that phenomenology is a form of introspectionist psychology and is thus subject to the same criticisms of introspectionism. This is an approach Daniel Dennett seems to take. Husserl was also an anti-naturalist, that is he didn't think science was the only valid form of knowledge. In this line he didn't think (phenomenal) consciousness could naturalised, briefly because consciousness, specifically the transcendental ego, is not something that is part of the world but is taken for granted by it. So one might want to disagree with this view, be a naturalist but also use some of the techniques that phenomenology has developed, such as the phenomenological reduction. This would allow one to bring a methodology to the description of experience in for example neuroscientific experiments whilst also being a naturalist, and something like this is held by neurophenomenology. Whether or not phenomenology can be naturalised is still a subject of debate. Here's a talk from the phenomenologist Dan Zahavi who goes into this issue.
For further reading i'd check out the SEP article on Husserl, there is a section on the epoché and the phenomenological reduction. There is also an [IEP article on the phenomenological reduction](https://www.iep.utm.edu/phen-red/. And for a short introduction to phenomenology Gallagher's Phenomenology and Zahavi and Gallagher's The Phenomenological Mind and Gallagher's Phenomenology are quite good.
Ding ding ding. Welcome to the wacky wonderful world of epistemology. Let Robert Audi be your guide.
Have you read Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue? It is a great book. In the opening chapter he points out that the classic moral/ethical debates (e.g. abortion, homosexuality, pacifism, animal rights, etc.) are all marked by the inability to step out of one pre-determined system of argumentation. People simply argue past one another. Your comment here about 'human goods' vs. 'penis in vagina' is getting at Alasdair's point. When we have these (optimistically named) conversations, we simply entrench ourselves within the system we affectively choose to be in. "If only these would see that (insert assumed premise), then they would understand." This whole thread is a great example of this dilemma. The premises we assume are usually not even assumed consciously and they end up destroying our ability to have a conversation. Natural law or virtue ethics? 'Penis in vagina' or fidelity?
I haven't read Subahibi, so I'm just going to take your question as "how do I get into philosophy."
Philosophy is one of the most diverse fields that we currently have. Philosophy is more than just pondering the meaning of life, it also is about uncovering the mindsets on discoveries and how people came about the knowledge we have today. You should start more simple over diving into people's work like Nietzsche so you can get the full picture on why they say what they say.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, metaphysics is the study of existence (not to be confused with existentialism, which is even more meta and theoretical), Aesthetics is the study of art, Ethics is the study of morality, and there are philosophies of politics, mind, body, religion, and all sorts.
I would shy away from direct writings from philosophers, as contemporary books are the literal collection of all of their knowledge presented in an easier to digest way.
Maybe try Robert Audi's or Michael William's introduction. They come at issues from somewhat different angles, but both are quite good.
The simple answer is because religion is not necessarily 'reasonable'. Yes, it may be reasonable in the eyes of the person of a certain religion, but that is personal reason, rationalizations for ones own ease of mind.
At the end of it though, at some point of that religion you will be faced with 'reason', or what is masked as it. If you believe in a religion then it is fairly reasonable to assume you would concede that there are some things of the religion that you cannot physically show me, I mean that's why it's called faith isn't it? You simply choose to believe in it.
I agree that it isn't very... adequate, to outright label religion as illogical or without reason, that fact depends on the type of faith the individual himself holds (that is to say any faith, including atheism)(after all, to label an entire act as reasonable or not is a generalisation, for both theism and atheism, which is in itself not reasonable). But it is also sensible to say that atheism is largely comprised of a 'logical' (relative to physical practice) method and setting to it which has led to such an entitlement.
If we were talking philosophically, then yeah you're absolutely right, mostly because now all knowledge is 'liquid' and nothing is 'certain' (relative to the person) because everything is now infinitely subjective.
But in the strictness of looking through what we can physically define, there is no doubting that religion has a blank spot in it which you can never know, yet you choose to believe.
Sidenote: The Atheist Afterlife. As far as I know atheism doesn't have (nor has it ever had) a problem with the afterlife reasonably, because, as you said, there is no proof for either argument, therefore so far both sides are possible. Atheisms issue is the existence of 'heaven' and 'hell' and the entire judgement argument in such an afterlife.
Kant is rather difficult, and some background knowledge of him is going to be required. Scruton's book is probably going to be the easiest secondary source, and will likely point you to other helpful sources as well. I took a course that focused on the Critique of Pure Reason and we used this to help us with both establishing the context and for breaking apart the text. As for primary sources, the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is fairly accessible by Kant's standards, and pretty short, so it's maybe not a bad place to start. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics is also apparently a must-read for a full understanding of the critiques.
Al that said, Kant is pretty difficult. I'm not sure what your native language is, but I've heard German students read him in English because those translations can be clearer than the originals, but he's incredibly dense however you read him. The SEP will be great too not just as a source, but for pointing you to other writings on Kant.
>Socrates isn’t really that convincing for me. Especially because of outside information. Modern biology, psychology and physics, has just completely dismissed my belief in life after death, at least when referring to the soul (Intelligence, conscience, etc.) Now of course this is a cheap shot, since Plato was writing this 2400 years ago.
More than a cheap shot, really. I'd argue that you're missing a lot of the value of Plato (and will miss out on the value of a lot of philosophy) if you're addressing it like this. I'd highly recommend Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way of Life, which offers a different, and perhaps more productive way of reading Greek writers than what you're doing. If you're looking for his arguments to hold up to neuroscientific accounts of existence, of course Plato isn't going to hold up, but Hadot (and others) would argue that the Plato was more aimed at human flourishing. Alasdair MacIntyre also digs into Aristotle with this in his After Virtue.
If you need it all broken down for you analytically and philosophically, I suggest "The Ego Trick", by Julian Baggini. It really helped me get over my existential stuck points.
Reddit doesn't like Amazon links with a bunch of options because it assumes they are associate links (links where the referrer get a cut of the sale). So when linking Amazon books on Reddit it best to use bare links such as:
Both of which do the same thing because the book title in the url is ignored by Amazon. In fact you can do the following as well and it would still work:
Which means you can prank people with Amazon links pretty easily.
I'm not, though I will have to look at this. The inspiration for this post primarily came from The Invention of Art and After Virtue.
Reminds me of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1847082734
I think Searl's book was titled "Minds, Brains, and Science" and one of his papers was called "Minds, Brains, and Computers", otherwise I agree with this list completely, adding in David Chalmers' "Consciousness and its Place in Nature" as well.
The Chalmers compilation Burnage mentions below contains most of these essays, and a few others that are also very good.
OP, this is the collection mentioned.
The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable. The odds of meeting God there - Nil
Haven't read it. Looks interesting, though.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
There are lots of introductions to epistemology, as a quick search on Amazon indicates:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=epistemology&sprefix=epist%2Cstripbooks
I haven't read most of them, but based on the authors and publishers, I expect these to be solid surveys:
http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416622594&sr=1-1&keywords=epistemology
http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Richard-Feldman/dp/0133416453/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NPT7RZ11R84R4WD6B1T
As others have said, it might be of help to you to start with secondary sources.
One of my professors recommended
Phenomenology by Shaun Gallagher and I found it really well written and accessible.
Rawls is obviously important. It's also probably good to read something from the communitarian school of thought. Influential books include After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice by Michael Sandel, Sources of the Self by Charles Taylor, and Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer.
Well, obviously you should give Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics a thorough read.
A modern philosopher well known for his attempts at reviving virtue ethics is Alasdair MacIntyre - his seminal book on the subject is After Virtue.
Also, another philosopher, with virtue ethics in the baggage, who's more politically oriented would be Martha Nussbaum. She's noted for going on about her 'capabilities approach' for many years, and some people regard this as an equally viable political option to utilitarian/liberal minimal states or Rawlsian social democracies. The literature on the approach is rather massive, so I'd go give the SEF page on the subject a go for starters, as she also makes very compelling arguments strengthened by interdisciplinary research with experts from other fields.
Also, I highly recommend [this book](http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Political-Philosophy-Will-Kymlicka/dp/0198782748/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414771070&sr=1- 1&keywords=contemporary+political+philosophy), as it has great chapters on communitarianism and citizenship theory, which draws heavily on the Aristotelian legacy - the citizenship theory chapter being especially great, since Kymlicka there points out how difficult it turns out to be trying to cultivate civil virtues in modern societies.
EDIT: grammar.
John Perry's very short Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality is really fun to read.
Susan Wolf's book on the meaning of life is non-technical and on the human condition. There's plenty of literature on this if you look around.
If ethics is more interesting to you than doctrine, you should read Alasdair MacIntyre's 1983 After Virtue. It's a serious work of moral philosophy, written before MacIntyre converted to Catholicism, arguing that contemporary moral disagreement is unresolvable and therefore useless, and thus we ought to return to an Aristotelian framework. Eventually it requires a deist God at the least to be logical, but he argues for that along the way, and you don't need to begin with such a belief. It is excellent, but you do need a little philosophical background to not feel swamped.
Popper's ideas are of the practical kind, regarding scientific inquiry. It is not epistemology in the traditional sense. For example, would you say that your empirically based idea X is knowledge? If you say yes, how do you know that tomorrow you won't discard it for an idea that fits the criteria even better, even if today you don't think anything could possibly fit the criteria better than your current idea? Many ideas that fit the criteria are eventually discarded not because a detail or a few in them can be improved, but because they turn out to be completely false (look at the history of physics, for example). Such epistemology is practically useful, however, it says nothing about epistemic justification.
There are a lot of theories in epistemology. Read the 'epistemology' entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Find a book about epistemology, such as this
Ah, look man, don't go for the Dummies Guides! Reducing philosophy to any form of expression not done by the author is always a dangerous business, and is by no means the making of a good education. With that said, there are introduction texts that can appreciate the fact that you're a layman. Those are the ones you're going to want.
Here is one for phenomenology.
Reasons I Believe In Setianism
Resources:
[1] More against materialism
• Rejection of Materialism
• Wiki
• Why Materialism is Baloney
• Dualism
• Substance Dualism
• Against Materialism
[2-3] More on Platonism
• Mathematics and Physicalism
• Theory of Forms
• Arguments for Forms
• Plato
• Short
• Platonic Polytheism
[4] More on Life-Fields
• Scientific Evidence
• Evidence 2
• Summary
• By Dr. Burr
• Dr. Aquino
[5] More on Egypt
• [Setian Pyramid Texts] (http://orderoftheserpent.org/forum/index.php?topic=35.msg150#msg150)
• Seth God of Confusion
• Images of Set
• Mysteries of Horus and Set
[6] More on Metaphysics
• Self Actualization
• O.S. AMA
• O.S. statement
• Metaphysics
William Jaworski wrote a super digestible overview of the current problems in the philosophy of mind. The book functions as a textbook, but reads like something much less intimidating.
EDIT: And now I'm reading he's apparently been suspended from Fordham on multiple sexual misconduct allegations. Shame he's a creep.
Try this one: https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Identity-Topics-Philosophy-Perry/dp/0520256425
First off I think a good place to start is to try to isolate atleast some questions that strike you as particularly interesting. Simply starting at random in the midst of the endless mounds of philosophy done in the analytic style is a horrible and frustrating endeavour(speaking from experience).
That being said, two really good introductury anthologies that helped me alot are: Chalmer's The Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. It contains key essays by key thinkers in the field as well as some really helpful considerations by Chalmers who attempts to tie the different schools together and show similarities and differences.
And Martinich's The Philosophy of Language which contains a big chunk of classical and semi-contemporary essays in the subject. Both are a great place to start if you want to go directly to the source and read the actual essays as opposed to secondary litterature.
Seeing as you are already familiar with Husserl and the earlier phenomenology I think going through philosophy of language can be a good idea. As Frege was a central character in Husserls earlier writings, it sets an interesting background to some of the differences in interpretation we find in the early analytic philosophers who were, like Husserl, inspired by Frege but came to radically different conclusions and interpretations.
Morris has written a really neat introductory book called An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language that goes well with Martinich's anthology.
Hope this helps!
edit: spelling, links
I had a comment in here giving a reason for he post, though that's not an explanation.
> Note: may not be the best place to post, but I needed to post somewhere in order to link it in Dr. Feser's open thread today, which he only does a couple of times each year. I've been working through his books since early this year, and developing this concept map as I progress.
By way of explanation, this is a work in progress to visualize the relationships between the concepts brought to bear in the philosophical advances of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Beginning for the fundamental argument for the necessary reality of the distinction between actuality and potentiality, the concept map walks through the conceptual divisions of act and potency. Notably, the divisions of act arrive at a core conception of God as Pure Actuality, Being Itself, utterly devoid of any potentiality or passivity. This is not a proof of God, but rather simply serves to define God's role as the First and Unmoved Mover and Sustainer of all things.
The divisions of act and potency expand to the right of the map, where you see how actuality and potentiality come together as Form and Matter to produce concrete, material things.
Branching off of from the soul (here defined as the substantial form of a living substance), there is a section which details the powers or capacities of the different levels of living substances, which are hierarchically related, with respect to the corporeal order.
For now, the section on the Four Causes is placed on its own, as I still haven't decided where best to tie it in, since many topics make use of this principle. Particularly, Final Causation (defined as the end, goal, purpose, directedness or teleology of a thing) is essential to understanding the concept of objective goodness, which carries into the section on ethics (which, in this view, amounts to an understanding of the directedness of the will).
Also included, but not yet connected as well as it could be, is a section on the divine attributes, along with a brief explanation of how we can know them.
There is much more that can be included. As mentioned elsewhere, this was posted here so that I could link to the WIP. I had hoped that I could catch Edward Feser's attention in the comments of his open thread, which he posted on his blog site yesterday, and which he does only a couple times per year. This concept map is the result of my learning from his books:
I am still working my way through this last one, and when done I intend also to read:
You may be able to find excerpts from this book somewhere, but John Perry's Personal Identity is a collection of essays regarding personal identity, and a few of the topics later in the book are specifically on racial identity and, if I remember correctly, they talk about transracial identity. They also touch on transgender identity.
It's a good book. If I remember, when I get home, I can look up which particular essays I had in mind.
On the topic of secondary sources, check out http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Robert-Sokolowski/dp/0521667925
I've been lurking on reddit for a few months now but after reading this question I had to respond :)
For the last year I've been getting really into phenomenology. Not only is it a fun thing to do as its own end, but I've been told it is key to understanding a considerable portion of continental philosophy. I find myself doing Husserlian or Heideggarian phenomenology whenever I'm bored by myself, watching TV, or with friends.
(Note: I'm confused as to why platochronic thinks Heidegger doesn't do phenomenology. Sure it isn't phenomenology in the traditional, Cartesian sense, and he does reformulate its definition in the first Intro to B&T, but his re-casting of phenomenology from Husserlian epistemology into an ontology really paved the way for Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida to do an ontological phenomenology. To say Heidegger's philosophy isn't phenomenological would be like saying only Husserl's is authentic.)
But, DReicht, the best place to start probably isn't Sartre's Being and Nothingness...or anything by Sartre for that matter. In order to not only have a surface understanding of B&N, you pretty much have to have an understanding of Husserl and Heidegger's Being & Time (of which Sartre based his title off of.) B&T is legendarily difficult; I've been spending the last half year intensely stomaching the first 250 pages of that mammoth. Sartre's other literary works are decent examples of what he tried to uncover in B&N, but are very hard and dry without knowing the source material. His shorter works are more like popular existential manifestos, and not a good introduction to Phenomenology. If you like Sartre (I love him,) you won't get the full dimensions of his philosophy without knowing his predecessors.
Husserl is definitely the best place to start. He's the origin of the movement, and It's usually best to start at the beginning. He's also the most Cartesian, I think, and this resonates with most western audiences right now. But, his language is a bit archaic, dry, and inconsistent. This is the best book I've come across. Robert Sokolowski is concise in his explanations and clear in his definitions. His 'Husserlian Meditations' is also excellent. If the 25$ is too much, just rent it from a library.
Cheers!
We. Me. I.
What is an I? Where is the "thing" that is the stuff of a separate entity somewhere under your skin, behind your eyes?
The reality is that there is no center to one's experience. No separate long-lasting "me" that experiences. Only experience itself. The ego arises out of thought, and a "me" is just a concept that the thinking mind conjures up. No agent means no agency. No chooser.
While on first glance this may sounds either incredibly stupid, confusing or woo-woo. But take a look and see.
I suggest you check out this video by Sam Harris that explores the concept of "illusion of self."
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wakingup
Or a book by Bruce Hood that scientifically explains this illusion:
http://www.amazon.com/Self-Illusion-Social-Creates-Identity/dp/0199988781
Or others:
http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465020690/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=61R1WPTGL%2BL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR216%2C320_&refRID=0DKBDNE0ZCT2P7423FK2
http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Trick-Julian-Baggini/dp/1847082734/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=41AJedx6m9L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR101%2C160_&refRID=1A6QPVE3CNXPPJFX84Z9
Once you break the spell of "self-identity", unity arises.
Plenty of academics, when engaging in scholarship, accurately and without misrepresentation present the ideas of peers with whom they disagree precisely for the purpose of entering into dialogue with those ideas or the edification of readers. I was recently reading an introduction to philosophy of mind by Jaegwon Kim, in which Kim forcefully disagrees with what we call "dualism"; despite the fact that he holds a contrary opinion, Kim accurately reports dualist arguments and treats them with great seriousness.
A world in which being fair is precluded by having an opinion is sad.
I don't think that is an especially good definition, since epistemology and metaphysics are separate areas. Though 'first principles of knowing' could refer to questions like "what is truth?" or how the world gives beliefs content, which would be metaphysics. To motivate my point, check out the table of contents of these standard textbooks:
Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction
Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction
You'll note that your first three topics all appear in the former book and not in the latter.
Might as well weigh in on what you should focus on specifically, as one of those philosophically-inclined theists. As for why you should-- given that atheism and theism are both within the field of philosophy, it'd be good to at least have a clear view of the evidence for both sides. I'll be giving books that support theism, since I don't know many that do so for atheism-- something by JL Mackie might help?
Before even engaging in the philosophy backing theism, it'd be good to get some background knowledge.
Intro to Logic
Metaphysics
Given that, you can familiarize yourself with some books on classical theism, attacks on naturalism/physicalism/materialism, and specifically attacks on materialism of the mind.
The Last Superstition
Aquinas
Philosophy of the Mind
All three of those are by the Catholic philosopher, Edward Feser. I usually argue for theism, or against materialism, based on his books.
It would be helpful if you were slightly more specific about what you mean by individuality, since the word can be used in a more technical way in which, say, my chair is an individual and then the way in which humans are individuals. It sounds like you're interested in various themes concerning the human self. That's a very broad area in philosophy. Two themes that might interest you are free will and personal identity. The first I don't know much about, but for the second, this volume is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Identity-Topics-Philosophy-Perry/dp/0520256425
With Robert Kane, I suggest starting with A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will and then following it with Four Views on Free Will, a collaborative debate which includes other philosophers; with one each defending libertarianism, compatibilism, incompatibilism, and revisionism. You'll get a much better feel for the debate rather than a lopsided bias.
Before any of that, I suggest that you listen to Alfred Mele's interview debunking a lot of the pseudoscientific [mis]interpretations which have accrued around the subject of free will, and which are essentially to our era what phrenology was back in its heyday. He's written a few books on the subject, of which Free: Why Science Hadn't Disproved Free Will Yet is the most accessible.
Neuroscientist Peter Ulric Tse's The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation is also invaluable as far as providing a scientific account.
Massimo Pigliucci is fine from what I've seen. He's also an academic philosopher, but writes a lot of public stuff.
Nigel Warburton and David Emonds are now full-time public philosophers and I enjoy the things they do: from their short books to the Philosophy Bites podcasts and so on.
There are also a number of academic philosophers who have written public pieces, even if that's not the majority of what they do. Al Mele has a recent book on free will, Michael Lynch has one on epistemology in the internet age and the role of reason in democracy. There are certainly others I'm forgetting.
You can also check out Aeon's essays for dozens of good, ~3000 word pieces by professional philosophers aimed at a wide audience and on a variety of subjects.
EDIT: looking at your specific topics I would suggest checking out Lynch's In Praise of Reason and Pigliccui's A Short History of Truth. The former is very good; I haven't read the latter, but there's not a ton of good books on truth that are easy. You might also look at Simon Blackburn's Truth: A Guide.
> no purpose other than an emotional one.... led to the widespread image that Republicans are gay hating bigots.
To quote Donald Trump: "Wrong."
The problem with this argument is that it fails to consider the legal arguments against gay marriage. Actually, the only reason why people want gay marriage is because of a misunderstanding of the nature of marriage and their emotional response to what they feel is an inequality(which doesn't exist).
People who give up over the battle of gay marriage due to political correctness are the reason why people see Republicans as gay hating bigots. Basically they are admitting that there is no(and was no) justifiable argument that could be used against Gay Marriage. This patently false, we simply were so involved in Gay Marriage fervor, that no bothered to do a substantial argument against it.
I have said publicly I am not sure who is right, the Libertarians or the Conservatives, but to say there is no good arguments against Gay Marriage is intellectually dishonest.
The best argument in print is here: http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Marriage-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225
> The fact is, the only time anyone EVER trots out the "the government should be out of the marriage business entirely" line, is when they are being forced into a corner of admitting they want to limit the rights of gay Americans arbitrarily,.....During the Supreme Court and higher court hearings of the gay marriage cases, I paid close attention and read court transcripts and listened to recordings of the proceedings
Genetic Fallacy, just because you don't like where it is coming from doesn't mean its the wrong position. It seems that you are bias against this argument for no justifiable reason either as many libertarians have been arguing this for years but as I explained above,
I agree they did a bad job on defending in the Supreme Court, still has no bearing on the validity of the issue. People should actively seek out non-religious arguments and taking political arguments from Herman Cain is going to give you a skewed view of the subject.
> Please try to from a non theological perspective defend denying gay marriage?
http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Marriage-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225
>Please from a non theological perspective try to tell me why a fetus without a heart beat spawned from a rapist has more rights than the mother whose body contains it?
http://www.cambridge.org/cr/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/defending-life-moral-and-legal-case-against-abortion-choice
A tour guide may not be a bad idea depending on familiarity with the subject of the House of Kant.
I found Gardner and [Pinkard](German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521663814/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_jKZMyb84C98MF) particularly useful.
While I have not read Taylor's "Hegel," I have read his "Sources of the Self" and would absolutely be ready to recommend pretty much anything by him. In Sources, he does take a route very much influenced by Hegel to try and explain and explore where our sense of self comes from, and how it came to come from there. He does this by tracing a history of the idea of a "self" and filling it in from ancient times to modern, marking out and emphasizing each major change in what we draw our sense of self from. It's an absolutely brilliant work. I have never read a philosopher who is more respectful to those he disagrees with, too. He makes every effort to represent them fairly, while simultaneously clearly expressing why he disagrees with them.
In other words, if Taylor has a book or article on anything you're interested in, read it. Even if you disagree with him, you will come out better able to express your own opinions. You want secondary lit on Hegel? He has a book. Read it.
I'm new to Neoplatonism myself. (I also wish this sub was more active so it's a nice coincidence that you posted...)
Anyway, after Thomas Taylor's Platonic Philospher's Creed which outlines the core beliefs of Neoplatonism, I'm moving on to Taylor's translation of Sallustius' On the Gods, then either his Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato followed by his translation of (and introduction to) Proclus' On the Theology of Plato, or vice versa. Or something like that :) Those are all available online for free and it's nice to see Neoplatonism continuing into more modern times through Taylor.
Since I like to read about something at the same time I'm reading it, I'm going to read Thomas Whitaker's The Neoplatonists: A Study in the History of Hellenism.
After that I'm going on to Plotinus... and probably Guthrie's Plotinus.
One thing I should mention is that I became interested in Neoplatonism because of my Hellenic Polytheism combined with monistic idealism. A good introduction to monistic idealism (the philosophical position that everything is in one consciousness or mind (nous)) is Bernardo Kastrup's recent book, Why Materialism is Baloney. A good author on Hellenic religion is Karl Kerenyi, his Gods of the Greeks is excellent.
In general the http://www.platonic-philosophy.org/ site looks like a good resource as well. There's also an International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, and the Prometheus Trust has files to download as well.
Anyway, enjoy your studies!
edits: filling in the links
I think that we’re still not going to be able to get anywhere until you are willing to consider the idea that personal freedom means personal responsibility. Your overarching point seems to be that you can’t be held accountable even if you willfully choose things you know to be evil.
I think that there are a number of good arguments concerning the immateriality of the mind. See here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O0G189C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Or here: https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Comprehensive-William-Jaworski/dp/1444333682
I think you are thinking of a soul like the air filter of your car, a component of the self but not the self itself.
On free will specifically? Start with the SEP to get a basis. Then for specific books and examples I'd recommend:
You definitely would enjoy some of their works. Particularly:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Marriage-Man-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=X39PYP8GT616NY99W3SC
http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Marriage-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225
One of these might suit what you're looking for:
This is a very general question, but let me try to point you to what you might be looking for.
If you're looking for people's attitudes on Harper, you can check out this thread from a little while back.
If you're looking for people's ideas on any particular policy, you can either do a search of this subreddit, or ask that question yourself!
If you're looking for people's philosophies, as dmcg12 said, those will be evident if you keep an eye on frequent posters; the more you see them write, the more coherent your picture of their ideas will be. If you're looking at philosophies rather than policies, though, there are philosophers who have produced better arguments than any of us here are likely to be able to articulate in support of their own stances (or at least, they've articulated them in greater detail than I think any of us have done). Some of the best books I've ever read are this (by a Canadian liberal egalitarian/social democrat), this (by a libertarian), and this (by an ex-Marxist Catholic conservative-in-a-way-that's-different-from-most-people-who-call-themselves-conservative). Of those three, I'd start with the Kymlicka, and read at least the chapters on Utilitarianism, Liberal Egalitarianism, and Libertarianism before deciding whether to put down the book. If, however, you take a look at Kymlicka or either of those other books and are intimidated, this does a fabulous job of explaining in accessible language what sort of things people might disagree on, without very strongly coming down on one side or another of such disagreements; it also has outstanding suggestions for further reading. All these books should be in any university library.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-Philosophy-GuideBook-Critique-Guidebooks/dp/041511909X
Also try reading prolegomena to any future metaphysics first, as it is shorter
If you think that scientists are in a consensus about free-will not existing, then you haven't been reading enough! Also, Roger Penrose is considered one of the finest mathematicians currently living, so the fact that he doesn't have an answer to this is far more interesting to me than random internet user #1001.
Also, Philosophy has a huge amount to bring to the discussion, the arguments made by neuro-scientists have many fundamental flaws and weaknesses. Science still has a lot to learn from Philosophy, especially in the way we discuss elements of the mind which cannot easily be described and defined.
Try reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Science-Hasnt-Disproved-Will/dp/0199371628/?tag=stno-20
There's a good article about this book and why recent experiments don't really prove or disprove free-will at all here: http://www.strangenotions.com/why-science-hasnt-disproved-free-will-a-review-of-alfred-meles-free/
There are also other neuroscientists saying we DO have free-will. See here: https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2013/03/neuroscientist-says-humans-are-wired-free-will
Like I said, if you pick and choose your sources, some people argue in favor of free-will, but there are just as many people poking holes in experiments that were done, and arguing on the other side of the argument that we do have free-will.
If you're talking about Libet's experiments, these don't eliminate free will. They show that actions are preceded by brain activity before the person is conscious of making the decisions to act. The problem with interpreting this as meaning the unconscious brain activity determines the act is that there are also experiments in which a person is able to override that previous brain activity at the last minute.
Another problem with interpreting Libet's experiment as eliminating free will is that the results were only recorded in case where a person moved their wrist. If a person's brain ramped up prior to moving their wrist, and then they did not move their wrist, it was not recorded.
You should check out Alfred R. Mele's book, Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will.
If you're a compatibilist, then Libet's experiments wouldn't be a problem even if they did show that our actions are determined by antecedent conditions. Under compatibilism, we are responsible for our actions as long as we do them on purpose, and to do something on purpose is to act on your own antecedent desires, motives, plans, intentions, etc. That means your antecedent mental states do determine your actions, and that's precisely why you're responsible for them.
Christianity doesn't depend on libertarian free will, and a lot of Christianity doesn't support that idea anyway. According to Jesus, a person's decisions are determined by the condition of their heart. He said, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart" (Luke 6:45). That sounds a lot more like compatibilism than libertarianism.
It seems to me that your comments encompass wide range of topics but i think the problem of truth and meaning is at the center. Of course there is a huge literature about these topics but for a start Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in An Extra Moral Sense can work as a thought provoking piece.
If you are into more scientific type of literature Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowledge offers a theory of cognition which basically argues that all experience and knowledge are self-referential and constructed relative to the organisation and history of living systems.
In English speaking philosophy William James and Whitehead's different versions of empiricism are good places to look. In continental philosophy Foucault's writings on truth/knowledge can be helpful to put the concept in context of a more sociological perspective.
Edit note: The philosophical field which focus on these issues is called epistemology, some secondary and introductory type of books can work. For example Robert Audi's [Epistemology] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373061172&sr=1-2&keywords=epistemology).
See David Staume's book, The Atheist Afterlife. He wrote all about how the afterlife is related to dreams and how we make our afterlife what we want it to be. It sounds like a whole lot of bunk to me, but it sounds like what you are talking about.
This is from the intro to the book
> My intention is simply to
> offer a definition of the word “God,” or of its equivalents in other
> tongues, and to do so in fairly slavish obedience to the classical
> definitions of the divine found in the theological and philosophi-
> cal schools of most of the major religious traditions. My reason for
> wanting to do this is that I have come to the conclusion that, while
> there has been a great deal of public debate about belief in God in
> recent years (much of it a little petulant, much of it positively fe-
> rocious), the concept of God around which the arguments have
> run their seemingly interminable courses has remained strangely
> obscure the whole time....
>
> ....It is not obvious to
> me, therefore, that their differences really amount to a meaningful
> disagreement, as one cannot really have a disagreement without some prior agreement as to what the basic issue of contention is.....
So this is not a book of arguments, though it contains arguments and not a book on apologetics, though it contains that as well. If you are interested in the misconceptions prevalent in modern religious disputes, you'd do well to buy this book. Incidentally, Hart's prose is brilliant, and he does wonderful takedowns of opposing positions, which are appreciable and enjoyable even if you disagree with him. But this is not a thesis on materialism or its problems.
For that you can buy The waning of materialism which has 23 philosophical essays on the topic.
Chalmers has also published a pretty accessible anthology of classic readings in the Philosophy of Mind.
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Classical-Contemporary-Readings/dp/019514581X
I don't really see this one get mentioned a lot, but John Perry's A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. It was assigned to me in my first intro-level philosophy class (Life and Death). It's written very colloquially without dumbing things down too much, and touches on a lot of the main ideas in epistemology and metaphysics. If you're looking for a quick, informative, accessible read, I highly recommend this one.
I think we are essentially agreed. I don't really mean 'assigning' as a label attachment - that returns us to conceptualisation - so much as doing-with-purpose. It's simultaneous. The language is introducing a duality here where there is none. Another way I see this is a 'releasing into a direction'. When we walk forwards, we release ourselves in that direction, as an analogy.
I believe intention is the fundamental thing. It's a muddied word. Are we better to just jump in and say it's free will and we have free will because we are the fabric of experience, and so can shape ourselves however we choose?
Excuse this extended quote, but it's from a decent recent book which tries to capture some of what we've been discussing, without me having to type too much (Bernardo: see this as promotional!):
>So, in the context of all these metaphors, what is it that makes mind move?
>Notice that the answer to this question cannot be a phenomenon of experience, since experience is already mind in motion! Whatever the primary cause of the movement of mind is, it cannot itself be a movement of mind. Thus, we cannot find the primary cause in physics, biology, psychology, or any area of knowledge. The difficulty here is the same one behind the impossibility to describe the medium of mind itself: since all knowledge is a movement of the medium of mind, that which sets mind in motion cannot be known directly. But we can gain intuition about it indirectly, by observing its most immediate effects in experience and then trying to infer their invisible source.
>Our ordinary lives entail unfathomably complex chains of cause and effect: one thing leading to another, which in turn leads to another …and another, along the outlines of a blooming, unfolding pattern that we call the laws of nature. But at the very root of the chain of causality there seems to be something ineffable, tantalizingly close to experience, yet just beyond it: freewill.
>Whenever you make a decision, like choosing to close your hand into a fist, you have a strong sense that you were free to make the choice. But usually that sense comes only after the choice is made –immediately after – in the form of the heartfelt certainty that you could have made a different choice. The direct experience of freewill, however, remains ambiguous: before you make the choice it is not there; and then the very next experience seems to be already that of having made the choice. The experience of making the choice seems lost in a kind of vanishing in-between limbo, too elusive and slippery to catch at work. It is as though freewill were outside time, only its effects insinuating themselves into time.
>Yet, freewill can be so tantalizingly close to experience – perhaps arbitrarily close – that many people are convinced that they feel the actual choice being made. Personally, despite having paid careful attention, I have never managed to satisfactorily ‘catch’ this elusive experience in an unambiguous manner. I can’t prove it is not there, but I hope to have evoked enough doubt about it that you are open to the possibility that choice itself is outside experience. We only really experience the prelude and the immediate aftermath of choice, never the making of a choice.
>Though I am aware that this is the trickiest element of my entire argument – resting, as it does, more on introspection than logic –I contend that freewill proper is the primary cause of all movements of mind; the freewill of the one subject of all existence. Freewill can never be experienced directly: it is the driving force behind all experience and, thus, never an experience itself. But we can infer its existence from the retroactive sense of free choice that we have immediately after making a decision. This sense of free choice is, so to speak, the ‘echo’ of the primary cause reverberating within our psychic structures.
While GEB is good, I also recommend /i/ Dialog on Personal Identity and Immortality /i/ by John Perry for a much more targeted discussion of this question of identity.
http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Personal-Identity-Immortality/dp/0915144530
This is more of an AcademicPhilosophy-style response, I suspect, but I would suggest checking out:
Metaphysics: An Anthology (Sosa and Kim)
Epistemology: An Anthology (Sosa and Kim)
Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Chalmers)
Philosophy of Language (Martinich)
Actually, a good primer might be Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy
I don't know what else to say to you, other than Rand should have stuck to political philosophy.
Here's some reading. I keep this one in my office.
Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings
https://www.amazon.com/dp/019514581X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XAWmDbZSHZDYB
Forget free will, read up on consciousness, where it all starts.
Best intro to phil. of mind that I'm aware of: here
If you want to see a solid collection of essays from analytic philosophers criticizing materialism, try Robert Koons' The Waning of Materialism.
I think it's not the best for this particular goal. The section "general introductions" contains a lot of books that are mostly appetizers. If you have already decided to study systematically to build a solid foundation you can downright skip these.
All the books of the other sections are either classics in their own right (therefore, you will study the meat of them in your study of the history of philosophy, and you will do so in the context of what they were replying to, what kind of assumptions they made etc.) or famous but not essential books that have been chosen according to the tastes of the author of the list (therefore you don't need them for foundations; you can always choose to include them in your list if you decide they are valuable in their own right).
So I say skip all the list for now. A much better and much faster way would be to read Anthony Kenny's history of philosophy. If you work through it making sure you understand all the arguments, your focus, thinking, and comprehension skills will already be at another level.
After that, you can start grappling with the Critique of pure reason. Be warned that most of the "introductions", "guides", "explanations" and "companions" to the CPR are actually investigations of obscure points that manage to be harder to read than the actual CPR. The best two books that I found that are actually introductory guides to CPR are this and this.
Despite the titles, they are not "Kant for dummies". They are actually dense expositions which require concentration, familiarity with terms used in philosophy, and knowledge of what came before Kant (both offer a quick overview, but if you don't already know what it's talking about it will just leave you dizzy). Of course, if you have already done step 1, this will be a breeze for you.
I suggest you read both before opening the real CPR, but if you only have patience/time for one: Rosenberg is more one-sided, more focused on certain aspects, and somewhat less clear on some points, but he will really get you excited on what the CPR can mean - it will become a great adventure that could possibly transform your whole understanding of yourself and the universe. Gardner is less exciting, but he is so clear, so exhaustive in predicting what kind of doubt can arise for the reader and in presenting the different interpretations, that it is scary.
> I'm fine with you or someone else saying, "based on this and this definition for an objectively good movie, I find X movie to be objectively good" what I am not fine with, is if someone just says "Y is an objectively good/bad movie" without context. This would be a miscomunication as the person who said that uses a different defeinition than most others.
Yes, one needs to be clear on the conception of beauty being used.
>I couldn't disagree further
On what grounds? I encourage you to read up on epistemology - the field that specializes on knowledge, reason, evidence, and the like. Robert Audi's introduction to the field is good!
>Their conversion just proves that despite the gift of intelligence, one is nevertheless susceptible to irrational beliefs.
How is it irrational when these people gave rational reasons for their belief in the truth of the Christian religion? Check out any of their books/writings. Are Edward Feser's The Last Supersition and 5 Proofs irrational? What about Chesterton's The Everlasting Man and Orthodoxy? What about Alaisdair Macintyre's After Virtue?
>You said he wasn't a Christian yet. Did he accept Jesus as his savior? That is the requirement for salvation from what I know.
Looks like your only idea of Christianity is Protestant Christianity (in fairness to Protestant denominations though, many of them are nuanced in their views on this issue and would disagree with the assertion that only Christians are saved). The Catholic Church which was founded by Christ himself disagrees, and so do the other apostolic orthodox churches (Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox).
>What other ways would this be?
I quoted official teaching, didn't you read it?
>You know this how?
Because they themselves shared their reasons for converting/believing in the truth of Christianity (for non-converts) in their talks, books and writings? How else dude?
>What's this evidence that others converted over?
A lot -- philosophical, scientific and historical evidence.
Philosophical: The traditional cosmological arguments (given by the great thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition -- Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Aquinas, Leibiniz, etc) for the God of classical theism, the argument from consciousness, the moral argument and others.
Science: The Kalam Cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the argument from biological teleology, and the argument from the laws of nature.
History: the argument from Jesus' miracles, the historical case for the Resurrection, Catholic miracles, and the religious experiences and mystical gifts of countless Christian saints. I lay this out these arguments briefly in this post.
>Because of this outright lie and string of labels thrown at me:
Nah, my assessment is self evident from what you wrote. A silly absolute statement like "no Christian ever believed in his faith on the basis of reason and evidence" is extremely telling...especially given that you doubled down on your erroneous views after being given abundantly clear evidence.
John Perry’s book Personal Identity is an anthology that covers some of the most important work in the field. I think that would be a pretty good start!
This what you're after. I can link a PDF if you need.
I really enjoyed Dennett's Consciousness Explained. Chalmers' The Conscious Mind presents another popular view which, if I recall correctly, opposes Dennett's views. I'm slowly getting into work's by Steven Pinker.
Probably a general Philosophy of Mind reader would also benefit you just to get a good idea of the different views and topics out there within the discipline. I cannot remember which one I read years ago, although if I read one today I'd pick Chalmers' Philosophy of Mind or Kim's Philosophy of Mind.
Susan Wolf has a good book called Meaning In Life and Why It Matters. Ultimately, the 'why it matters' section is making a point about the limits of moralizing, but that may actually be beneficial given your interests, anyway.
She also does have a paper on love worth mentioning titled "Loving Attention: Lessons in love from The Philadelphia Story". It's in a book about philosophy, film, and fiction titled Understanding Love. I haven't read the other papers, but I know the philosophers' work and I bet many of them are good.
> By the way, I am not trying to show that you are wrong, I am trying to understand how you think about this subject.
All I am doing is giving you a general description of the dualist position. If you're interesting in digging into the subject in greater depth, you might want to pick up an introductory text to the philosophy of mind, such as Jaegwon Kim's.
> Are you saying that the mind doesn't have spatial location or weight? Under identity theory (or functionalism) it certainly does.
This is the classic Cartesian formulation of substance dualism. It doesn't have anything to do with identity theory or functionalism.
> Would you say that identity theory of chairs, as I have defined it, is accurate or not?
I would say that your made-up theory is nonsense, for reasons I've already given.
>You espouse nothing but poor reasoning
You can't espouse poor reasoning. You can however espouse an idea supported by poor reasoning. Assuming this is what you meant, I still haven't done it. You have no examples for how my arguments rely on poor reasoning, you just keep insisting that they do. This is due to your own reliance on specious reasoning.
>You're an apologist. You've chosen that position and it's an ugly one.
Sigh.... You know what an apologist is right? Lets use the term in a sentence... "The christian apologists tried to defend their beliefs using reason, thinking that belief in god could be found through logic." Hmm... Maybe a definition would still be useful.
Ya... I'm not an apologist. I'm not arguing in defense of a belief. I'm arguing against a belief in moral realism. You, my friend, function as the apologist in this debate. Please stop using words without knowing how to use them.
>My morals are quite measured and I do not follow them blindly, with faith. I quoted this because this is all you do. You make stupid and baseless attacks because you have no defense.
Watch this: "My belief in God is quite measured and I do not follow him blindly, with faith." Just because you use reason to justify things after the fact does not make the original assumption true, or any less "faithful."
You seem to have a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to moral theory and what is possible through moral theory. Sam Harris, while an interesting individual, and right about many things, is fundamentally wrong when it comes to what science can do with regard to morals. Not in the sense that his moral system is untenable, but rather in the sense that you can't get his moral system strictly through scientific study—which he claims we can. Assumptions must be made before you can even begin the study of well-being and suffering, and even more must be made in order to say that you should promote one and avoid the other.
A person's insistence on the existence of universal objective morals is best termed as a FAITH. There is no evidence of universal objective morals, and they are fundamentally unscientific entities in the same sense God is—even if we wanted to, we could never find evidence of them. At best they are commonly assumed entities—like God is for most people.
And I repeat, because you seem to think I am some sort of moral heathen, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MORALS ARE USELESS OR THAT WE SHOULD LET PEOPLE DO WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE MORALS. Your feelings about me being somehow deficient are the same feelings a religious fundamentalist would have toward both of us due to our lack of belief.
That you think a bit of pop-science is somehow "important" for me to read is laughable. If what you know of morals comes from that book, I feel sorry for you. I understand that many atheists will praise anything that comes from the "canon" writers on atheism like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, however, being a fan of someone does not make all of their work good, or even relevant. At best, Sam Harris is simply endorsing the naturalistic fallacy. At worst, he's willfully ignorant of what the naturalistic fallacy is, and simply wishes to push his view as a "counterpoint" to religious morality.
Since you so kindly left me a link to a book, allow me to do the same, by linking you to the most important books in moral theory for you to read, some of which argue directly against me, but at this point the idea is to get you educated, not to get you to agree with me:
Alisdair MacIntyre — After Virtue
Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche — The Genealogy of Morals
Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics
G.E. Moore — Principia Ethica
I've done my best to find the best editions of these books available (I myself usually default to the Cambridge editions of works in the history of philosophy). You may also want to check out some Peter Singer, along with Bentham and Mill, if only to know what it means to be a utilitarian. After that, read John Rawls, because he'll tell you one reason why utilitarianism is so controversial in ethical theory.
I hope to hear back from you about the results of your studies. I figure you can easily find pdfs of these books (though perhaps not the same editions I linked) somewhere online. Given about a month or two to read them all (I'm not sure how much free time you have... maybe more like three months) you should be up to speed. Hopefully I'll hear back from you after the new year. At that point, I don't expect you to agree with my view on ethics, but I at least expect you will understand it, and be able to argue your own position somewhat more effectively than you are at the moment. If nothing else, think of this as a way to learn how to "stick it" to people like me.
Maybe by then you'll have gotten beyond the whole "I'm taking my ball and going home" disposition you seem to have when confronted with someone who's better than you at debating ethics. I can only hope.
If you take ethics seriously at all, do this for yourself: study the shit out of ethical theory.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) gets taught very rarely in this department. The department recognizes the need to have a course on Kant's CPR (or, alternatively, on Kant's shorter version of the CPR, his "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics"), but the Maryland philosophy department (a) doesn't have many faculty who work on the history of philosophy, and (b) those faculty who do work in the history of philosophy either do work on ancient philosophy (Rachel Singpurwalla, Quinn Harr, Kelsey Gipe) or on Spinoza and other historical Jewish philosophers (Charles Manekin).
Sam Kerstein of course does work on historical Kant, but Sam's focus and interests in Kant is fairly exclusively directed towards Kant's moral philosophy. This is why Sam teaches a 400-level class on Kant's Groundwork every other year or so.
The upshot is that I am the first person to teach a course on Kant's CPR at this department in many years (6+). I'll probably teach the course again either next school year or, if not next year, then the following year. Unfortunately, that sounds like it might be too late for you (from what you've said, it sounds like you graduate this year).
Fortunately, I would argue that it is better for you to have taken a class on Kant's Groundwork before you graduate than Kant's CPR. Kant's ethics is more important to contemporary philosophy than his epistemology and metaphysics. That being said, I do hope you decide to give the CPR a read on your own time someday or at least read a secondary source on Kant that covers the important content from the CPR in detail.
If you decide to read Kant's CPR on your own, let me recommend some resources. First, I'd suggest you watch the following two videos about Hume and the following three videos on Kant as background (although, unfortunately there isn't a video connecting Kant to Hume through how Kant's CPR is in large part a response to Hume's skepticism):
You might want to also read one general secondary source on Kant's whole philosophical system before the CPR. Here are a few suggestions to pick one from - all accessible to a upper-level undergraduate student or graduate student. I am not sure which one would be best to recommend:
There are also several specific secondary sources aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that specifically cover Kant's CPR. One of these might be useful to have besides you as you read the CPR for those times you get lost:
It sounds like you are getting some good advice in here. I'd also suggest the Prolegomena - It's essentially the Cliff's Notes.
I'll suggest The Routledge Companion: Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason
This book is great. It walks you through the CPR in a nice step-by-step way. It also has a great primer on the history of philosophy that motivated Kant's project in the CPR.
Unsolicited Advice: Just take your time. Be patient. You can do it.
That's the liberal position, yes.
If you are interested in this topic and are willing to entertain a serious and secular defense of traditional marriage, the likes of which you will never be exposed to without seeking it out, here's a read:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Marriage-Man-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225
Your views on marriage have been informed by pop culture. You can do better than that.
>I have not yet encountered this problem.
You mentioned computers before so I'll use them here as an example:
My computer, in front of me now, is meaningful in that it is meaningful to me. It's meaningful to you, too, in an abstract way because I'm using it to transmit this message. It allows me to access stores of information I could never have dreamed of.
Now, imagine a nuclear apocalypse. 95% of the world's human population dies. Most knowledge of the post-industrial and indeed industrial world is lost to history.
I live near DC so odds are my area will be pretty radioactive; it'll be hundreds of years, if not more, before the area is habitable and longer still before it is excavated.
Imagine, then, that the descendants of the survivors of this apocalypse, generations later, find my poor laptop. It will have no meaning for them, because they have no use for it. Similarly, were I to go back in time to, say, 1500, my computer would have no meaning for the people of that time, because they have no use for it.
My computer has meaning in that it has meaning to its user. Purely extrinsic value, there. Humans, however, we possess something innate. No one knows really what to call it - some say it's a soul, some would say it's consciousness, some would call it free will - whatever it is, we don't understand it at all. But we pretty much all agree that a human has innate value, period.
So, to say that I am to God like my computer is to me is demeaning to that innate whatever-it-is, don't you think?
NOTE: the above is a restructuring of a thought experiment presented in the introduction to Alaisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue which, if you haven't already, is a dense but phenomenal work and totally worth the effort.
>I see no problem with that.
Me either :)
>Can you come up with something that would?
I didn't today - ain't life fun like that? I don't think you need one meaning, all the time, forever. Meaning can change as we do. I'm not the same as I was before I met you, or before I turned 25, or before I turned 16, etc. You're not the same, either. Why should your "meaning" be so permanent when "you" are not?
>Why must it? Without God it seems that we are just chemical bonds.
I agree with you, it seems like we're chemical bonds. But I'm not a monist - there's something else there. We don't understand consciousness, not even a little bit. We don't know where it comes from, what it is, whether my dog is conscious in the same way I am and if not, then whether she is conscious at all. We just don't know.
On a personal level I still haven't decided whether the field of Noetics is doing really, really interesting scientific work or really, really interesting voodoo, but suffice to say it's really, really interesting (to me, at least). Check it out if you get a sec!
But what I said was, given that human life does have meaning and given that there is no God, then the meaning of human life cannot come from God, and must come from human life.
Yes, actually there is a pretty cool book on this
>I don't plan to continue this thread much further - this isn't a terribly good time or place to summarise a first year moral philosophy textbook for you, nor would doing so benefit you in the same way that reading that textbook and thinking about it would.
Weird you should drop into Condescending Philosophy Major Mode, because we're actually agreeing vehemently on everything of substance.
>There is no "moral reality" in the way that there are atoms or energy levels or other physical things.
Not quite. We haven't found one when we've investigated. It's worth remembering that even at the time of the Enlightenment, the field of moral philosophy started with a mixture of divine command and natural-law as its "informed priors" (the frame for its questions). Darwinian evolution dealt a major blow to natural-law/natural-teleology theories, as well.
The finding that we cannot locate an "atom of morality" or a universal optimization target (at least, one that fits our moral intuitions better than the Second Law of Thermodynamics) is a posteriori. Unfortunately, some people drop into Condescending Philosophy Major Mode and insist that their moral intuitions have so much epistemic value that naturalism must be completely wrong.
And these people have tenure!
>Yet almost everyone lives by some kind of moral code,
Well yes, of course.
>and almost everyone thinks something rather nice has happened over the last few hundred years as we drove back ignorance, racism, sexism, slavery, oppression and so forth.
With emphasis on the almost. There are still serious moral philosophers who may like modernity, but take positions that are technically opposed to it.
>Arguably civilisation couldn't work at all unless most people most of the time followed moral rules, or if it could work there would be massive overheads in policing everyone.
It also requires massive policing overheads when you try to run it very, shall we say, wickedly. It shouldn't be too unsupported to assert that nice rulers require more police than mean rulers.
>So how do we justify moral beliefs in a universe that hasn't been so kind as to give us an atom of evil or a wavelength of sin or anything similar? Well, if you want the long version then study moral philosophy. The very short version is we just make something up, or we do something reasonably sophisticated with game theory to get to a very similar place assuming self-interested agents capable of big picture thinking.
Yes, this is exactly what I said. We can take an anti-realist stance ("make something up"), or we can take a very sophisticated, reforming sort of realist stance that involves precise naturalistic grounding (game theory and psychology are aspects of nature too, you know).
But in either case, the Is/Ought Gap, or Moore's Open Question Argument in its other form, are simply not Hard Problems in the sense of demonstrating that the gap is impossible to bridge. In the a-posteriori absence of mystical moral particles, morality is left amenable to natural, empirical investigation via very precise theories of which empirical facts count as moral facts (or via outright anti-realism, which denies that there exists any gap between normative ethics and moral psychology, and thus denies the normativity of ethics in general). The problem is that some trained, professional academic philosophers remain actually committed to the position that the strength of their realist intuitions constitutes evidence against naturalism, or attempt to rationalize ways in which naturalism self-undermines.
There are several verses on the topic that make it clear where the Bible stands. Since people get funny about the OT, let's just look at NT verses.
http://www.witnessfortheworld.org/homont.html
I'd also recommend you read What is Marriage? and Correct, Not Politically Correct. The "Correct" book is a really short read and has a useful Q&A section in the back. What is Marriage is more academic but still a great read. Interestingly, neither relies much on the Bible to make their convincing case for marriage.
I've had luck in saving a couple hundred per term buying on Amazon. Look up the book you need (I usually go to the bookstore and photograph them on my phone to make sure I get the right one) and have a look at the new/used copies.
For example, I saved about $20 buying a new copy of Chalmers: Philosophy of Mind on Amazon with shipping as opposed to the Book Store. Sometimes there are larger savings or more minisculesavings, but they can add up.
As for timing, when ordering online, I've learned to do it at least couple weeks in advance in case it is late. Last year a couple of my books were a week (or more) late and it really put me behind in my readings which were adding up. Needless to say I've learned my lesson and have already acquired all of my books as they were available in the book store and online.
A few suggested additions:
https://www.amazon.es/Atheist-Afterlife-afterlife-Reasonable-meeting/dp/1897435290
Philosophy. Seriously.
Considering how far away we are from a concrete answer this is as good a place to start as any. not discounting the considerable advances that have been made, just pointing out that there is a lot of disagreement at a very basic level of even the definition of the conciousness problem.
This is the primer I used for a class in college by Chalmers
And here's one that critiques some of those arguments by Searle
(these might be a little dated. anyone else have more current suggestions?)
Another fair point. So, a clip here, so you don't even need to leave Reddit.
>...
>#Our Argument in Brief
>To orient readers, let me summarize the claims we defend in our book.
>Marriage is a human good with its own structure, like knowledge or friendship. The present debate is not a debate about whom to let marry, but about what marriage (the human good that the law has reasons to track) really is. Two answers compete for legal enshrinement.
>The first, driving the push for same-sex marriage, is that a certain emotional intimacy makes a marriage. But as our book shows, this answer can’t coherently distinguish marriage from companionship, an obviously broader category. So it gets marriage (the human good) wrong.
>The second view of marriage begins from basics. Any voluntary form of community involves common action; it unites people toward common ends in the context of commitment. And in these respects, what sets marital community apart is its comprehensiveness: in (1) how it unites people, (2) what it unites them with respect to, and (3) how extensive a commitment it demands.
>First, marriage unites people in their bodies as well as their minds. Just as your organs are one body by coordinating for the biological good of the whole (your survival), so a man and woman’s bodies unite by coordination (in sexual intercourse) for a biological good (reproduction) of the couple as a whole. No other activity makes of two people “one flesh.”
>Second, as the act that makes marital love also makes new life, so marriage itself is uniquely enriched and extended by the bearing and rearing of children, and the wide sharing of family life.
>Third, because of its comprehensiveness in both these senses, marriage alone requires comprehensive (permanent and exclusive) commitment, whatever the partners’ tastes.
>The stability of marriage, so understood, best ensures that children will know the committed love of those whose union brought them forth. This gives them the best shot at becoming healthy and happy people, which affects every other social good. That is why every society with the merest ambition to thrive has socially regulated male-female sexual bonds: to shore up the stabilizing norms of marriage, on which social order rests.
>If marriage is redefined (in law, and hence in public opinion and practice) as simple companionship for adult fulfillment, then, for reasons to be explained, it will be harder to live by its norms and urge them on others. And this will harm the social goods that hook society into regulating marriage in the first place.
>Besides defending these claims, my coauthors and I answer the most common objections to the historic view of marriage. And we show how society can uphold that view without ignoring the needs, undermining the social dignity, or curbing the fulfillment of same-sex attracted people.
>#Misreadings
>...
I end the clip at that point from this article as this is a succinct presentation of their book, What Is Marriage?