summer reading

[SamStone]

Earlier this month I finished an MA in Theology and in September I am going to begin an MA in Philosophy. I decided to spend the summer reading various accounts of the ways religion/theology helped to shape the rise of Modernity as well as how it was transformed in a reciprocal way. 

 

I chose five books to read: 

 

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity

J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account

Gary Dorrien, Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology

Gil Anidjar, Blood: A Critique of Christianity

 

They are all pretty long books (the shortest of them is 300 pp), but I am almost through with A Secular Age. I am not sure which I will begin next, but I am leaning towards Carter's Race. 

I am curious if anyone has any recommendations of books that might fit into this topic. I definitely won't have time to read any more than these this summer, but I am very interested in the history of philosophy, especially as it relates to religion and theology.

 

Anyone else plan out reading for the summer? Or anyone else reading anything good this summer...even if there wasn't a big theme behind the choice?

[brettmullga]

Here's the reading list I'm currently working through:

 

Savage - The Foundations of Statistics

Gauthier - Morals by Agreement

Luce & Raiffa - Games and Decisions

Rawls - A Theory of Justice

Binmore - Rational Decisions

 

The theme is decision/game theory and applications. I'm finding Rawls to be the most readable of the bunch.

[smg]

I am lying to myself about how much I will read this summer.  My list which is a lie consists of: Being and Time (40 pages left), Books for Burning by Antonio Negri, Endnotes Volumes 1 and 2, St. Augstine's Confessions, The Gift of Death by Derrida and an anthology of essays by Simone Weil. Marx's Grundrisse, Moby Dick and Ulysses are all kicking around my room too but I highly doubt I will pick them up.  But who knows I never end up reading what I plan to I always get side tracked by an exciting discovery or beer. 

[dgswaim]

Restricting my list just to philosophy books, my list for the summer is as follows:

 

Already Read:

 

Agents Under Fire, by Angus Menuge

Darwinism and its Discontents, by Michael Ruse

The Emergent Self, by William Hasker

Epistemology, by J. Gordon Wood (survey of virtue epistemology)

Nature, Design, and Science, by Del Ratzsch

Living with Darwin, by Philip Kitcher

 

Currently Working On:

 

After Physicalism, Edited by Benedikt Gocke

Personal Agency, by E.J. Lowe

Natural Agency, by John Bishop

Philosophy of Action, Edited by Al Mele

Every Thing Must Go, by James Ladyman and Don Ross

Material Beings, by Peter van Inwagen

 

Planning to Read:

 

Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, by E.A. Burtt

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant

Theory and Reality, by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Inference to the Best Explanation, by Peter Lipton 

 

 

I've been overachieving this summer, but it's only because I've nothing to do until August. I've also read a handful of books and articles on evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. My main thing is phil science, but I'm finding phil biology in particular is super interesting. I have no fucking life.

[MorganFreemanlives]

Muska i can only give book recommendations on philosophers i read for my research but i think these wont dissapoint especially since you dont shy away from kant and hegel.

 

 

John Mctaggart, Some dogmas on Religion :  This book is more of a casual read since McT intended it for a non-philosophy audience but its a nice mixture of philosophy  wrestling with religious questions from the perspective of an atheist idealist metaphysician. It tackles questions on God, immotality, pre-existence, free will and so on.

 

Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity:     Royce like Hegel has given his own twist to christianity, but unlike Hegel whose main message is christianity's manifestation of the dialetic through the holy trinity, Royce's message is that christianity propery captures the religious sentiment of the community of spirits unite by "the invisible church".

 

Brand Blanshard: Reason and Belief : in this mammoth work, Blanshard embarks on analyzing religion as a source of truth, and while sympathetic to faith, concludes that reason is ultimate over faith in the arbiter of truth.  he does however think that religion has an important role in the development and even completeness of the individual.

 

Timothy Sprigge The God of Metaphysics: this book which im currently half way through is a work analyzing whether systematic metaphysics can ground a religious sentiment contra Pascal's famous dismissal of the god of the philosophers.Sprigge analyzes the metaphysical systems of Spinoza, Hegel, Green, Bosanquet, Royce, Whitehead, and his own, with a section also devoted to Kierkegaard's criticism of system building metaphysics and its dysfunctional role in religious belief. Sprigge concludes that metaphysics can indeed provide a meaningful spiritual foundation for religious sentiment.
 

these books are not a perfect fit for your request BUT in my defense 1. the break between medieval and modern philosophy is best explained by the weakening influence of faith. philosophers were becoming bolder and bolder in letting reason alone to lead the way, and perhaps spinoza and his influence on the hegelians is the best example of how religion and reason via metaphysics relate so these works manifest this and 2. some of these works actually reflect the spiritual crisis of their era. Mct and the british hegelians were responding to spiritual crisis caused by  darwinism that was shaking the core of the victorian era, likewise Royce was writing at a time where american identity as a nation was midway the transcendentalists and the pragmatists.

 

hope i was of any help, i will shut up now lol

[brettmullga]

Restricting my list just to philosophy books, my list for the summer is as follows:

 

Already Read:

 

Agents Under Fire, by Angus Menuge

Darwinism and its Discontents, by Michael Ruse

The Emergent Self, by William Hasker

Epistemology, by J. Gordon Wood (survey of virtue epistemology)

Nature, Design, and Science, by Del Ratzsch

Living with Darwin, by Philip Kitcher

 

Currently Working On:

 

After Physicalism, Edited by Benedikt Gocke

Personal Agency, by E.J. Lowe

Natural Agency, by John Bishop

Philosophy of Action, Edited by Al Mele

Every Thing Must Go, by James Ladyman and Don Ross

Material Beings, by Peter van Inwagen

 

Planning to Read:

 

Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, by E.A. Burtt

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant

Theory and Reality, by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Inference to the Best Explanation, by Peter Lipton 

 

 

I've been overachieving this summer, but it's only because I've nothing to do until August. I've also read a handful of books and articles on evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. My main thing is phil science, but I'm finding phil biology in particular is super interesting. I have no fucking life.

Theory and Reality is a great introduction to Phil Science. He goes through the motions presenting Popper, Kuhn, etc. then gives an introduction to both contemporary Bayesian Epistemology and somewhat less contemporary Naturalized Epistemology. I was a satisfying read.

[dgswaim]

Theory and Reality is a great introduction to Phil Science. He goes through the motions presenting Popper, Kuhn, etc. then gives an introduction to both contemporary Bayesian Epistemology and somewhat less contemporary Naturalized Epistemology. I was a satisfying read.

Yeah, I've read the sections on Kuhn and Popper, and now I want to read the rest.

[PhilApplicant]

I'm sticking mainly with literature on the history and foundations of cognitive science, just to get a more thorough introduction to a field I hope to specialize in. Some of the "classics" include Fodor's Modularity of Mind, Dretske's Explaining Behavior, Dennett's Brainstorms, and Pylyshyn's Computation and Cognition: Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science. I've also been looking at various papers within this domain, as well as getting a bit more acquainted with cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology more generally.

 

Also, Hemingway before bed, most nights.   

[AcademicX]

Any recommendations on political philosophy? I have a mostly Continental background, so I would like to read more about the major authors/themes in the Anglo-American tradition before the beginning of the semester. Thanks. 

[dgswaim]

Any recommendations on political philosophy? I have a mostly Continental background, so I would like to read more about the major authors/themes in the Anglo-American tradition before the beginning of the semester. Thanks. 

Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" and Rawls's "Theory of Justice" are probably the most foundational works in contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy. 

[MorganFreemanlives]

i would like to comment that im surprised at the amount of people interested in continental philosophy in the forum. the reason it surprises is that,assuming most people in the forum are from countries of english speaking universities, which tend to be overwhelmingly analytic  (Leiter's report not mine) i would expect more of a correlation in the number of analytic institutions and lets call them analytic (or at least continental neutral) students.

 

of course, it can mean other things. maybe continental folks are more friendly and less likely to lurk.

[Nastasya_Filippovna]

Restricting my list just to philosophy books, my list for the summer is as follows:

 

Already Read:

 

Agents Under Fire, by Angus Menuge

Darwinism and its Discontents, by Michael Ruse

The Emergent Self, by William Hasker

Epistemology, by J. Gordon Wood (survey of virtue epistemology)

Nature, Design, and Science, by Del Ratzsch

Living with Darwin, by Philip Kitcher

 

Currently Working On:

 

After Physicalism, Edited by Benedikt Gocke

Personal Agency, by E.J. Lowe

Natural Agency, by John Bishop

Philosophy of Action, Edited by Al Mele

Every Thing Must Go, by James Ladyman and Don Ross

Material Beings, by Peter van Inwagen

 

Planning to Read:

 

Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, by E.A. Burtt

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant

Theory and Reality, by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Inference to the Best Explanation, by Peter Lipton 

 

 

I've been overachieving this summer, but it's only because I've nothing to do until August. I've also read a handful of books and articles on evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. My main thing is phil science, but I'm finding phil biology in particular is super interesting. I have no fucking life.

 I read Everything Must Go in my metaphysics class! It's very interesting! It was actually my first philosophy class, and I would like to read it again now that, in hindsight, I have a firmer command of the topic. Thankfully I had a brilliant professor for metaphysics (he was our analytic god - his specialty is philosophy of science so he obviously prefers naturalized metaphysics). He raised some interesting objections to the thesis, and I remember finding the book fascinating. I think you will thoroughly enjoy it, even if you don't necessarily concur.

[dgswaim]

 I read Everything Must Go in my metaphysics class! It's very interesting! It was actually my first philosophy class, and I would like to read it again now that, in hindsight, I have a firmer command of the topic. Thankfully I had a brilliant professor for metaphysics (he was our analytic god - his specialty is philosophy of science so he obviously prefers naturalized metaphysics). He raised some interesting objections to the thesis, and I remember finding the book fascinating. I think you will thoroughly enjoy it, even if you don't necessarily concur.

I just finished the first section and I think they do a better job of defending a rigorously naturalist framework than probably anyone else I've read. I'm not sympathetic to naturalism/materialism or their treatment of what they refer to as "neo-scholastic metaphysics." But they do a good job of laying out the argument and making it an engaging read.

[Establishment]

i would like to comment that im surprised at the amount of people interested in continental philosophy in the forum. the reason it surprises is that,assuming most people in the forum are from countries of english speaking universities, which tend to be overwhelmingly analytic  (Leiter's report not mine) i would expect more of a correlation in the number of analytic institutions and lets call them analytic (or at least continental neutral) students.

 

of course, it can mean other things. maybe continental folks are more friendly and less likely to lurk.

 

For whatever reason, thegradcafe has attracted the more continental folks, and whogotin the analytic folks. I'm not even sure where whogotin originally got its philosophical community, but I know Leiter advertised them a few years back, brining over his analytic readership.

 

Which makes it rather unfortunate that whogotin is now dieing.

[brettmullga]

For whatever reason, thegradcafe has attracted the more continental folks, and whogotin the analytic folks. I'm not even sure where whogotin originally got its philosophical community, but I know Leiter advertised them a few years back, brining over his analytic readership.

 

Which makes it rather unfortunate that whogotin is now dieing.

 

In terms of format and presentation, thegradcafe > whogotin. 

[SamStone]

Hegelhating,

 

Thanks for the recommendations!

I'll definitely add those to my to-read list. hopefully I'll be able to get to them at some point soon. The God of Metaphysics sounds like the place I would start with those books.