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Originally posted by keylimetrev:

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I haven't read it yet, but I have to note this recent release from one of my favorite philosophers, Harry Frankfurt: On Bullshit.

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Sorry to totally derail this coversation for a moment, but I was reminded PE's post about On Bullshit as I was driving home from work last night. On NPR's Marketplace they had a PR woman with a phoned in complaint about Frankfurt's claim that public relations is completely without worth. I believe her comment was something to the extent of 'I bet you wouldn't say that to the PR staff who got you a radio interview for your new book...now that's bullshit'.

This seems to be a pretty well-made point. I wonder what Frankfurt would say in response.

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A VERY similar comment was made in the comments section of the Amazon listing for that book. I can't say what Frankfurt would say (I've still not read the book) but I'd guess he'd argue that his book was being discussed not because of good PR but because of its merit. Considering I was solicited for the book in a catalog, I'm not sure he'd be right.

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Originally posted by mark f:
I've stayed outta this discussion because it seems to imply that philosophy can only be interpreted based on the FIVE senses. The fact that the earliest philosophers thought that was a lotta Hosanna Horseshit doesn't apparently matter in our "enlightened" times. Any discussion about "philosophy" had better address the things which the senses can't deal with because otherwise our discussion is about Biology, and that's what my degree is in, and as far as I know, philosophers don't have to get degrees in biology. (Maybe some of you have them.)

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I agree, Mark. I don't have a vested interest in the five senses (philosophical)...I'm not a raging empiricist, although I have tendencies. I just wanted to know why s_c was assuming that empathy was not a function of the five senses.

There are many 20th century philosophers who do believe that the empirical facts are the only facts. Philosophers of neuroscience, for instance, think that minds are brains, plain and simple. No magic, no soul, no consciousness...just neurons firing.

I'm not sure how many philosophers have degrees in biology. I know some that do...but most don't. I don't have one. I don't speak with any more authority than storm_chaser on matters biological...I just wanted more answers to my questions than he was giving me.

To bring this thread back on a totally different note.

After recently reading and very much enjoying Candide I came across an article in a small weekly paper that made me laugh.

The Headline was: 'Be a Good-Finder'

The article was about always finding good in situations, and not fault. The majority of the article was a story of two guys, one who gets his toe cut off and the other who goes to jail. Later in the story the one who got his toe cut off is about to be eaten by a cannibalistic tribe when they notice that he is missing a toe. They can't eat a human missing a body part, so he is set free. He finds his friend and helps him get out of jail, where he has spent years being tortured. He toeless man says that the man in jail must hate that his life was spent being tortured in jail, to which the other responds no, if I had been with you I would have been eaten by cannibals. The author of the article points to this as a wonderful example of always looking for the good.

I thought Voltaire had made this kind of view seem laughable in the 1700s.

What do you all think of this story?

That story is funny, but sad, if it's true. I guess there is something to said for looking on the bright side, but there's gotta be some reality creeping in somewhere.

I've read enough undergrad papers on the "best of all possible worlds" argument to think that most people find that argument to be, at the very least, weak. I just graded 75 papers on the problem of evil, and I'm inclined to believe that evil really does exist...and it consists of grading 75 papers on evil!

A sort-of philosophy recommendation: A Nation of Rebels by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. They're both Canadian philosophers, but this is a pop-philosophy book on the nature of consumerism and the "economy of cool." It's good, amusing fun, and I'll be teaching it in my Business Ethics course this summer!!!

This is a long ass thread so I'm not even gonna try to read it all. I just want to say I downloaded some wicked Robert Solomon lectures that have really helped me understand the finer points of existentialism. I'd taken several philosophy courses in college but they never really taught what I wanted to learn. I'd just bought Sartre's Being & Nothingness when I got those lectures and I'm a really slow reader so that'll help a lot. I'm excited to get that under way.

PS: Neitzche said "without music life would be a mistake"

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Originally posted by philosopherEric:
I haven't read it yet, but I have to note this recent release from one of my favorite philosophers, Harry Frankfurt: On Bullshit.

An update: Frankfurt was only the Daily Show last night (3/14) to plug his book. He's the first philosopher I've seen on the show. It was a funny bit, mostly about bullshit. I'm sure it's available online at the Daily Show site.

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Originally posted by Filmore Holmes:
I just want to say I downloaded some wicked Robert Solomon lectures that have really helped me understand the finer points of existentialism. I'd taken several philosophy courses in college but they never really taught what I wanted to learn. I'd just bought Sartre's Being & Nothingness when I got those lectures and I'm a really slow reader so that'll help a lot. I'm excited to get that under way.

I can honestly say that I don't really understand existentialism myself. It's not the kind of philosophy I do, but that doesn't mean I disagree with it. Short of a little glimmer of understanding Kiekegaard, I'm just not sure I get the point. But I've not tried very hard, either. Bob Solomon is one of the best in the biz, though. I think he makes an appearance in the film "Waking Life"...

Started reading 'The Making of a Philosopher' by Colin Mcginn after my sister sent it to me for my birthday. I'm enjoying reading about the path that led someone to a good life as a philospher in the modern university system. It will be hard to be objective about this book I think, as I will be taking a big step down the path toward a life in philosophy myself in a couple of months when I start grad school.

I haven't read that one, but I think McGinn is a top-notch writer and philosopher. His interests range across the field...he made a name for himself in the philosophy of mind, but recently he's turned towards ethics and the philosophy of literature. I enjoy most of what he does. I'd like to read the autobiography.

Not philosophy per se, but there's a new bio of famed legal theorist/philosopher H.L.A. Hart out by Nicola Lacey that is exceptional. I recommend it.

It's funny that you mention the wide range of McGinn. I only knew his very slightly from a paper I had run across in school in the area of philosophy of mind. From the titles that are listed as 'also by' in the front cover, the guy seems to have covered a large chunk of the major issues in philosophy. I thought this was pretty impressive for a university philosopher in the late 20th century, where even the truly brilliant often get pigeon-holed into a very narrow range of interests.

McGinn is in a very small group of contemporary analytic philosophers whose work spans the whole field. In this age of specialization in philosophy, there are only a handful of folks whose work covers the whole philosophical spectrum. I can think of Tom Nagel, the late Bob Nozick, probably Gil Harman, Frank Jackson, Phil Pettit, the late David Lewis, Simon Blackburn, and David Velleman. Maybe Martha Nussbaum, although she never really dabbles in the core analytic areas of M&E or mind, and Dan Dennett isn't really doing much in ethics (although the stuff about free will comes close).

Do you think this move toward specialization is a good thing or a bad thing for philosophy? Probably I should ask what is good and what is good about specialization, but you get my point. I remeber the first place I really ran across this concern was in the book 'The Mathematical Experience', Which I read right after I decided to commit myself to philosophy. The authors of that book painted a fairly dismal picture of what life in academia had become. There were some especially depressing passages where they discuss going to the national conference for their area of specialization and realizing that there were basically 3 other people in the world who were concerned with the projects that they had set as their lives' work.

I think at the moment I have swung back to the other side, and have a fairly romantic idea of academia. I'm sure it won't last long once I head back to school. I think in the end the truth is, as Hegel has taught us, probably somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

I'm not sure I can say that specialization is a good or bad thing, but I think the claim that, for many people, it's quite true that only a handful of people in the world can really be considered an expert in each subfield.

There's a decent book by a guy named (I think) Kuklick called The History of Philosophy in America or something of the sort that deals with specialization. It's not as common, however, among "continental" philosophers...people like Derrida, Habermas, and the like.

I'm not sure I can tell you that you'll hold onto your romantic view of academia, but I will admit that I really get frustrated at how myopic academics can be. People who are so smart can be, about such "trivial" things as human interaction, so stupid. It's not far from the truth that many people who end up in acadamia are seriously unable to deal with others. Some may even have a version of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome. But most of the time, I'm pretty happy with my career choice.

After a quick break to read Mystery Train, I'm just about done with 'The Mechanical Mind' by Tim Crane. I don't know anything about Crane, but this book has served its purpose well. After close to a year where I didn't think too much about philosophy of mind I certainly needed a refresher course on some of the basic ideas. This book was just that. I think he tends to skip through arguments at a pretty quick pace, and considering this is meant as an intro book, I'm not sure I would recommend it for its intended purpose, but for someone who is relatively familiar with the subject matter and needs a refresher, it is a short and fairly well written overview of the subject. It was written in 1995 though, so it is probably overdue for a new edition if it is going to continue to stay relevant for long. I think I am going to give Jaegwon Kim's 'Philosophy of Mind' a shot next. It was recommended by one of my future professors, and seems to be aimed at a graduate level audience.

I should learn to look before I post. Apparently Tim Crane just put out a second edition in 2003. Probably should be a lesson to me that used bookstores are not always the best place to shop for current research.

As a side note, I'm putting out an allcall for suggestions on book in philosophy of mind/cognitive science that I should read. Bring on the recommendations!

Kim's book is written, mainly, as a survey text which might be what you want, but maybe not.

As far as collections go, I think the seminal ones are Rosenthal's The Nature of Mind and Kim's book. There's a great collection on consciousness by Block, Flanagan and Guzeldere (The Nature of Consciousess). There's a lot of overlap between the two.

A few other anthologies stand out: Chalmers' Phil of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings and John Heil's (one of my profs, but still objectively a good book!) Phil of Mind: A Guide and Anthology are both fairly recent.

As a guided tour of the topic, Heil's Phil of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction is a better one, for my money, than Kim's. No source material-just discussion of the issues.

As far as fairly recent stand-alone mind books go, I'd think about The Conscious Mind by Chalmers, Thinking Without Words by Jose Bermudez, Furnishing the Mind and Gut Reactions by Jesse Prinz, and Introducing Persons or The Nature of the Mind by Peter Carruthers.

I can't offer specific titles, but you might also want to check out stuff by Fodor, Searle, Churchland (Paul or Pat), and Davidson.

More disclosure: i've been taught by Bermudez, Prinz, Rosenthal, and Heil, but I'm not shilling for them. All good books, for sure.

If you really want to be refreshed on the core ideas, I'd hit Kim and Heil. If you want to go into the source readings, I'd hit the Rosenthal, Chalmers, and/or Heil anthologies. If you want to go deep into consciousness, certainly pick up the Block, Flanagan, and Guzeldere. It got me through a qualifying paper in the philosophy of mind!

Thanks for the suggestions pE. I'm pretty familiar with almost all of those, and oddly enough have the title to the rosenthal book written on the bookmark I've been using while reading through the Crane book with a note next to it that says 'buy this soon'. One of my undergrad profs spoke not so highly of the Kim book, but I think I should get it under my belt since it was recommended by someone who will almost certainly be an advisor on my Masters thesis.

I think after that I such definately be ready to dive back into some non-survey books. Searle makes me feel somewhat sleazy (don't ask me what that means, I just don't like anything about his philosophical ideas or his writing style). The Bermudez book is news to me, as is the Prinz- thanks for the suggestions, I'll add them to the short list.

I took a class on Paul Churchland in my Junior year and like it quite a bit, and think I would like his wife even more, but I want to wait to read her newer book Brainwise, since the one I own, Neurophilosophy, is close to 20 years old, and reading a 20 year old book on neuroscience seems close to pointless, since it will be leaving out close to half of the disciplines history.

Thanks again for the recommendations- keep them coming (that goes for everyone on the board.)

Prinz is a monster. He left Wash U for a great job at Chapel Hill and has two books out (he's barely over 30!), one on concepts and one on emotions. He's got a third on the way (on moral pyschology) and a fourth contracted (a pop psychology thing).

I've not read a lot of the really recent non-survey literature in mind...most of what I read in that area is in folk psychology and moral psychology. If you go that way, anything by Shaun Nichols, Steven Stich, and John Doris is recommended. Stich is very good.

Another good collection, made up of new, original survey pieces, which provides good coverage of recent work in the area (with great bibliography!) is the Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind by Stich and Warfield. Here's the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0631217754/qid=1114745615/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4502087-9316957?v=glance&s=books

Its a good collection, and very recent.

thanks for the continuing recomendations.

I'm always amazed at guys who seem to be able to write with no end in sight, and from the looks of it on practically any topic. Prinz sounds up my alley for this reason if for no other. I think my interest in Douglas Hofstadter was in large part because he had so much to say on so many topics (although it is more likely that I became fascinated with him because Godel, Escher, Bach was always around my dad's bookshelf when I was a kid.)

As my affinity for Paul Churchland's work might suggest, I generally am fairly sceptical of folk psychology as an end-all explanation. In a lot of ways I'm much more interested in the brain than the mind, and hope to delve into how the workings of the brain can explain what we understand as the mind. One of the requirements of my fellowship at Georgia State is that I have a non-departmental thesis advisor, and I'm hoping to latch onto someone from the neuroscience department to help me understand this area better. I'm still young and stupid though, so I'm sure much will change in the near future.

I'm not overly enamored with folk psychology, but I fail to be optimistic enough about cognitive neuroscience to bite the bullet that the eliminative materialists do and think that all of the useful folk psychological terms ("beliefs" "desires" "wants" "hopes" and so on) will eventually be replaced by discussions of neural mechanisms. Maybe folk physics and folk biology have been replaced...but there's a fluidity and ease in using the folk psychological terms that I just can't imagine replacing. It strikes me as weird that my statement "I want a donut" will be replaced by "There are neural firings in region GH-1 in brain at X wavelengths indicating physical response K."

Not only is it weird, it's BS.