in a quest for knowledge.
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AbsolutelyThoughtfulGoz — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 01:22 AM)
Onya mate~
You will find Sydney certainly has more buzz, excitement and opportunity than Melbourne in many areas.
Yes One month in Spain walking, and 1 month in UK with famaway mid April to mid June. -
AbsolutelyThoughtfulGoz — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 11:29 AM)
Ya gotta start somewhere!
I have New Year's resolution intentions.
They also said I would never stick to my training regime for my long walk next year and I have confounded everyone by walking at least 40 km per week. for the last 2 months.
Many people give up too easily. -
LostKiera — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 03:36 AM)
Note that when you read Russell's History of Western Philosophy, the last third of the book is basically him trying to crowbar all philosophers from that point on into two camps, the Lockeans (who he likes) and the Rousseauians (who he hates).
To do so he misrepresents several ideas (as someone who's read a fair bit of Rousseau I can attest to this), uses ad-hominem attacks (he frequently dismisses Rousseau as insane - Rousseau suffered from paranoia later in life after he'd written most of his works; Descartes he spends more time commenting on his laziness than his ideas) and focuses on minor thinkers (there's a chapter on Byron for crying out loud) whilst omitting major philosophers who don't fit into his dichotomy (no mention of Paine, Wolstonecraft, Kierkegaard etc.) He also leaves out his contemporaries (eg Sartre, Heidegger, Camus, Wittgenstein) though that can perhaps be forgiven.
He also represents logical atomism as the culmination of philosophy that has effectively solved all the problems thinkers came up with over the last 2500 years. A bold claim to be sure.
So the first two sections (the Greeks and Medievals) are definitely worth a read but the rest of it is patchy - I would trust his thoughts on the philosophers he likes more than the ones he dislikes. -
LostKiera — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 07:16 AM)
Yep, it's particularly crap. I read an article saying that the rise of the Nazis made Russell highly prejudiced against Germans, hence why he largely dismisses Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel and goes beep crazy when discussing Nietzsche. He also held Rousseau directly responsible for the rise of Hitler.
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mervispool — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 06:06 AM)
Gonna start with my Sherlock Holmes collection. I'm halfway they the first story and I really love the style of writingI'm just not reading as much as I want to.
After that I'll probably dig into another King book. Got Mr Mercedes and Doctor Sleep for xmas. -
RedBaroness1966 — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 12:51 PM)
I would probably read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book apart from that
When I started my PhD I decided I should know more about philosophy so I read the History of Western Philosophy, or at least tried to. That was when I realised I should stick to science and confine myself to reading Popper. I learned alot more from posting on this board in the good old days than I did from Russel's book. It's a shame Achilles etc don;t post here anymore.
I rarely read pop sci books but Nick Lane's
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6429264-life-ascending
is brilliant,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.