[lbo-talk] Grappling with Heidegger/What to Read

[andie nachgeborenen]

For a layperson, you read whatever strikes you as
useful and interesting -- there are no rules that you
have to read any philosophers or any particular ones.
I don't find Derrida worth the effort, although I'm
told by trustworthy people that there's good stuff
there; I find Husserl and classical phenomenology
boring, a lot of analytical philosophy is irritating
and of that stuff I only read what I have to to do
research I am doing; I don't care for Dummett or
Dennett; I read very little medieval philosophy, and
haven't looked at Spinoza in years.  I think classical
epistemology is a waste of time, as opposed to
philosophy of science; I am not interested per se in
philosophy of language, never have been; and avoid
most modern metaphysics. I used to read (and do) a lot
of philosophy of mind, that was my dissertation
subject, but I don't any more. I read a lot of
philosophy of law, which is a professional interest,
and mainly think about political philosophy,
philosophy of social science, and jurisprudence, some
ethics. I read pragmatism and Marxism, mostly Marx and
Engels, some Hegelian Marxists, a lot of Hegel, Mill,
some Nietzsche.  Lately I have been reading Bernard
Williams and Raymond Geuss -- old teachers who write
well about topics that interest me, both connected ti
my interests and not. This is just a short random list
of my own prejudices reflecting my own attitudes and
needs. Every person with a remote interest in
philosophy has to develop his own.

--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:


> speaking of which, what are the criteria used to
> decide that a
> philosopher (any philosopher) is _not worth
> reading_? Even in
> literature, there are such criteria, so some must
> exist in philosophy.
> or is it  a matter of "anything goes"?
> 
> (I don't know much about philosophy, but I know what
> I like:
> 
> "Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
> Who was very rarely stable.
> 
> "Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
> Who could think you under the table.
> 
> "David Hume could out-consume
> Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, [some versions have
> 'Schopenhauer and Hegel']
> 
> "And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
> Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
> 
> "There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
> 'Bout the raising of the wrist.
> Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
> 
> "John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
> On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
> 
> "Plato, they say, could stick it away--
> Half a crate of whisky every day.
> 
> "Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
> Hobbes was fond of his dram,
> 
> "And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
> 'I drink, therefore I am.'
> 
> "Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
> A lovely little thinker,
> But a bugger when he's pissed.<
> 
> On 5/9/06, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> > A question for each of the Heidiggers on this list
> (Chris, Justin, Ravi):
> >
> > In your personal opinion, did the Important
> Thinker's jusqu'auboutist Nazism
> > derive from
> >
> > a) his Philosophical stance?
> >
> > b) his own depravity or psychosis?
> >
> >            or
> >
> > c) his preoccupation with Metaphysical
> Profundities causing an
> > absent-minded neglect of what party membership
> paper he was signing?
> >
> > Shane Mage
> >
> > "Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and
> does not
> > consent to be called Zeus."
> >
> > Herakleitos of Ephesos
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jim Devine / "The price one pays for pursuing any
> profession or
> calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
> -- James Baldwin
> 
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

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