do you philosophers have a favourite book (or books)?
Oh yes Embracetrees - I have a favourite book it’s called:
“[size=150]AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH !!! [/size]”
by:
"[size=150]JEESSSUUUSSSCCCHHHRRRIISST !!! [/size] "
starsigns, colours, height, photos, weight problems…
Am I alone in wanting to use my imagination when I picture other members…? The reality is always going to be more disappointing than the daydream, and ultimately, people arguing are going to end up shouting - you’re ugly - therefore you’re wrong…! I’m taller than you shorty !!! Libras are always more balanced than leos…! Fatso - too much weight around the cerebrum to construct a decent premise…?
The internet is a wonderful opportunity to maintain some mystery… Should we be burning the colourful shielding between us…?
Mind you - more pictures of Childsplay please… As I’ve always said, the less a philosopher wears - the righter she is… 
1984 - George Orwell
The Holographic Universe - Michael Talbot
Get over it Tab!
“The Name of the Rose” - Eco
-Imp
For example - when I picture İmp - I get a flash of Robert DeNiro lugging his armour and sword up the waterfall in the Mission… Superimposed over a silver-grey, rain-slicked gargoyle perched over the threads - waiting to pounce upon the unwary…
Better than the part-time nihilistic home-appliance repairman he probably is in real-life… 
And while we’re at it:
Embracetrees - for you I get a glimse of a long-limbed, lithe Dryad, stepping out from behind a weeping-willow, sun-dappled in the twilight beneath the arching fronds…
For Ben - some white-bearded Zeus figure - hurling lightning bolts to blast mere mortal posters off the threads…
For GCT one of those old valve 300 tonne computers that take up an entire building, having gained some kind of rusting sentience, cranking out replies with a great clunking of tape punchers, and flashing of lights…
just what is a nihilistic home-appliance?
and where would you put the batteries?
more importantly, why would you put the batteries? it is nothing afterall…
-Imp
A microwave oven - heats only in the moment, has a rudimentary memory, doesn’t need batteries… Ruins good food - but doesn’t care as eating’s just a habit anyway…
If your nihilistic home-appliance malfunctioned how would you know? Would it suddenly start producing something?
As for reading: Read anything by Terry Prachett
Orson Scott Card is also quite good.
Frank Herbert will rock your socks, if you are ready for what he has to say about psychology, sociology, and theology.
Must admit a certain liking for Mr. Pratchett myself. Esp. the books ‘starring’ the City Watch.
The Hyperion Cycle by Dan Simmons. (Probably my fave)
The life of Pi. A suitable Boy. Birds Without wings. Foucault’s Pendulum.
The Diceman is great though I’ve lost my copy… 
Not for long - İmp would swoop down from the rooftops and ‘fix’ it…
no, I never swoop… I sometimes skip but never swoop…
swooping is for the birds…
-Imp
Woah…now im a forest nymph?i guess that could be a compliment…
thanks!
Hi Tabula,
Your so sweet! Sadly I removed the links. I was right about the people here being mean. I dont think I should come back or somene will be all angry with me again.
childsplay, c’mon, only one comment about your pic and you wanna leave? youre obviously too sexy for them
…and why do you care so much about ppl being mean? i mean, most ppl seem to like you here, but who really cares what those who dont think? youre here for your own benefit, right? to understand philosophy/ find meaning/ see what others think…youre just being silly.pls dont leave!
It’s awful hard to pick just one- here’s a list of several of my favorites. I’m sure I’m leaving out some great ones that I just can’t think of now…
The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Epidemics, Plagues, Famines & Other Scourges- Andrew Nikiforuk
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence- Robert M. Pirsig
Invitation to a Beheading- Vladamir Nabokov
Lolita- Vladamir Nabokov
Beyond Good & Evil- Nietzsche
Utopia- Sir Thomas Moore
The Forever War- Joe Haldemann
Buying Time- Joe Haldemann
Where The Wild Things Are- Maurice Sendak
Anything by Dick Francis
Lots of fantasy books, running the gamut from Lovecraft to Dennis McCarty.
Beep Boop Beep.
-Does not compute. 
No surprise there then - what did you think of his second book… Layla/Lila or something (it was a long time ago when I read it) Pheadrus meets some trailer trash and takes her on the river if I remember rightly… Loved motorcycle - but the second one didn’t have the same… Bite…?
Sounds like your camshafts need oiling GCT…
I’d like to get more imaginative for Phaedrus - but all I get on the radar is a statue in an apron flippin’ burgers with a philosophy book in the other hand.
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
The Day of the Jackal - Frederic Forsyth
Lila was also very good. Not a “culture bearing” book like Zen, but good nonetheless. Zen had a profound effect on me, intellectually, btw. My nic has a double entrendre significance- yes, Phaedrus is the counterpart of Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, and that has influenced my philosophical developement, but I mainly took the name from Pirsig’s alterego in Zen.
My secret is out. 
After all this time, my favourite book has remained unchanged, although the books that orbit it have shifted slightly. I have read a lot of pointless pulp fiction, as well as philosophy and what are called the ‘classics’. There are many different things to be appreciated in different books, and I do not think there is really any one significant thing which I find in each book, which makes me like it. Also, at different points, I bring a different mood into a book, and take something different away from it.
Anyway, my list would look something like this;
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche
And in no particular order;
- The Idiot - Dostoyevsky
- Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning) - Heidegger
- Ecce Homo - Nietzsche
- Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
- Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche
- The Antichrist - Nietzsche
- Twilight of the Idols - Nietzsche
- Animal Farm - George Orwell
- The Crucible - Arthur Miller
I would definately recommend re-reading books, by the way. It helps develop intertextuality.
Impenitent
Although I have not read any Eco, I came across a rather interesting review of one of his books in Disputatio, written by the English philosopher Simon Blackburn. The review is interesting, both for Blackburn’s scathing tone, which is not malicious but carries a sort of scorn tempered with dry British humor; and also for Blackburn’s stumbling attempts to make sense of Heidegger - on the spot and without prior reading - in order to facilitate a criticism of Eco’s reading of Heidegger’s theme of angst. The review, I though, raised some good points, and yet the whole Heidegger thing left me chuckling and shaking my head, equally.
Regards,
James
p.s. the Eco book was ‘Kant and the Platypus’