rethink

Ashok · Site Admin Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 16

Most of you have probably read one or two philosophy books you think no one should avoid reading. Feel free to list those books here, along with why you think everyone should read the book.

I guess I should start: there's an essay by Karl Popper on how he came to the idea of falsification as a constituent element of scientific theories, and I think that's a great read b/c the realization that "there are different sorts of theories for different sorts of purposes" isn't a small realization.

Eamonn · Joined: 27 Oct 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Buenos Aires

I read Bertrand Russell's History of western philosophy when I was a kid and that got me interested. I think Habermas´s "The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity is a great book. There's nothing to beat it for its level of engagement with the thinkers he covers and it's great on the consequences of trying to use reason against itself. I´d also recommend Maeve Cook's brilliant "Language and Reason: A Study of Habermas’s Pragmatics" which in some ways is a better defence of JH's thought than he offers himself