Philosophical Investigations

The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell. It's a short book with beautiful diagrams and explanations of microbiology. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Its thesis is that everything is built up of smaller things that are all trying to replicate or get replicated. Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein. I haven't read the book, but reading about the book's argument that language is a type of multiplayer game, along with the aforementioned ideas about things being built out of smaller things that are trying to replicate changed how seriously I take ideas in general. I'm not looking for a universal truth anymore, I'm watching different collections of ideas compete with each other based on how well they replicate and how well they compete once they've entered a brain.

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon (1973). The Platonic ideal of the Postmodern novel that combines a deep understanding of modernity with deep understanding and pessimistic view of technology. Purgatory, Dante (1320). No other work so elegantly grasps Christian Sanctification and it's true difficulties. Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstin (1953). Like Pynchon, Wittgenstein understood quite well the exhausting pedantic nature of modern life. A book that can stand on it's own without having read much philosophy, this work attacks the foundations of most of "Modern" (I would label this as post Medieval philosophy ). Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Abelsson, Sussman, Sussman (1985). For me, the definitive "Programming is what exactly?" book. Computer Systems, a Programmer's Perspective, Bryant & O'Hallaron (2012). The Concrete Systems yin to SICP's abstract yang. BattleCry of Freedom, McPhearson (1988). The best Civil War history in the past generation that also lays bear how much of what we view as modern crisis in the U.S. ( partisanship, horrendous propagandized media coverage, etc ) is as old as the country itself.

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy. Philosphical Investigations, Ludwig Witgenstein. The Analects. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Ableson and Sussman. The Hamet and The Town and The Mansion, William Faulkner.

Some from the canon: Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (translated by David Gallop) The Modes of Scepticism by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (a beautiful collection of texts from Pyrrhonian scepticism and analysis of their arguments; the best way I know to meet ancient scepticism) Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy (The Cambridge University Press edition is very good; it's probably worth buying their Selected Philosophical Writings for a good basic Descartes text) David Hume: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (I recommend the Oxford Philosophical Texts editions) Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations (terribly, terribly difficult, but very rewarding) A few contemporary things: Gilbert Ryle: The Concept of Mind Willard Van Orman Quine: From a Logical Point of View J. L. Mackie: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong Thomas Nagel: Mortal Questions (short essays, well-written, very accessible) Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Michael Smith: The Moral Problem Specialist, technical, odd:…

My list: - Pirkei Avot, it's a section of the Mishnah (a part of the Talmud), it summarizes the jewish moral thought (well, not for the Karaites Jews, they did not believe in the Talmud), I was born in a Orthodox Jewish family so it was important on my beliefs, even though I am an Atheist now. - Organon, it's a compilation of Aristotle's logic works, they are the basis for the logical thought of the Western civilization, I think it's easier to read the originals than compendiums. - Philosophical Investigations, the second book of Wittgenstein, it's dense, and obscure to some extent, but it's really eye-opener, some ideas that influenced the last century are introduced there. - Proofs and Refutations, a posthumous work by Imre Lakatos, it defied much of my established view on how Mathematics works. - Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a powerful book, it's dense and you can only drag many conclusions from it when you read other works from Nietzsche, which lead to my next book.…