AuthorTopic: Books on religion and philosophy?  (Read 5472 times)

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Books on religion and philosophy?

on: August 20, 2012, 08:08:33 pm
Hello.

I'm looking for recommendations on books about religion, philosophy, sociology, psychology. I was always more a novel oriented person and enjoyed being exposed to new ideas (new to me) from novels. Like, all I know about Jung's psychology is for Herman Hesse. Never found the will to dig into Jung's work specifically. But I digress.

What I hear a lot, weather talking about becoming a film maker, a writer or a game designer (artist of any sort), it's is important to have some background knowledge/awareness about the history and important periods in religion, philosophy and so on. But rarely people recommend books on that, and it's such a huge area to explore one doesn't know where to start.

So basically I'm looking for some "lighter" books on this subject, as well as "classics" (like mandatory books of philosophy), to expand my general knowledge, without starting desire to really dig deep into any of the areas. That might come later.

So anything you would recommend?

Thanks for your thoughts in advance.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #1 on: August 20, 2012, 08:45:27 pm
I thought these were interesting:

The Medium is the Message
The Problem of the Media  (I seem to remember this one makes about 30-60% of a room full of people angry)

I'm no expert on this stuff.
Plenty of other sources definitely exist.

I also learned a bunch of crazy stuff working for a company on Facebook apps.
I've yet to find a paper source of said theories but if I ever find one I'll let you know.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline Helm

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #2 on: August 20, 2012, 08:58:28 pm
Well, I would suggest you read at least some about the outlines of pre-Socratic thought, then dive right into Plato. Then I'd skip a bunch of stuff and go right to Schopenhauer and Nietszche and I'd read Freud in parallel. It's kind of pointless to suggest good books by these minds, it's a lifetime's worth of work to slowly move chronologically through what they've written and return to earlier stuff to re-digest. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember having an interest in... anything.

edit: I am not religious so I cannot offer great suggestions in that area. I do enjoy reading up on Gnosticism now in my late twenties and I find inspiring bits in there but I'm not sure how interesting that stuff would be to you if you're not fascinated by fringe Christianity offshots and to a degree, occultry.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2012, 09:02:13 pm by Helm »

Offline yaomon17

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #3 on: August 20, 2012, 10:44:37 pm
I would suggest reading up on Confucianism and Taoism. I found those two topics to be really interesting if you have a basic knowledge of what China was like at the time.

Offline Charlieton

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #4 on: August 20, 2012, 10:53:45 pm
I might be able to help a bit. I've studied philosophy for a short time at university, as well as some other subjects (cognitive science, logic, literature). The starting courses in each subject always had some introductory books, most of them which were quite good. Note that I haven't tried any other literature of the sort, and as such I have no basis for comparison. Just saying there might be better ones out there, but I haven't read them, so I wouldn't know.

Books in the introductory course in philosophy were:
- The Elements of Moral Philosophy, by James & Stuart Rachels (fifth edition). I found this one to be especially good. It goes through a lot of the major contemporary theories in ethics, while presenting them in a way that's easy to understand (with plenty of examples and case studies). It also outlines and faces some of the foundational problems that the field of ethics need to deal with. Here's some excerpts of the chapter names: 1. What is Morality?; 2. The Challenge of Cultural Relativism; 3. Subjectivism in Ethics; 4. Does Morality Depend on Religion?; 5. Ethical Egoism (etc.)

- Western Ethics: An Historical Introduction, by Robert L. Arrington. Very good, though I haven't read all of it. Pretty thick book that presents many of the greater philosphical movements in (western) history, with focus on the individual philosophers that started them. It gives some historical overview of each philosopher, then goes into some depth in their respective beliefs and theories (mainly concerning their ethics, and metaphysics only where it's relevant in order to grasp the ethics). The book starts with Socrates and the Sophists, and proceeds in chronological order with history, up until the twentieth century. Philosophers included are: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Aquinas, Hobbes, Spinoza, Butler, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Bentham, Mill and Nietzsche. Many of them are presented with a focus on one of their major works. For example, with Aristotle it's the Nichomachean Ethics, with Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. As such, it's very benificial to read those chapters in combination with the original works/treatises.

The rest of these I haven't read very much of, or it's been a very long time since I even did read them. And that's why, sadly, I don't have much to say about them. I recall them being comprehensive and interesting, though.

- An Introduction to Political Philosophy, by Jonathan Wolff (revised edition). Seems to be straightforward in describing the various philosophical issues with state, rule, justice and the like. Pretty short.

- An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, by Brian Davies. Like the above, but discussing the various philosophical issues about religion instead. I recall that it discussed things such as different arguments for the existance of God, God and morality (Euthyphros Dilemma), God and evil. All the classical questions about religion, really. Of course, it's all done with a proper, philosopical outlook that evaluates the different agruments in a reasonable, neutral way.

- Introduction to Aesthetics: An Analytic Approach, by George Dickie. This one I have read very little of. Nobody seemed particulary fond of it though, including the teachers/professors. Anyway, it's quite obviously about the philosophy of aesthetics. It's presented in an historical way, which I found quite dull when I read it (what little I did read). But I admit I haven't given it a fair chance. Ironic, because it would probably be a highly relevant read for me or anyone else here, considering this is an ART FORUM and all, where we tackle questions concerning "what is beautiful" on a daily basis! :lol:

Anyway, that's all for the introductory course I took in philosophy. There were some other books, but they were all in swedish, so they're hardly anything you can recommend on an international forum. I also did the advanced course, but that one was more about reading original philosophical works (A Theory of Justice by Rawls, Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant). However, there were also two introductory books which I found to be very good: The Philosophy of Social Science: an Introduction, ("revised and updated") by Martin Hollis, and An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics by Alexander Miller. I can give more thoughts and descriptions of them if requested. They're probably not very well suited for beginning ones philosophical studies with, which is why I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Hope that helped, and good luck with your studies!  ;D
Det skulle vara lätt för mig att säga att jag inte gillar dig, men det gör jag; tror jag

Offline yaomon17

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #5 on: August 21, 2012, 03:57:57 am
I can also educate you on Yaomonism as much as you want for free.  :crazy:

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #6 on: August 21, 2012, 08:27:42 pm
Thanks for your suggestions, especially Charlieton. All these books seem to be available at Amazon, so I'm expanding my wishlist. Hope I'll be able to push my next order on Amazon to sooner. Really eager to dig into some of these topics ASAP.

Thanks once more.

Offline ptoing

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #7 on: August 21, 2012, 11:00:49 pm
If you wanna look at Christianity from a scholarly (aka proper) viewpoint I would suggest anything by Bart Ehrman.

Who wrote the Bible is also good, as is Unearthing the Bible.

For religious criticism Age of Reason by Thomas Paine is nice (also the first of it's kind and still valid)
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Offline Charlieton

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #8 on: August 21, 2012, 11:11:19 pm
Thanks for your suggestions, especially Charlieton. All these books seem to be available at Amazon, so I'm expanding my wishlist. Hope I'll be able to push my next order on Amazon to sooner. Really eager to dig into some of these topics ASAP.

Thanks once more.
Cheers!  ;D

Good tips, ptoing! "Forged" by Ehrman seems really interesting. I have to check that out.
Det skulle vara lätt för mig att säga att jag inte gillar dig, men det gör jag; tror jag

Offline blumunkee

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #9 on: August 22, 2012, 03:51:09 am
I've always preferred Carl Jung to Freud. He focused quite a bit on religion and psychology.

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Books on religion and philosophy?

Reply #10 on: August 22, 2012, 04:39:49 am
just skimmed the thread but I don't think anyone has mentioned

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

I would strongly recommend this book, it's quite comprehensive and for the most part objective