The Books/Reading Thread

[Einherjar86]

That's an interesting response. I've never thought of Victor as "heroic"; we're reading Frankenstein at the end of this semester, I'll consider what you said.

I've always thought of Shelley's novel in the context of Romantic skepticism toward the Enlightenment ideology that viewed science as a means to control nature. I'm certain this quote, from her husband's text "A Defense of Poetry", was lingering in Mary Shelley's mind as she composed Frankenstein:

The cultivation of those sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the external world, has, for want of the poetical faculty, proportionally circumscribed those of the internal world; and man, having enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Oh yeah, I definitely agree. I just thought it was unfair to that the editor of my edition calls Victor selfish but fails to see the other side of the coin.

 

[Einherjar86]

Indeed! Is that a Norton edition? If so I'm surprised; they usually cover all the critical perspectives.

Still, I love Frankenstein. When I eventually teach a course on science fiction I'd like to start with that novel.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Hey Pat, I'll be writing a comparative analysis of Strauss's and Nietzshe's Also Sprach Zarathustra for a music history course. One of my professors recommended that I incorporate some Hegel and I was curious if you could point me in the right direction. Any ideas on what work of Hegel's would be a good start?

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Incorporate some Hegel? I think someone is trollin' you.

 

[Einherjar86]

Hey Pat, I'll be writing a comparative analysis of Strauss's and Nietzshe's Also Sprach Zarathustra for a music history course. One of my professors recommended that I incorporate some Hegel and I was curious if you could point me in the right direction. Any ideas on what work of Hegel's would be a good start?

Nice! That sounds like an awesome paper.

First off, I'd ask for some verification from your professor even after I say what I'm about to. If he/she intended some specific text, or portion of a Hegelian text, you might save some time by figuring that out. The problem with Hegel is that there's a lot of it. His Science of Logic alone is around 700 pages or something ridiculous.

That said, avoid Science of Logic. My first instinct would be to check out his work on aesthetics; Penguin published an abridged text, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. Or, even better, I'm sure your university library has a copy of the original translation. My second suggestion would be to check out his Phenomenology of Spirit; the final section of that text, prior to the conclusion, discusses the work of art in the context of religion. Your library should definitely have a copy of that. That work is worth reading in its entirety.

I'm in the unfortunate position of not having read Thus Spoke Zarathustra (something I need to remedy), so I can't assess which Hegelian text Nietzsche's responding to. However, Hegel's aesthetics are bound up with his philosophy of history and consciousness, so it can't hurt to read his work on those. Again, you just have to be careful not to get bogged down; Hegel wrote a fucking ton.

As an initial guide, Stanford's website is helpful:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-aesthetics/#OthRelWor

I think there's another person interested in Hegel here... Addo of Nex, maybe? It might be worth it to ask some other people.

 

[Dak]

Read Starfish this evening, thought it was rather meh, although props to the guy for trying to tie some disparate "neat" things together.

 

[Einherjar86]

Damn, you read that fast! But Watts is really easy to read; not in content necessarily, but the way he writes is very exciting. I'm still only 70 pages in or so, but I'm hoping to get through most of it this (long) weekend.

 

[Dak]

I've always been a fairly fast reader, particularly of fiction. I see what you are talking about regarding horror/SF writers trying to attack the senses, which he sort of does here with the descriptions of interactions with the eyecaps/washing out of color spectrum, disorientation where light comes from below or intermittently, etc.

I couldn't engage empathetically or sympathetically with the characters, and I thought that the total storyline felt somewhat disconnected from the first half to the last half. I don't want to spoil it, but at some point the tone of the book changes and I feel like it was poorer for regressing to some typical derivative storyline.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Getting into H. L. Mencken. The dude is intense.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Hey Pat, I'll be writing a comparative analysis of Strauss's and Nietzshe's Also Sprach Zarathustra for a music history course. One of my professors recommended that I incorporate some Hegel and I was curious if you could point me in the right direction. Any ideas on what work of Hegel's would be a good start?

Your teacher is crazy for suggesting you "incorporate" Hegel into your paper. First, Hegel might be the hardest philosopher ever. Second, Nietzsche almost never references Hegel, and when he does his analysis suggests he hasn't studied Hegel very carefully. Therefore, any connection you make between the two philosophers will need to be fairly speculative. Third, Hegel's philosophy is one of constant development and progression, so it's extremely difficult to pluck out specific concepts and say "this is what Hegel means," because 99% of the time it's only what he means at a specific moment in the process.

Hegel's explanations of his own philosophy (i.e. the "Preface" to the Phenomenology) are often even more confusing than the philosophy itself.

The one concise and coherent introduction I've found is in a transcript of a lecture series called "Hegel's Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy." Pages 53-100 give a very clear explanation of his notion of development through dialectic. It's unusually transparent for Hegel. Pages 71-86 are especially invaluable, as he explains the three stages of dialectic: potentiality, existence and actuality.

Unfortunately, it's quite an expensive book, but if it's available at your schools library or website, I strongly suggest checking it out.

amzn.to/VAXul1

 

[Einherjar86]

Phenomenology of Spirit is possibly his most accessible work, in my opinion; it's far more accessible than Science of Logic, at least.

His writings on history are very straightforward, albeit rather... well, pseudo-spiritual, I suppose. I'm currently making my way (painstakingly) through Žižek's recent tome on Hegel, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, and it proposes an approach to Hegel that avoids idealism. Interestingly enough, both Žižek and Fredric Jameson have offered revisionist accounts of Hegel that propose ways to read Hegel's philosophy without idealism and without teleology, respectively.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Phenomenology of Spirit is possibly his most accessible work, in my opinion; it's far more accessible than Science of Logic, at least.

It's easier than the Logic, but otherwise it's far more difficult than any of his other writings.

His writings on history are very straightforward, albeit rather... well, pseudo-spiritual, I suppose. I'm currently making my way (painstakingly) through Žižek's recent tome on Hegel, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, and it proposes an approach to Hegel that avoids idealism. Interestingly enough, both Žižek and Fredric Jameson have offered revisionist accounts of Hegel that propose ways to read Hegel's philosophy without idealism and without teleology, respectively.

People have been stripping what they want from Hegel's philosophy for generations; however, I don't think you can really understand what he's getting at if you strip away the teleology and absolute idealism.

Current reading list. All of it is related to a story I'm writing about a first-generation Iranian poet. Her father is very religious, she drops religion as an adolescent and hold's herself to an unrealistically high standard of self-responsibility.

Been mostly reading the poetry so far and loving it all. Started Anthem today and enjoy it so far. The absence of the first-person singular is quite effective. The Koran will be a chore to read, but is necessary to write the story I want to write.

 

[Einherjar86]

People have been stripping what they want from Hegel's philosophy for generations; however, I don't think you can really understand what he's getting at if you strip away the teleology and absolute idealism.

Žižek has a great approach where he basically says that, when working with an influential thinker, we shouldn't ask what that figure can tell us about our epoch (i.e. what he/she looks like to us), but what we might reveal to that thinker (i.e. what we look like to him/her).

When critics offer "re-readings," I don't think we should accept or reject them as correct or incorrect interpretations. We should try and judge whether they offer a plausible "history" to the tradition they claim to be working within. The evidence of Hegel's epoch suggested his philosophy to him, although the failure of the French Revolution left him rather disillusioned. If he had been able to witness the twentieth century, I think he would have altered his theory.

Current reading list. All of it is related to a story I'm writing about a first-generation Iranian poet. Her father is very religious, she drops religion as an adolescent and hold's herself to an unrealistically high standard of self-responsibility.

Been mostly reading the poetry so far and loving it all. Started Anthem today and enjoy it so far. The absence of the first-person singular is quite effective. The Koran will be a chore to read, but is necessary to write the story I want to write.

Sounds very cool. Great reading list too.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I thought Ayn Rand was a joke among serious philosophers?

 

[Dak]

Probably is, but objectivism isn't any more a joke than say, historicism.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

It's a common trend to attack Rand but like most philosophies you have to take it with a grain of salt, some more than others.

She is nowhere near perfect or inspirational but I do think she offers some good insight.

 

[Einherjar86]

Probably is, but objectivism isn't any more a joke than say, historicism.

Is that supposed to be a joke?

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Žižek has a great approach where he basically says that, when working with an influential thinker, we shouldn't ask what that figure can tell us about our epoch (i.e. what he/she looks like to us), but what we might reveal to that thinker (i.e. what we look like to him/her).

When critics offer "re-readings," I don't think we should accept or reject them as correct or incorrect interpretations. We should try and judge whether they offer a plausible "history" to the tradition they claim to be working within. The evidence of Hegel's epoch suggested his philosophy to him, although the failure of the French Revolution left him rather disillusioned. If he had been able to witness the twentieth century, I think he would have altered his theory.

Hmmmm... I don't know what to make of that. Can you give an example of the contemporary philosopher examining what his/her epoch reveals to a thinker of another generation?

It sounds a little bit like Heidegger's notion of "thinking the unthought" in the work of other philosophers, a method I found to have mixed results. Sometimes Heidegger really has brilliant insights into the works of other philosophers, other times he seems to put words in their mouths.

In general the question of "what to do with a philosophy," is one I have mixed feelings on. On hand I agree that a true philosophical text should be a pathway into one's own philosophical thought and therefore, must be interpreted and appropriated to read in a truly philosophical manner. On the other hand, I feel that this method is too often abused to make philosophies do whatever one wants them to do, a sort of cut and paste method that ignores the fact that so many of these philosophers' aim was to communicate a single concept or a small cluster of concepts through a system (certainly the case for Hegel). I haven't read any Zizek and have only seen a few lectures/ interviews, so I'm not saying that this is what he's doing, but it's a red flag that immediately pops up from how you've described his method.

I thought Ayn Rand was a joke among serious philosophers?

I kinda assumed that for a long time myself. But I've also had a few people I respect say that she has received an unfair amount of criticism. I've come to realize that my bias is based on reputation, not on actually reading her material, so I'm giving her a fair chance.

I'm also trying to read material that I think would influence my characters and I've noticed that a lot of strong-minded girls in their late teens/ early 20s really love Rand's novels.