Name: Being and Nothingness
ISBN: 9781973776659

Being and Nothingness

Being & Nothingnessis without doubt one of the most significant philosophical books of the 20th century. The central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world. Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture & literature was immediate & was felt worldwide, from the absurdist drama of Samuel Beckett to the soul-searching cries of the Beat poets. Being & Nothingnessis one of those rare books whose influence has affected the mindset of subsequent generations. Seventy years after its 1st publication, its message remains as potent as ever--challenging readers to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, choice, responsibility & action.

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hilbert42Nov 2023

Philosophy is very dear to me and I loved studying it, so I cannot let this story stand without having commented. I'm not going to come to its defense other than to point to several references as the works of many philosophers over several thousands years have done so much more eloquently through their philosophical works than anything that I could even dream to equal.

I'll just say that studying the works Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Kant, Thoreau, Hume, Nietzsche, G.E Moore, Russell, A.J. Ayer, Popper, Schopenhauer, Sartre and many others made me a better and more rounded person. They taught me to think better, to argue logically and put things into perspective. I often don't succeed but those guys are always at the back of my head niggling about what I think and pushing me to evaluate or reevaluate what I am doing. They've altered my thinking and my perception of the world.

My profession isn't philosophy but moving electrons around or at least trying to make them do my bidding (sometimes I reckon they're the philosophers, not me). In many ways much of what I do involves the physical world and seemingly it couldn't be further away from philosophy— metaphysics —which, by definition, is above and beyond physics. However, I'd argue that those who only perceive the world through the mathematics of say Einstein's and Schrödinger's equations and debunk philosophy as base or at best a waste of time have missed the point. Likely they haven't studied philosophy so they've not considered that the way they've learned and gained knowledge is itself a philosophical study of practical value, namely epistemology. Science was once termed natural philosophy and many of the ways of thinking and learning are common to both.

It seems to me that conceptualizing quantum fields in QFT (or at least trying to) isn't that different a process to Berkeley conceptualizing whether the tree in the Quad exists when there's no one to look at it. No doubt the former is magnitudes more complex, and given that 250 years have passed since Berkeley's era approaches to thinking about such matters have become more nuanced and complex. In physics today causality is a central concept and David Hume refined Berkeley's propositions to incorporate inductive reasoning and causality. Philosophers fine-tuned the thinking process that eventually allowed inductive reasoning to conclude the Higgs particle actually exists despite that no one has ever seen it directly—even CERN's detectors never saw it, they've only ever detected the aftermath of its decay. Philosophy not only has practical purposes but it's a fascinating subject.

Then there are the books, some of the most significant and influential ever written, Republic, Leviathan, A Treatise of Human Nature, Social Contract, Critique of Pure Reason, Being and Nothingness, etc., etc. These are works of brilliant minds that have endured over the centuries—and they endured for so long for the very reason that many have valued their contents greatly.

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hilbert42Feb 2021

Here are the remaining texts. The tally is now 28, I forgot to include several that are important, there's also several 'afterthoughts'.

19. Psychopathology of everyday life—Sigmund Freud. This text may seem a strange inclusion but some of Freud's writings are considered philosophical works. Here, I refer you only to Chapter 1 titled The forgetting of Proper Names. It's only a dozen or so pages so it's a quick read. Whether Freud's analyses is correct or wrong, or that modern science has superseded his work is immaterial here. It's importance to philosophers is that it vividly conveys how a great mind broaches a subject and tackles the analysis and comes to conclusions (it's a rare and insightful opportunity to see a philosopher's mind at work). If you are keen also read Chapter II about the Forgetting of Foreign Words.

20, 21, 22. The Logic of Scientific Discovery | The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol-I Plato | The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol-II Hegel & Marx — Karl Popper These books represent only a fraction of Popper's output, albeit influential ones. Popper was a highly influential 20th C. philosopher and his fields are many and diverse—from biology, to the scientific method, to the structure of society, to exploring the subject of knowledge—critical rationalism, etc. If you're already studying HPS then it's likely The Logic of Scientific Discovery is one of your curriculum texts. It's here that Popper argues the notion that made him so widely known in the scientific world—that is, scientific methodology should be based on falsifiability, as experiments cannot prove a theory no matter how many times they're repeated but reproducible experiments can refute or disprove a theory.

The Open Society and Its Enemies is a two volume set. For the moment limit yourself to Vol. I (Vol. II is mentioned to avoid confusion). Like the Austrian School of libertarian economists (Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek), Popper was heavily influenced by his experience of totalitarianism—communist and fascist regimes before and during WWII, thus his antiauthoritarian views. He argues in favor of the free market, free trade, egalitarianism and liberalism and libertarianism thought. In Volume I he aims criticism at the Platonic concept of the benevolent philosopher king who rules through wisdom and experience. Popper views such rule as totalitarianism even if the dictator/despot is benevolent and wise. He argues that a tolerant society must be tolerant of intolerance—if not, then it too is intolerant. That said, matters aren't quite that simple, he then leads us to the paradox of tolerance, which states that if a society sets no limit on its tolerance then eventually the intolerant will destroy it.

Given current politics where both sides of the political divide are becoming more belligerent and intolerant of each other by the moment, Popper's views in The Open Society and Its Enemies are both strongly argued and very prescient in our troubled times.

(Note: in my comments on The Republic, my suggestion was that one should only confine oneself to Book I. This was for good reason; as later in Book IV Plato develops the notions of society's guardians and philosopher king and this isn't relevant to the matter of formal argument. What's notable here about Book IV popping up here is that a common characteristic of philosophical thought and argument is that new works builds heavily upon past thought. Thus, understanding older philosophical arguments is so important; it's why we still consider Greek philosophy a crucial starting point. Moreover, it illustrates the why one should progress through a formally structured curriculum. As with any study, to stay on course and to progress quickly certain topics are essential prerequisites.

23.

Being and Nothingness—Jean-Paul Sartre* This text is one of the pillars of 20th C. existentialism, it's considered a true tour de force in the subject. It deals with one's role in the world—of being an existential human being and everything that implies. I haven't time to delve further here as I'd need to illustrate with longwinded examples. However, I'd suggest one should learn the essential basics of existentialism given that its philosophy is so ingrained in 20th Century thinking. The text's likely too long for an introductory course, so one could consult a précised synopsis (reckon it'd still be considered a 'legitimate' learning exercise (I can hear my once lecturers wincing and grinding teeth at the thought!).

24. No Exit - (Fr. Huis clos)—Jean-Paul Sartre The French title translates into English as 'In Camera' although it's better known as No Exit in the Anglophone world. No Exit is a famed but short [hence quickly read] play by Sartre with an existential undercurrent. It's an overstatement to say the play has a plot, rather it describes a situational existential existence more akin to, say, an extreme version of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The play's importance to philosophy is that it examines the human condition—of existence—from the most extreme existential perspective possible. The play depicts a state of hell for those involved. Imagine yourself trapped forever in a room with people you hate or with whom you disagree but with never any possibility of escape. It's an extremely thought-provoking work.

25. Formal/Symbolic Logic Texts I can't provide a list and do justice to it. There are too many and I'm not conversant with the latest ones. However, you must study Formal Logic as, at minimum, it's necessary rigor for one to develop logical thinking (there are also many other reasons). It teaches one to accurately comprehend thus determine the meaning of what is written within texts. Often one's comprehension of written text is superficial and imprecise thus one's perceived or interpreted understanding of it is either a poor chimera of the original or perhaps altogether wrong.

Formal logic provides one with tools—symbolic terminology, methodologies and mathematical logic to analyse statements and propositions then reduce them into logical arguments. Sentences are broken down and atomized into subjects, predicates etc. using true/false truth tables along with other formal procedures. Advanced techniques lead to a detailed Semantic theory of truth as formulated by a long line of logicians from George Boole, to Russell, to Wittgenstein through to Alfred Tarski and others. Formal/symbolic logic is a major and necessary extension to Boolean logic, here's a glimpse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logic_symbols

(Note: Logic, in its various forms, is a sub branch of mathematical philosophy of which of itself is an enormously broad subject from before the Ancient Greeks onward to modern mathematical thought of Russell, Wittgenstein, Kurt Gödel (his incompleteness theorem) and numerous others. It's likely this topic is covered in your HPS curriculum, thus it's a redundant exercise for me to do so. In addition, I'm not a mathematician by trade, hence if I offered further advice I'd be doing the subject an injustice.

26. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is, I'd reckon, the most comprehensive philosophy resource on the web. It covers almost every phil. topic imaginable from ancient Greece to HPS and everything else. Its breath of knowledge intimidates me, in fact almost everyone. Don't let that stop you using it as a primary reference source.

Here are some important mainstream topics not covered in my list that you'll eventually encounter (IMHO, they aren't necessary HPS prerequisites): Geek Epicureanism/epicurean philosophy, Epictetus and other Greek philosophers, Thomas Aquinas, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Wollstonecraft, Baruch Spinoza, Georg W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and 20th Century philosophers including, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, John Rawls, John Ralston Saul and others. (Surely, I've missed some key names but there's plenty here to start with.)

An afterthought, perhaps I should have included these two texts:

27. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (aka TLP & Treatise on Logic and Philosophy) — Ludwig Wittgenstein In TLP, Wittgenstein concerns himself with the 'relationships' between logistics of language and reality, how this 'understanding' defines the scope or limits of science. This book has had considerable influence on 20th Century philosophers (Russell, G.E Moore and many others). Note: understanding language semantics and how it plays a role in philosophical thinking, perception and logic is a major aspect of 20th C. philosophy.

28. Language, Truth, and Logic — A.J Ayer I initially omitted this book, as later Ayer was critical of it stating that it contains mistakes of his youth. On second thoughts, I've included it, as the way Ayer explains language, the logic of language structures—propositions, statements (such as tautologies being necessarily true and thus don't need verification), etc. had a defining influence on me (in that they sunk into my grey matter first time). However, I acknowledge this is not sound logic (my only defense is that it was an easy text to digest).

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nathiasFeb 2019

Plato - Meno, Symposium, Parmenides, Gorgias, Protagoras

Plotinus -Enneads

Markus Aurelius - Meditations

Descartes - On method

Descartes - Meditations

Spinoza - On the improvement of Understanding

Leibniz - Monadology

Leibniz - Grace

Voltaire - Candid

Diderot - D'Alembert's Dream