The science of knowledge

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1. sirtoffskiJul 2021
   I would very much recommend Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s “Foundations of the Science of Knowledge”. It’s a dense read, nevertheless an interesting insight on consciousness.

   https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/scienc...

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2. cafardOct 2022
   Fiction:

   Changing Places and Small World by David Lodge. Quite old, quite funny, lots of boys (professors) behaving badly stuff.

   History:

   War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber. A history of the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. At one time the British efforts were thought to provide a model for the US to follow in Vietnam; but the circumstances were so different that it is hard to imagine how anyone thought so.

   Philosophy:

   On Human Freedom and The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays by Schelling. Schelling was one of the German Idealist that I had never tried to read (well, there was one volume that I couldn't make headway in ten years ago).

   The Science of Knowledge by Fichte, which had always defeated me in intermittent attempts to read it over forty-five years.

   A Concept of Justice by John Rawls. Everyone talked about it, I hadn't read it. I do need to read it again.

   Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. An argument for a more or less Aristotelian understanding of ethics.

   On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I find her writing on beauty more convincing than her attempt to tie it back to a development of a sense of justice.

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3. cafardJul 2022
   I would suggest starting with The Vocation of Man, which is short and clearly written. If you wish to go on to The Science of Knowledge, I'd suggest reading up on Kant, and perhaps some Schelling: I found Fichte a lot less opaque after reading a couple of short volumes of Schelling.

   It has been a while since I read it, but it seems to me that Paul Beiser's account of Fichte in German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 was worth reading.

   [Edit: added inadvertently omitted "you".]

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4. cafardSep 2021
   Fichte's Science of Knowledge defeated me at 22, and again in my 50s. There are plenty of books that I have left unfinished, and hardly recall. But Fichte sticks with me for utter incomprehensibility. Maybe I'll give him another shot.
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5. cafardJan 2021
   Oh, come now. Worse than Fichte and Schelling? Hegel is pretty tough going, but I found The Science of Knowledge to be something like trying to shovel packed snow with a spork.
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