Essay concerning human understanding

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1. ebullientocelotDec 2020
   So a lot of philosophical writing references a sort of general canon, at least as far as western thinking is concerned. Other traditions I'm sure have their own details but I can't speak intelligently to them. The field is enormous, and without more specific information regarding your goals it is difficult to pinpoint the classics in subfields that may interest you. That said, there are a few highlights I think you're bound to come across reference or allusion to in many, many other works that would benefit you to get some exposure to. I am strongly biased toward a western analytical philosophy tradition--you'll want to check into things far more broadly than I'm recommending to find your own path. My little list is not meant to be exhaustive and is coming from personal memory of "aha!" moments in my own life, but will perhaps serve as a useful beach head for your own investigations:

   * Descartes' Meditations

   * Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding

   * Hobbes Leviathan

   * Kant Critique of Pure Reason

   * Kant Prolegomena

   * Kuhn Structure of Scientific Revolution

   * Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit

   * Foucault Discipline & Punish

   * Sellars Epistemology and the Philosophy of Mind

   * Sellars The Scientific Image of Man

   * Quine Word & Object

   * Davidson On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme

   * Nagel What is it like to be a bat?

   * Searle Minds, Brains, and Programs

   Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [0] has a ton of great summary articles and bibliographies that could definitely keep you busy for a few decades or so. I've never been tremendously into ancient or non-western philosophy, which is a deficiency I aim to correct one day, but there are a ton of great essays there as well.

   [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/

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2. actsoftheclaApr 2020
   I take it that the goal is to list books of general interest for the software engineering student. It is not clear what the author means by classic CS material, so it is hard to know what is excluded. Surely, Mythical Man Month and GoF qualify as classics of software engineering. Or does the author mean classics from the entirety of a CS program?

   I've been teaching a software engineering class for a few years. Being conscious of the high cost of textbooks, I find that Applying UML and Patterns by Larman achieves the best balance of practice, design, and process.

   For students who want to dig into agile methodologies I would recommend Extreme Programming Explained by Beck and the Poppendiecks on Lean.

   In my opinion, a philosophical grounding is helpful for the programmer. Accordingly, I'd want to suggest something like Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding or a secondary source on Aristotelian categories. Moreover, a broad knowledge of different types of ethical systems will benefit a developer.

   Lastly, as a kind of curve ball, I would recommend any STEM student to work through an LSAT preparation book. Technologies will come and go, but, throughout a career, the problems a developer encounters will likely have dimensions that require general critical thinking.

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3. numismatexAug 2019
   Yeah, but we're talking a new work by a prolific author with more than 8,000 articles of writing known. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and reading about the empiricists (berkeley, hume, locke) shook my world as a teenager. The works and letters of his contemporary philosophers and brilliant people made me a better person, giving things a great deal more of critical thinking. I love how in some of this he's saying that if tolerating catholics helps the prince and commonwealth then he's for tolerating catholics. That's ridiculously apt and healthy.
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4. barberousseJul 2019
   In order to understand Kant, first read David Hume's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Kant's major ideas are entirely a response to this essay (we English-speakers are lucky to have this crucial piece of the Enlightenment in our native tongue). Hume argues that cause and effect are entirely empirical concepts, which has the implication that we can't actually talk about "eternal laws of nature" with any sense. Kant wrote The Critique of Pure Reason and his subsequent critiques in the trilogy to argue that the laws of nature are laws because they are the laws of our ability to experience subjectivity at all. The Critique is very dense and technically written and the English translations do little to abate this. I would recommend reading it with a companion commentary text though unfortunately that wasn't the path I'd taken so I can't pick out a specific one.
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5. laichzeit0Dec 2018
   One of the most beautiful "old" books to read (especially if English is your native tongue) is John Locke - Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It's a beautiful piece of text, more so if you can get an old Oxford Claredon Press edition edited by Peter Nidditch.

   I've read that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are also delightful to read in the original. Schopenhauer's writing style is so good, even when translated to English by Saunders.

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6. laichzeit0Sep 2015
   One of the saddest things about modern college/university philosophy courses, I think, is how few people will ever end up reading any of the great philosopher's works in the original (nevermind even in the original language!). It's almost always condensed versions by another author of the "main ideas".

   I had this experience when I picked up a copy of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and read the thing in the original. I was completely shaken by the beauty of it.

   It saddens me because 90% of the beauty is lost in favor of "just getting to the main idea". You lose so, so much. It would be like reciting Homer without an understanding of meter. All beauty would be lost.

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