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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019) and AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021).

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Introductions to philosophy - a couple of useful threads over at Leiter's place

1. A discussion of 25 must-read books before postgraduate study in philosophy. There are different opinions about the classics (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.) and about modern introductions to the field. What mix would you recommend for someone with a few months for a program of intense reading? (I make a contribution to the thread at one point.) Some of the suggestions sound interesting.

2. A good thread here on advanced (graduate level) textbooks in various areas of philosophy. I'm familiar with the books by Miller and Kymlicka that they are talking about, and these really are important books for students of metaethics and political philosophy (respectively) to come to grips with. A number of the others mentioned in the thread are not familiar to me, while looking useful. One that I clearly should familiarise myself with, but I hereby confess that I haven't read it, is the Mark Murphy book on philosophy of law, published in 2006.

I'm writing this post mainly to bookmark these threads for my own use, but it may be useful to others.

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