I enjoy the books of Mary Midgley, an English moral philosopher. She writes about science, ethics, instinct, animal behavior, and even a bit of literature. I've read Wickedness, Man and Beast and Heart and Mind, and found them all very intelligent, humanist and well argued.
Originally Posted by ThatIndividual
Considering that Descartes probably never even touched a human brain in his lifetime, let alone have the scientific instruments to analyse the mind that we have today, I'd say there's quite a lot to discuss about the brain/mind duality.
And Rousseau: what did he actually know about primitive communities to make his wild claims about how society corrupts individuals? The man never even left Europe; he lived, by my knowledge, in France, Geneva and the UK. Forgive me if I laugh at his pseudo-anthropological observations about the state of the natural man.
John Locke's tabula rasa is not only redundant, it's downright wrong in light of what the neurosciences have discovered about the human mind.
Most of the classic philosophers cogitated from the comfort of arm chairs, oblivious to actual facts. They elaborated elegant theories in words; that's one of the problems with words: anything can be construed with them, even impossible or wrong things.
Modern philosophers are today scientists, economists, anthropologists, historians. We can no longer afford to have a Lord making up a wild theory while he sips his glass of port from the comfort of his couch. Modern philosophers, whom you put between contemptuous parentheses to diminish them and question their knowledge, are people like Noam Chomsky (who knows more about politics than Machiavelli or Hobbes), António Damásio (who knows more about the brain/mind duality than Descartes), Joseph Stiglitz (who knows more about economics than Malthus or Smith), and etc.
Knowledge grows, old truths are discredited, and intellectual heroes are shown to, more often than not, being wrong.
Last edited by Heteronym; 04-27-2011 at 05:56 PM.
Hobbes' Leviathan shows a huge bias towards centralized authority; most medieval religious-philosophical books showed a bias towards Church doctrine and Christian ethics. An agenda will always slip into one's thinking because one's full personality influences one's mode of thinking.
I find it embarassing and sad the excuses people come up with to justify the fact that they don't read modern philosophy. Why don't you just admit you don't want to read it? Be honest with yourselves.
Most popular philosophy - Grayling, for example - is glued into marketing 'happiness' as a consumer product, or how best to realise the 'happy' life. vomit-inducing. We also have those writers mapping their bias ideals onto the faculty of science - writers like Shermer ('the mind of the market') or, recently, Sam Harris, with the idea of a 'science of morality', that science can 'determine human values', instead just a reheating of the cold leftovers of American utilitarian values, presented as 'scientifically' self-justifying in comparison to the 'East', or the Islamic cultural enemy. As a utilitarian, Singer really tried to make something very stale into something important. he failed. James Lovelock did it better with Gaia.
Karl Popper. (The Logic of Scientific Discovery)
Edward Said. (Orientalism)
J.L. Mackie. (Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong)
John Gray. (Straw Dogs, Enlightenment's Wake, Black Mass)
Carl Sagan. (Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos)
"Truth is not an unveiling which destroys the secret, but the revelation which does it justice." - Walter Benjamin
Well a book is a consumer product, but are you arguing that philosophers should have nothing to do with publishing books? All the philosopher you mention write books and market them!
Or are you arguing that they are *primarily* publishing their books to make money rather than trying to get ideas across? If so, I think you are (largely) wrong.
I've read Grayling, and several other popular philosophers, and they don't seem to be primarily money-motivated
Bertrand Russell is a renowned popular philosopher (amongst other things!) and has written a popular book called "The Conquest of Happiness". But he gave away all his money, so he can hardly be accused of being primarily a money grubber!
Bryan Magee worked a half-time job at the BBC, giving him time to write popular philosophy books - earning a lot less than if he had worked full time and put media money-grubbing above pursuing his interests.
Many great philosophers have concerned themselves with happiness, it's an entirely appropriate subject for philosophers, popular or not...
"Since all of us desire to be happy, and since we evidently become so on account of our use—that is our good use—of other things, and since knowledge is what provides this goodness of use and also good fortune, every man must, as seems plausible, prepare himself by every means for this: to be as wise as possible. Right?” - Socrates
Charles Taylor is excellent, especially if you grow tired of the narrow minded polemics of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and the like. He's Christian so one must keep in mind that his religious identity is going be reflected in much of his writings, but nonetheless he makes many valid and compelling arguments relating to the value of religion in the public sphere. He has a book "The Secular Age" which is quite good, but many of his essays serve as better introductions to the broader schema of his thought. I recommend his essay "Why we need a radical redefinition of secularism," which can be found in the book "the power of religion in the public sphere," which contains a number of other essays from very impactful and substantive contemporary philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas and Judith Butler.
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