Philosophical reading

[Angrboda]

A year ago, I set out to give myself a philosophical education by reading all the landmark works, starting at a good point, and working forward. Unfortunately, I've become involved with book clubs and discussion groups, and I find those Epicurean delights more compelling, so have no time to do any of my own reading. But here as best I can reconstruct, is the list, in chronological order (with supplements where needed):

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (I've learned that his best arguments are split among the Treatise and Enquiry)
Immanuel Kant, Critique Of Pure Reason
Schopenhauer, The World As Will And Representation
Gottlob Frege (no specific work, there is a good Frege reader)
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Early and Late (Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations)

And from there it wasn't certain; tentatively I had acquired some of Quine's work in the absence of better wisdom.

In addition to being sidetracked by other matters, I've also developed an interest in Greek philosophy, notable Heraclitus and Democritus among the pre-Socratics, and the Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics and Epicureans. Not all that interested in either Plato or Aristotle.

I actually read the Philosophical Investigations, or most of it, and was bored senseless by it. I can see how the questions were powerful once, when he was writing, but 60 year of cognitive science, animal psychology, linguistics and so forth, imho, make the Investigations obsolete.

I have a theory about philosophy. I think it's a lot like studying history. In philosophy, everything occurs with respect to a tradition, or next to it; so the course of philosophy is one long dialectic. Unfortunately, you know if you've studied history, it's impossible to understand a specific period or place, without reference to the larger currents in history; unfortunately, the best way to understand the larger currents in history is by studying some periods and places in some depth. It's a chicken and egg problem, or a vase / faces illusion type thing. What I suspect is best is to weave your own dialectic, bouncing back and forth between big picture and little picture: study the big picture to know what the important little pictures are and why, study the little pictures to put flesh on the bones of your big picture outline.

Anyway. I think you actually got a full nickel out of me. You can paypal me the 3 cents.

Oh, and in addition, as a result of developments in my theories about cognitive science and philosophy of mind, I've come to the conclusion that I need to acquire an understanding of process philosophy to fully formulate my system clearly and defensibly, probably starting with Whitehead, of course. For what it's worth, my main interests are cognitive science, including philosophy of mind, epistemology, and theory of discourses (with emphasis on psychology, cognitive bias, and bounded rationality). I have a considerably lesser interest in philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and vagueness theory; I've also, as a necessity of my cognitive scientific theories had to take on ethics as, not so much an area to study, but to see that those parts of my system with ethical ramifications — and my system has significant ethical ramifications — so I need an understanding of ethics, practical philosophy of ethics, to make sure my system shakes down properly, and I'm not missing something due to ignorance.