What was the last book you read ?

[donnie dupre.e]

Charles Bronson -Solitary fitness

Money well spent after faffing on with dumbells trying to get fit,shows you a load of good exercises for every part of the body without the use of weights,even the penis  a good book nether the less.

[mico.m]

Danilo Kis- ÄŒas anatomije 

[©GnrPersia]

Wasted my time reading Ayatollah Khomeini's diaries.

[axlrose4eva]

Read the Watchmen graphic novel.. thought it was great

[axlrose4eva]

twilight - stephanie meyer

just bought it today gonna start reading it later on

I always thought you were a boy.

[Milles]

i have seen this with 2 different covers....im confused...whats the difference?

If you're interested in the history of philosophy then don't bother with this book. Wittgenstein gave a pretty accurate summary of Russell's work; "Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them." And i would say his history belongs to the latter division of works but put his epistemology - awful though it is - in the former.

If you want a good understanding of what has been going on in philosophy since the 1600s then Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty is invaluable, although it can be hard going if you're new to the discipline.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0691141320/ref=sib_rdr_dp

Essential reading to be able to understand the development of western philosophy is of course Descartes's Meditations since he practically invented the discipline in its modern form.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Descartes-Meditations-First-Philosophy-Rene/dp/0521558182/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239989638&sr=1-2

And I would say Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Russell's problems of Philosophy are also essential texts as they are both exemplary of philosophy as epistemology.

The introduction and commentary on Aristotle's De Anima are best in this edition:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anima-passages-Passages-Clarendon-Aristotle/dp/0198240856/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987425&sr=1-1

And to accompany that I would suggest this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Matter-Method-Philosophy-Science/dp/0816603790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987624&sr=1-1

Particularly the essay in it, "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?"

Additionally, the most harshest critic of the Cartesian tradition carried forward by people such as Russell is Wittgenstein but the Philosophical Investigations is very hard going. You need an understanding of the history of philosophical ideas about language, mind and mathematics to be able to understand what's actually going on.

From the point of view of Ethics and Politics Alasdair MacIntrye does justice to the history of the subject in this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Ethics-Philosophy-Twentieth/dp/0415173981/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987245&sr=1-5

Anyway, that's just so any potential student of philosophy doesn't go astray. So shove that in your pipe and smoke it, Russell

[nemo]

If you're interested in the history of philosophy then don't bother with this book. Wittgenstein gave a pretty accurate summary of Russell's work; "Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them." And i would say his history belongs to the latter division of works but put his epistemology - awful though it is - in the former.

If you want a good understanding of what has been going on in philosophy since the 1600s then Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty is invaluable, although it can be hard going if you're new to the discipline.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0691141320/ref=sib_rdr_dp

Essential reading to be able to understand the development of western philosophy is of course Descartes's Meditations since he practically invented the discipline in its modern form.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Descartes-Meditations-First-Philosophy-Rene/dp/0521558182/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239989638&sr=1-2

And I would say Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Russell's problems of Philosophy are also essential texts as they are both exemplary of philosophy as epistemology.

The introduction and commentary on Aristotle's De Anima are best in this edition:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anima-passages-Passages-Clarendon-Aristotle/dp/0198240856/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987425&sr=1-1

And to accompany that I would suggest this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Matter-Method-Philosophy-Science/dp/0816603790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987624&sr=1-1

Particularly the essay in it, "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?"

Additionally, the most harshest critic of the Cartesian tradition carried forward by people such as Russell is Wittgenstein but the Philosophical Investigations is very hard going. You need an understanding of the history of philosophical ideas about language, mind and mathematics to be able to understand what's actually going on.

From the point of view of Ethics and Politics Alasdair MacIntrye does justice to the history of the subject in this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Ethics-Philosophy-Twentieth/dp/0415173981/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239987245&sr=1-5

Anyway, that's just so any potential student of philosophy doesn't go astray. So shove that in your pipe and smoke it, Russell

It's one book, for people who want one reference book to give them a quick gloss of what's what in the world of philosophy.  That's a university reading list you've provided, it's not really the same thing.  Would be kinda like someone asking for some lego bricks to play with and you coming back with bricks, mortar, a cement mixer and the structural plans for the national gallery and telling them to get stuck in.

Atomised - Michel Houellebecq.

I have no idea whether I enjoyed or hated this book.  Probably a bit of both i think.

[Milles]

Yeah well there are far better sources and overviews and no academic I've spoken to when I went to all my university interviews/open days has held Russell in high regard for his history. You get a far better history of philosophy just by reading the Rorty and MacIntyre books I have just mentioned. The books in between were more for anyway with a deeper interest. They were all largely concerned with Philosophy of Mind and how Epistemological problems arose out of the invention of the mind as a seperate ontological category which is why I recommended Aristotle's De Anima since problems such as consciousness and veil of ideas scepticism interestingly play no part as well as the notion of private ownership and epistemological privacy.

And those three other texts - Descartes, Hume and Russell - I mentioned are fundamentally important for contrast with the ancient view of mind and mentality and moreover are pretty standard texts anyway.

If I wanted to give them a university reading list then I'd suggest they read something like Peter Hacker's "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience"

To anyone who wants to dip in and out of philosophy and just merely "skim" over it, I will say to them that they have wasted their time. As a subject I consider it to be fairly axiomatic and - like maths - you can't just pick up on any area understanding the development to that stage is essential to understanding what's going on.

[nemo]

To anyone who wants to dip in and out of philosophy and just merely "skim" over it, I will say to them that they have wasted their time. As a subject I consider it to be fairly axiomatic and - like maths - you can't just pick up on any area understanding the development to that stage is essential to understanding what's going on.

You might be missing the point a bit though.  When you get to uni you realise that it's not just philosophy students who have to read philosophy, nearly everyone does.  It's impossible to do a degree in literature or history or politics or law or sociology without an understanding of certain elements of philosophy.  At the same time it's impossible to study one of those subjects and also do all of philosophy.  Someone taking a law class in jurisprudence needs to understand bits of Foucault, Plato, etc, they don't need to know who Thales was, nor do they need to know what Henri bergson thinks about comedy.  Your analogy to maths is perfect; it's not a waste of time to learn to count, is it?  And someone who requires the same level of knowledge of the main tenants of philosophy as we do of the basic principles of maths is the target audience for Russell's book.  For some people it's just nice to know what's going on when you quote Wittgenstein at them or I start mentioning Adorno in an argument.

On top of that he's a fun writer to read.  I'd recommend everyone to have a look at the areas of the book where he gives his own opinions, they're a great laugh.

[perfect_spy]

Tyrant by Christian Cameron, set in Ancient Greece.

[White-Rider]

i rarely read these days.

[Rocket Queen]

Finished of; should drugs be legalized?, the communist manifesto modern edition, overview on big philosophers and life of pi the past three weeks

[badfaulkner]

Just finished Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

Currently reading Dune by James Herbert. 

Basically just checking off things on my reading bucket list.

[Jigsaw]

Saw it on sale a few days ago so I got it, pretty good read, a bit vague at times but still worth the read.
Could do with some more pics though.