- #1
kote
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In order to promote the informed discussion of philosophy, I thought it might help if we could all be on the same page on some of the issues, literally. I would like to invite suggestions on relatively accessible philosophy texts that we could read and discuss. What issues have been on your mind? What can I read to get up to speed so we can have an informed discussion on the topic? If you are unsure of what text is out there, feel free to just ask about an issue and I can probably suggest or find a relevant article.
Hopefully a few people at least will get involved and we can share our thoughts and generate public discussion on the board. Obviously this would just be an unofficial and informal group.
Although I would really rather respond to inquiries or suggestions, let me suggest a text and initial question to get the ball rolling. It can't hurt to start with a classic, so how about Kant's "The Critique of Pure Reason?" I don't want to scare anyone off, so let's start with a single page in the text - Introduction Part V.1. It's page 19-20 here: http://www.e-text.org/text/Kant%20Immanuel%20-%20The%20Critique%20of%20Pure%20Reason.pdf" . Specifically, I'll start with a question on the quoted section below (but please read the rest of the section at least).
Please feel free to jump in. No other background is necessary, although the first parts of the text could be helpful to read. Play along on this one and then suggest your own. It could be a book or a recent article or paper - anything. Let's just try to concentrate on one at a time to focus discussion and allow time for reading.
Hopefully a few people at least will get involved and we can share our thoughts and generate public discussion on the board. Obviously this would just be an unofficial and informal group.
Although I would really rather respond to inquiries or suggestions, let me suggest a text and initial question to get the ball rolling. It can't hurt to start with a classic, so how about Kant's "The Critique of Pure Reason?" I don't want to scare anyone off, so let's start with a single page in the text - Introduction Part V.1. It's page 19-20 here: http://www.e-text.org/text/Kant%20Immanuel%20-%20The%20Critique%20of%20Pure%20Reason.pdf" . Specifically, I'll start with a question on the quoted section below (but please read the rest of the section at least).
We might, indeed at first suppose that the proposition 7 + 5 = 12 is a merely analytical proposition, following (according to the principle of contradiction) from the conception of a sum of seven and five. But if we regard it more narrowly, we find that our conception of the sum of seven and five contains nothing more than the uniting of both sums into one, whereby it cannot at all be cogitated what this single number is which embraces both. The conception of twelve is by no means obtained by merely cogitating the union of seven and five; and we may analyse our conception of such a possible sum as long as we will, still we shall never discover in it the notion of twelve. We must go beyond these conceptions, and have recourse to an intuition which corresponds to one of the two− our five fingers, for example...
Do you agree with Kant here? Do you agree that our conception of the number 12 depends to some degree on experience and isn't something we can derive rationally?Please feel free to jump in. No other background is necessary, although the first parts of the text could be helpful to read. Play along on this one and then suggest your own. It could be a book or a recent article or paper - anything. Let's just try to concentrate on one at a time to focus discussion and allow time for reading.
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