Swords of Mars (Barsoom, #8)
by Edgar Rice Burroughs,

Humiliated and Insulted — javi2541997

10/10. Excellent. Dostoevsky never disappoints me. This time, the synopsis is about ethical dilemmas which are around familiar crises. Curiously, Dostoevsky didn't refer to religious themes in this novel. I can say the plot is 'secular' if we compare it with other of his works.

Currently reading: The Fratricides, Nikos Kazantzakis.

Curiously, Dostoevsky didn't refer to religious themes in this novel. I can say the plot is 'secular' if we compare it with other of his works. — javi2541997

I think of the difference between the religious and the psychological as a dynamic that plays different roles in different novels. When comparing The Idiot to The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, the differences collide but never resolve into a single measure of experience. The psychological, by itself, does not have all of the same problems.

I agree. Every Dostoevsky novel has a specific ethical and existentialist dilemma. Another good example is Crime and Punishment. There are Christian themes in this novel, but it is notorious the psychological dynamic of how the main character starts behaving with 'rationality' and then, as the pages proceed, he goes with a sense of sordid despair and irrationality. I remember a very good quote from the novel: Am I a victim of circumstances or do I create them? ...

Yet a common topic I find about Dostoevsky is familiar issues. He also puts orphans in his novels. Smerdiakov - an illegitimate son - in The Brothers Karamazov and Nelly (Ieliena) in Injured and Insulted, etc.

I guess this is due to the culture of Russia and one of the basic points of Christianity (which is the family).

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/897768

Remembering Daniel Dennett 1942-2024 (whom I had the honor of meeting after public lectures in 1987 (Boston) and 1994 (Minneapolis)), I'm rereading ...

• Darwin's Dangerous Idea
• Mind's I (w/ D. Hofstadter)
• Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
• Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse Engineer the Mind

... for now.

The Mucker (Mucker #1)
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Revolutionary Jews From Spinoza to Marx: The Fight for A Secular World of Universal and Equal Rights by Jonathan Israel

Revolutionary Jews From Spinoza to Marx: The Fight for A Secular World of Universal and Equal Rights by Jonathan Israel — Maw

:up:

"A long way down" by Nick Hornby. Funny. I lol'd.

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The Philosophical Writing of Richard Burthogge by Richard Burthogge and Margaret W. Landes

Wow. Only read 15 pages so far, but damn was Chomsky not joking when he said that Kant's ideas were very much articulated, by the Cambridge Platonists.

Awesome stuff, will update when finished.

Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization
by John Rogers Searle

A Modern Utopia
by H.G. Wells

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. by Alan Watts.

@Wayfarer Thoughts? I remember you recommended me to read Watts when we had exchanges about the spirit, soul, struggling with religious faith, etc.

The preface of the book is great. It gives me high expectations of the work of this author.

The Upanishads
Dune - Frank Herbert

:up: Alan Watts is well worth reading. He has had new generations of readers since his death.

Alan Watts is well worth reading. — Wayfarer

:up: :grin:

The Grammar of Systems: From Order to Chaos & Back
Patrick Hoverstadt

I've either been looking forward to or dreading this book. Subtitled "33 Systems Laws and Principles and How to Think like a Systems Thinker" it will be demanding I'm sure. My other alternative is taking another stab at Process and Reality, which is also in the dreaded anticipation category. So the lesser of two evils?

The Grammar of Systems: From Order to Chaos & Back
Patrick Hoverstadt — Pantagruel

I have read a review in 'Good Reads' and the book seems very interesting. Most of the readers agree that it is a well written book and a nice introduction to a guide on 'thinking patterns'.

Well! Let us know what you think after reading it, and thanks for bringing it up in this thread.

This is why 'currently reading' is one of my favourite threads. I can discover new interesting books.

:up:

Neologismos Indispensáveis e Barbarismos Dispensáveis (Dr. Castro Lopes,1909)

Unto this Last; The Political Economy of Art; Essays on Political Economy
by John Ruskin

An Image of Rome by Erich Gruen, 1969. From the library, compiles some great primary sources from ancient prose and poetry
Inferno by Dante Alighieri, John Ciardi translation. Beautiful, poetic, and informative.

Violent Faculties by Charlene Elsby

Sadistic horror written by a philosophy PhD. The plot is a rogue philosophy prof literalising thought experiments on willing or coerced subjects. Think it'd give some of you lot a chuckle.

Interesting post by a Doctor of physics. Good comments too https://qr.ae/psiHoX

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. by Alan Watts. — javi2541997

I fully enjoyed Alan Watts' work. It is well written, and for a non-native speaker like me, it is an easy reading to follow. Thanks @Wayfarer for introducing me to this author. I look forward to reading another book by him later on.

Currently reading: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

You’re welcome.

Let us know what you think after reading it, and thanks for bringing it up in this thread. — javi2541997

Definitely not suitable as an introduction to systems theory. What it does is excavate a comprehensive set of laws that govern systems behaviours and illustrate their role in applied systems methodologies. However you do need a good grounding in systems concepts going into it. Non-linear dynamics is frequently referenced, but not explained. In a sense, the book highlights how the failure of certain types of thought amounts to the existence of cognitive biases, for which the laws of systems thinking are the remedies.

Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology
by Alfred North Whitehead

I expect this will take a while....

:up:

Understood. Thank you for taking your time reading the book and providing a review for me. I appreciate it, Pantagruel.