Previous Reading List
These are the most recent books I have read.
2666 by Roberto Bolano (the video is in Spanish)
Reasoning: Roberto Bolano is one of the only fiction authors that I actively seek out. His work is poetic and harsh but his characters do not fall into apathy. Despite the awful lives they often live, despite the error of their ways, they still hold onto some sort of ‘romantic’ notion that they were either just a hairsbreadth away from ‘making it’, that their failure was not indicative of the overall failure of existence.
So far, in this book, Bolano has exceeded himself. It was his last work and it has the agression of purpose that death often brings to people-and its wide open view of the Evil of this world is apparent, but still, he holds onto that Romantic notion of purpose (I can’t help my affection for the romantics).
Faith and Politics by Reinhold Niebuhr
Reasoning: I have picked up Mr. Niebuhr mostly because I have discovered the President Obama is a ardent ‘follower’ of his Christian Realism/Pragmatism belief. I believe if you have the fortune to meet aware individuals that you can become more familiar with their thought processes by delving into what catalyzed, supports, their thought/belief processes. This is much more difficult to do with capricious personalities who are difficult to understand or predict because of this-Mr. Adam Smith pointed this out in his Ethical work that, Good Men are dependable, because their actions are based upon an understood moral/foundational code.
Mr. Niebuhr so far has espoused the idea (that I share) that the modern technological era has left Man in a conundrum: he is materially powerful but has no meaning but that material, and, strangely, this material arena cannot manifest any Actual meaning without ‘transcendent’ language/definitions. The technical age has, despite many benefits, has, on a whole, “[lead to] the destruction of the community on th enational level and the extension of the conflict on the international level”.
I am reading this to see the opportunity as well in this technic extention of Man-that he has extended his reach and is negative because his foundational reasoning was negative. This is not Utopic in scope-please see my blog on this as well as one on Systech.
by David Grann
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Reasoning: I have always had a deep affection for the adventure. I think in my past life I was an explorer or some such. It was this that attracted me to this book but also, and perhaps more so, it was the heroic (foolish?) dedication that Fawcett brought to his endeavors. His willingness to sacrifice all, even his sons, his marriage, his reputation, for what he believed to be right is both a teaching and a warning to me.
In the book Ecology of Power and from subsequent findings we know that Mr. Fawcett was indeed correct in his assumption about a great civilization(s) that once lived in the Amazon jungle. Amazing and fun stuff.
Logical Atomism by James Griffen
Reasoning: Wittgenstein’s Tractus has taken me years to be able to understand maybe even a quarter. I read an interview of Wittgenstein where he stated that Tractus was to be read with an mind on what was not said as well-that, that is as important as to what was said.
This book allowed me to understand a greater portion of that wonderful work and to glimpse into the mind of a seminal philosopher-Logical Atomism allowed me to understand the problem I had with Tractus: I kept seeing it as a problem of knowledge when he was discussing the problem of sense.
The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
Reasoning: Mr. Pinker delves into the basis for language and how language is a window into the structure of the Mind. He believes, I think, that the mind is an innate source ‘the basis’ so to say. I do not agree with this but it is a wonderful work into how the material ‘brain’ manifests itself.