“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” by Max Weber is good too. Also, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn, and “After Virtue” by Alasdiar Macintyre.
Aesop’s Fables. Super-concentrated wisdom into bite-size portions of wit.
i remember being engrossed in Orwell´s Down and out in london and paris.
Standard, I’ve not read that one. But I did read an article by Orwell on Ghandi that was very interesting. I think it was just called “On Ghandi”. If you like him you may check it out.
Don Quixote by Cervantes, of course.
If Smears had permitted me to pick two:
Candide by Voltaire.
What can I say, I’m just a Goddamn sucker for classic satires.
ôk cheers smears!
Pav - i like you picks. I´ve read Candide and liked very much, although wished it was longer. I´ve read Don Quixote - it´s one of those masterpieces which just grows and grows on you. I´ve only read the first half though, just in case you were gonna spoil anything!
No spoilers.
All I will say is part II pales in comparison to part I, but compared to any other book, it is still phenomenal.
The problem was, Voltaire didn’t really feel part II, he only wrote it due to popular demand. (And that was only many years later) The reason he did is because people (in general) were unsatisfied with the ending to Part I, and didn’t feel as though Quixote should have hung up the lance just yet.
One of those, “Back by popular demand,” things that could never equal the original, still undoubtedly, a masterpiece.
ALSO
Candide couldn’t have been longer, in this, the best of all possible worlds, Candide is, by necessity, the best of all possible lengths.
I’ve been re-reading the Epics lately. While the Argonautica is a steaming pile of doo-doo, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid are all outstanding. My present favorite is the Iliad, but the Aeneid is close . . .
But really, any of those could fit the bill quite nicely, IMHO.
…the best of all possible replies! Or so Candide would like to have thought…
Thanks! It’s actually a great philosophy if you can convince yourself to believe it. The only argument one must use is that all is for the best, because, “all,” could not possibly be anything but what it is, and since it is the only way things can be, it must be the best way for them to be.
I find it unarguable, myself, I don’t believe it, but I can’t argue it.
Mm, I suppose if God did exist, it kind of has some strength, as why would God create anything but the best?! But looking around the world as Candide did, it´s pretty difficult to see it as best! So either:
- his best just isn´t very good (in which he may despise my criticism)
- he didn´t do his best, or
- he doesn´t exist.
If God´s notion of best is grossly dissimilar to our own, should we bother calling it as such, as we´re the ones who have to bloody live it?!
Those are some very good points, but the reason I find it unarguable is as follows:
Posit: It is impossible to change the past.
If one cannot change the past, then the past (and all that happened in it) is fixed.
If the past is fixed and cannot be changed, then there must be only one past. (In terms of what actually, in absolute reality, happened.)
If there can be only one past, then, by default, that past is the best past.
Therefore, all things that have happened (in the past) were for the best.
Since all things that happened in the past were for the best, and the past world brought us to the present, then we must be living in the best of all possible worlds.
As Pangloss inquired, “How could things be otherwise?”
Here is the step in the arguments I just can´t agree with:
To me it looks like a normative judgement has been smuggled in. Just because it may not be possible to have been any other way doesn´t really mean that it was for some “best”. To me one could just as easily switch “best” with “worst”. All I can really see is so sort of argument against contingency; but I´m not sure.
I find it a very interesting question about whether everything in the past could have been otherwise. Intuition strangely feels as though it couldn´t, especially in a deterministic world. But still, I struggle to justify calling this necessary state of affairs the best, which to me has dodgy normative undertones, and is thus adding a quality to a universe which, if true, can only be described as “could only have been so”.
You hit it exactly, it’s simultaneously (and by default) the best and the worst. Simply stated, it is the philosophy of simple acceptance on both the personal and worldly levels.
Let’s not forget the ending of Candide, where Pangloss summarizes his philsophy and Candide replies, “Well said, but we must cultivate our garden.” By believeing all thigs are for the best, or simply, all things cannot have been otherwise, people have the ability to focus on the tasks at hand, and further, the understanding that what one must do lies in the present, rather than the future or the past.
That’s why, Martin was the counterpart of Pangloss, his antagonist in a sense. He followed the philosophy that things could not have been otherwise, but simultaneously believed that things could also not be worse. In a sense, both of them had it right, but the also had the understanding that since things cannot be changed, one must do what has to be done in the present.
Thanks for that - I´d never really thought about it like that. It makes a lot of sense.
The 48 Laws of Power
Thanks, I am a little stronger at the breakdown of literature than I am at pure philosophy, anyway!
1984
You know, to a certain extent, (especially considering the advent of the Department of Homeland Security) the book came true. But, to me, it would take more than that to make the book a prophesy.
It is one of my Top 20 best books ever, but I don’t think I could ever make it number 1. Not unless the rest of it comes to life, anyway.
The Year of the Death of Richardo Reis by Jose Saramago
Close seconds would be The Guest and The Fall by Albert Camus.