Help with "modern philosophy" [closed]

Question

I tried recently, once more, to read some modern (20th century) philosophers: I find it interesting reading old philosophers, when they still spoke in human language, but modern philosophy becomes soon impenetrable to me, I just don't have the notions baggage, and I don't come from humanities, so the absence of rigorous logic (or even not very rigorous, but more or less easily parseable) really is bothering.

Someone recommended Michael Huemer's book "Knowlege, reality and value", but I really dislike it - it is so very american (for example, what "the left" means for him, him insinuating Marxism is "evil" on the 30-th or so page, his childish syllogisms on "the existence of God" which look suitable for people with minimal cultural background).

Could you suggest some other, more "European" perhaps, and maybe more honest, references for modern philosophy?

Answer 1

This is a familiar situation to me. My journey in philosophy began with Eastern thought — I spent a long time immersing myself in texts and ideas. Eventually, it led me to classical Greek philosophy, and from there to European authors, both modern and past. Although it becomes increasingly difficult to find something truly new or conceptually different, I haven’t stopped searching. Currently, my focus is on the thought of Muslim philosophers — it is an incredibly fascinating experience, especially considering the previous experience.

Returning to your question, I am happy to recommend you a few European authors. I hope you find them interesting.

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Simon Blackburn, “Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy” — An easy-to-understand introduction to key philosophical topics such as cognition, ethics, and free will, without any special jargon. The book is quite easy and enjoyable to read, and evokes a slight sense of reflection.

Roger Scruton — Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey - A clear and structured survey of the main trends in modern philosophy from Descartes to postmodernism. The style is rich but not technical. Scruton explains ideas with respect for the reader, without simplifying to the point of being primitive.

Raymond Geuss — Philosophy and Real Politics - A provocative critique of "abstract morality" in politics and an attempt to think in terms of reality. A short, meaningful text with an analytical style and a medium level of difficulty.

Ziauddin Sardar — Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures- Completely devoid of formal or dogmatic tone, it provides broad horizons for critical thinking. The author questions the dominance of Western thinking and seeks his own, Islamic paths to the future. It is sometimes difficult to read, but very stimulating.

Thomas Ligotti - The Conspiracy Against the Human Race - A difficult philosophical thought. Nihilism, despair and the incomprehensibility of human existence. The text is difficult, saturated with existential anxiety and skepticism. The book provokes strong reflection.

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The attached links lead not to the authors' books, but to reviews and licenses for them.

Answer 2

Worth mentioning that contemporary Western philosophy is often split into analytic and continental branches. Those aren't strictly defined, but in general, philosophers in the analytic tradition will respond to, cite, and apply methods of other analytic philosophers, and likewise continental philosophers often do the same for previous continental philosophers.

Continental Philosophy

"Continental", of course, refers to the continent of Europe, so in that sense it may be more "European". It is also more influenced by the Marx and Freud--not necessarily that any given author agrees with either of them, but that Marxism and psychoanalysis are often something that is considered worth responding to, instead of "dunking on".

Continental philosophers/philosophies you may be familiar with are Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, existentialism, and (post-)structuralism.

Analytic Philosophy

Huemer is an analytic philosopher, but he's a small corner of a much larger field. Like Huemer, analytic philosophers are often interested in "fundamental" questions like "what exists", "how do we know what exists", etc, and often have somewhat similar argumentation styles to what I've seen from Huemer.

However, you mention you were annoyed by the lack of formal logic in Huemer. In general, the analytic tradition is much more influenced by formal logic and mathematics, and Huemer is a bit of an odd outlier in that respect.

As a quick example, Quine's "On What There Is" is concerned with the question "What does it mean to say 'Pegasus does not exist'?". (Since to speak of an object's nonexistence, we must know the object that we're talking about, which seems to indicate that in some sense, it 'exists'.) Quine resolves this by saying that "Pegasus doesn't exist" is a propositional logic statement, ∀x: NOT Pegasus(x). I.E. "Every object which exists does not match the description of Pegasus". If you appreciate the clarity of mathematical logic I think there's lots of analytic philosophy you'd like.

Analytic philosophers/philosophies you may be familiar with are Wittgenstein, Phillipa Foot (trolley problem), Saul Kripke, Karl Popper, John Rawls (veil of ignorance).

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Here's a SEP article comparing/contrasting analytic and continental feminist philosopher's approaches. It's not outstandingly written, IMO, but I think it establishes:

• There is overlap between the two traditions.
• The difference isn't in the conclusions they reach--both branches contain both progressives and conservatives.
• The two have different approaches and priorities in their methodology.