I have read some Sider: his essay, "Hell and Vagueness" was good, and his new introduction to philosophy, Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics seems, from what I have read of it, to be solid and clear. There's no doubt he's a good philosopher, although I've heard that he's kind of a tool. I hope he doesn't read this board. Anyway, it's just hearsay. But it's true.
Hee. I knew him a little in college. He was a year ahead of me, but I was in Philosophy 101 with him. I was surprised he philosophized himself out of theism (maybe with "Hell and Vagueness" which I tried to read online, but was over my head).
Emily! Whoooot! Congratulations. I was mid-post when I left the computer to get Julia and Chris in their jammies.
Barak was your speaker!?! Man, that would make it all worth the lousy weather.
So, um Bob Bob, I'm taking note too. Do you want me to attach your name to my notes, or can I pillage at will?
Pillage at will, except for that bit on Ted Sider. And you might want to be wary about the morality v. ethics discussion, because, y'know, it's not really discussed, from what I've ever encountered.
Anyway, I've got to run now; time for wood-fired pizza with dad. I'm sure I'll be talking to at least one of you later tonight.
Man, that would make it all worth the lousy weather.
I was so waiting for you to comment.
I have the PhD and didn't bother buying the robes, so, er, so much for the cool outfit. Whoops!
Well, all right. But if you wanted to, you could have the cool outfit. With the stripes, and the nifty hat, and the much less stupid sleeves, and possibly the nifty colors! There were some very nifty-colored doctoral robes on stage today.
First you get the PhD, then you get the womens, then you gets the money ...
Wait. I never get this right.
Enjoy the pizza, Bob. My eyes somehow missed your Plantinga for Dummies recommendations, before. Thank you. I've marked the post.
My favourite easy-to-read textbook from philosophy was (I think) Existentialism for Beginners. It covered Sartre, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Nietzsche. In fairly digestible snippets. And now I can't find it on Amazon. Hm, I might have got the name wrong.
Other than that I can't really remember the introductory textbooks. I just remember struggling to get through Leviathan and Being and Nothingness and such. Probably a good thing I dropped it in favour of archaeology.
My Intro to Philosophy prof made up his own intro text. We got a massive binder filled with articles and excerpts and pictures--it was cool as hell, actually. Probably illegal, but cool as hell.
