How to Live or: A Philosophical Reading List

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” -- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Philosophy gets a bad rap. Its purpose has never been one of airy speculation removed from reality. No, it focuses on just thought and justified action: how to live and for what. While these writers had philosophy explicitly in mind, their ideas are hardly nonsensical or even complex. Everyday life is their primary aim. For all time, people have looked inward for answers to life's problems. Philosophy is nothing more than the record of their conscious and focused effort toward a solution.

No one is immune to the issues that philosophers deal with. While there is a tendency to white-knuckle our own problems, everything you're dealing with has been dealt with before, countless times. Why not benefit from the hard-earned lessons of others? We are all struggling to figure it out, and no matter what you want to call it, their strategies for life's hardship matter--more than anything.

Philosophy is simply self-reflection, a personal meditation like writing, like cooking, like reading, like running. Written philosophy can take many forms, most more intimidating than others, but a select few beautifully simple and direct. The very best walk you through life's doubt and uncertainty, placing you at the beginning of the path of relief from hardship, ready and willing to handle anything that comes your way with grace.

While nearly anything that can be called knowledge originated within the domain of philosophy, what fuzzy questions that remain are those that have not been solved and probably never will be. Because of the natural process of differentiation among modes of thinking and their formalization into disciplines, philosophy has given birth to the self-contained spheres of politics, literature, religion, math, engineering, and science. Philosophy's own sphere of influence shrinks with each offshoot, inevitably resulting in a discipline whose scope is at once limited and grand. Thus, the poor contemporary opinion of what is rightly humankind's oldest and most valuable pursuit.

This was not always the case, and so long as we live and are concerned with doing it well, will never be the fate of philosophy. Although I believe philosophy is much broader than the Western canon, I've selected works only from it to illustrate my point: that practical wisdom is few and far between and even 'philosophy' has its fair share of gems hidden in complex text.

Note that I can only recommend books that I've actually read. In order of importance:

Meditations  -- Marcus Aurelius (trans. Hays)

Not just the most practical and readable philosophical text, but the greatest book ever written. A true manual for how to live, or how to best deal with the all parts of life--especially the bad. Despite being the most powerful man in the world as the last good emperor of Rome, Aurelius humbled himself every night by reminding himself of how to control what he can, and how to best deal with what he can't control. He is an exemplar of virtue particularly the difficult ones such as humility, patience, and acceptance. Aurelius lived every breath of his short life and dealt with the harshest adversity as calmly as the greatest fortune. (Don't read anything other than the Hays translation!)

On Liberty -- John Stuart Mill

Mill believed the Stoics were the greatest product of the ancient mind, and it shows. His fierce emphasis on independence, humility, and personal honesty and responsibility culminate in a reassuring meditation on how to remain sane in society.

The Consolations of Philosophy -- Alain de Botton

Semi-historical essays about Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, all of which--despite the popular conception--were concerned not with speculation but with living well. Their theories uniquely color their lives and formal philosophies, but a common thread binds them. The author, de Botton, is unbearably French but tells a great story.

The Problems of Philosophy -- Bertrand Russell

There is no better introductory text, survey course, defense, or history of philosophy than this essay by the man himself. The last section argues in the same manner of Plato and Aristotle: that conscious, focused thought is the best way to spend one's time.

Letters from a Stoic -- Seneca (trans. Campbell)

It reads like a popularized, aphoristic version of Aurelius, because Seneca's thoughts were recorded in his writings to others instead of to himself (as Aurelius intended). Seneca also failed to live the patient, virtuous life he preached, often folding when it mattered most. While Aurelius, Epicurus, and Seneca all enjoyed great status in life, only the latter let it affect his being. These are the small differences between three very similar thinkers, and it does make a difference. However, Seneca's focus on coming to terms with death and his poetic approach to practical philosophy makes for great reading. He practically invented the essay format.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir -- Norman Malcolm

The author paints a picture of philosopher Wittgenstein as an eccentric, intense, and deeply caring individual through over 40 letters they shared after their time together at Cambridge. Wittgenstein has an intense dislike for any insincerity, imprecision, or lack of sophistication in everyday speech. He frowns even more upon insincere sophistication, fake precision, or misused jargon, which naturally makes him despise philosophers. Wittgenstein fought his whole life not to become an academic, but still philosophy was the only work that satisfied him. He is paranoid, especially about his own work, and extremely self-deprecating. Despite this, Wittgenstein lives in exact accordance with his personal ideals, chief among them being kindness, generosity, and honesty. It's bizarre but amazing. Malcolm often refers to his friendship as emotionally draining but deeply satisfying, and I imagine that's what it would be like to take absolutely no concessions in life. This memoir could very well be renamed "Wittgenstein's personal ethic". (Note: this is one of the few books Amazon doesn't have stocked cheaply, so be on the lookout).

On the Genealogy of Morality -- Nietzsche (trans. Diethe)

Nietzsche takes the Stoic idea of personal responsibility and a strong will and pushes it to its extreme, tracing questioning the very idea of strength and weakness in society.

Symposium / Phaedrus -- Plato (trans. Nehamas/Woodruff)

If you didn't know any better, these two dialogues read as literature. They portray a version of the good life and, if you read closely, argue for it. Symposium deals with thought, knowledge, and love, while Phaedrus speaks of balance and truth in art, philosophy, and life. All with snappy Socrates and his fancy sandals.

Nichomachean Ethics -- Aristotle (trans. Reeve)

Prerequisite: patience, or a familiarity with Aristotle. Very rewarding and infinitely deep, but complicated and hard to get into. I need to revisit it.

Review: The Consolations of Philosophy

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton is is listed as "Self Help" first, and "Philosophy" second. That is reflected perfectly in the writing (1).

The French author gives short biographies of perhaps the 6 most misunderstood philosophers and their works. Even better, he traces the connections between the works forming two neat chains of intellectual development. The two groups of three, indicated on the striking watermelon like cover--see de Botton's previous work for more of his strange style (2)--are as follows:

     Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca the Younger

     Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche

The cover's accolades states that this is a "fine introduction to the world of philosophy". If you know some philosophy but want to find out more about the lives of these thinkers, then this can be considered an introduction. While I would read almost any well-researched intellectual history, especially on such a good group of philosophers, it is the restraint and composition that the author exercises that makes this so refreshing. De Botton's writing is simple, addictive, and compelling. 

The Chapter on Montaigne was one of the best of the bunch, and really puts academics and authors and "great thinkers" in perspective. I will definitely be looking into the essays of such a humble, wise man. It also introduced me to Schopenhauer, and completely changed my view of Epicurus and Nietzsche. I would have also been surprised by the morals of Socrates and Seneca if I didn't already idolize them. 

Ultimately I think this is a book about morals and practical philosophy. Living in accordance with well-reasoned, personal virtues sits not just at the core of philosophy, but life as well. I think this sort of thing isn't talked, thought, or written about nearly enough, and for that it receives my highest recommendation, right alongside Meditations, The War of Art, and The Joy of Living (3.1-3). They may seem cheesy at first glance, but these books are incredibly deep and have changed my life. 

If receiving short and poignant life lessons, entirely devoid of condescension or pretension (as much as a Frenchman can muster), from some of the most absurd, frankly ridiculous men who have ever lived sounds like a good time, then this is it.

References:

(1) The Consolations of Philosophy -- Alain de Botton

(2) How Proust Can Change Your Life -- Alain de Botton

(3.1)  Meditations  -- Marcus Aurelius (trans. Hays)

(3.2)  The War of Art -- Steven Pressfield

(3.3)  The Joy of Living -- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

The Experience Machine

My good friend Avery brought the game Castle, Forest, Island, Sea to my attention (1). If you haven't played it yet, I'm about to spoil it. Go play it. Okay? Good.

The game goes through the same areas regardless of what choices you make, but it's a great way to see the practical implications of various philosophical views. It's almost like a literary story with philosophical themes. How the game leads you down a linear path and presents you with "choices"--in the video game they're-not-really-choices sense of the word--is supremely interesting. Castle presents a deterministic view of the very act of choosing philosophical beliefs.

It reminds me of the Steam game The Stanley Parable (2). They both destroy the notion of choice in a similar way. The game is brilliant and quite funny, but also to express a difficult point. By exposing its own internal structure, Stanley makes the artificiality of video games painfully obvious. One particular ending of the game refers to menial jobs. It gives that wonderful feeling of existential dread. The game makes you push buttons to advance the script in exactly the same way that a mindless worker would. And video games are supposed to be a leisure activity. 

A fully deterministic world would be boring and predictable unless one didn't have full knowledge of the world's predictability. That is, if we remain ignorant to the true nature of the world it makes no difference whether there are a finite amount of choices, or whether free will exists. If everything seems unpredictable then it might as well be, at least from the experiential side of things.

That's where the Experience Machine section of Castle comes in. Your character opens a book and becomes absorbed in an ideal world. "Ideal" not in the sense that this virtual world provides boundless pleasure, but rather, the perfect amount of pleasure, challenge, suffering, preordained outcome, and free ones--all resulting in the truest sense of happiness. We as people like choice, or at least the illusion of it. In fact, one can't be happy without sadness as a reference point. So too with other emotions such as boredom, tiredness, etc. Aristotle's golden mean of pleasure and virtue seems to be the obvious inspiration for this more modern thought experiment. I find it very similar to The Matrix (3). Agent Smith says that the first Matrix was a perfect world of boundless pleasure, but humans grew bored if life didn't have enough challenges, enough defeats to make the victories worthwhile. In this way, the machines settled on the frustrating modern world, with all it's potential successes and actual failures intact for all of it's human inhabitants. So it is with human motivation.

The end-of-game recap of the Experience Machine describes the situation as one that, given the choice, most people would turn down: with a few notable exceptions who'd accept it. You'd be happy to know that the Epicureans, Stoics, and some Aristotelians (depending on how literally you read the Ethics) fall into the latter category. Presumably, these Hellenistic philosophers would be happy to accept the experience of the machine even if they knew it wasn't real (not getting into that word). I'd argue this is because these three ethical schools make pleasure, virtue, and happiness/excellence/areté (respectively) the final end, and the Experience Machine provides all that in precisely the perfect amount that each theory necessitates.

However, I believe virtually everyone would choose the Machine if and only if it was impossible to determine the reality of the world, once firmly inside it.  Any prior knowledge of the Machine's world being fake would be erased upon entry, much like The Matrix. Unlike The Matrix, there would have to be no way of finding this out, or ever getting out. That is, our world and the world inside the Machine would then both be rea", because there is no way to find out otherwise. The Machine is interesting because it may not be so hypothetical. We have just as much reason to believe that we are in it now as to the contrary. This possibility changes nothing except in the way that some philosopher's privilege the truly Real (with a capital R, meaning objective reality one would see if all barriers and illusions were removed, i.e. outside of the Matrix. As Morpheus first says, actually quoting Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, one of the founding texts of media aesthetics, "Welcome to the desert of the Real.") (4). But why is this the case? In a truly perfect Experience Machine, where your sense are all you can ever know, why would we subjugate them? The position I'm furthering, one of taking the Machine, or, at the very least, accepting it once you're in it, is similar to how Aristotle places his trust back in the senses after Plato's extreme skepticism. (See Raphael's School of Athens (5). Why is Plato pointing up? And Aristotle?) 

If one accepts this position, then I believe a specific type of physical theory must directly follow. Whether it would be determinate or indeterminate, and further, what it would appear to those inside the system, is a question I have no idea how to even approach. 

However, it's not so simple to accept this position. Stanley and Castle made me transpose video games' notion of linearity into real life: is the total set of possible philosophical beliefs limited in number? 

If there are only a finite amount of beliefs to be held, then they will all eventually be discovered and presented with time and effort. This applies equally well to philosophy, morality, religion, and physical theories. If there is a correct view of each, one can only hope that perseverance and lack of ignorance will naturally select these correct views out of the less-correct ones. But if both of these types of views reoccur--that is, the set of total beliefs is assumed to be finite-- then even a liberal reading of free will is powerless to invent and ponder novel views of the world. (I think the whole notion of "novel discovery" is vastly overrated--I often think that the philosophic/scientific world has this massive virginity complex about discovery: as if, correct or interesting views aren't worthwhile if they aren't novel or freshly discovered, and I think that lies in the selfish desire to take credit for things and be remembered--but that's neither here nor there.) Ignoring the discovery aspect, I am optimistic that a metaphysics of this nature would eventually produce real insight through science. Or there would simply be nothing more to discover after a certain point. Do we then become like Dr. Manhattan (6)? Alternatively, we could get sick of the search and there could be no scientific answer. Like a dying Feynman says, "If it turns out it is like an onion with millions of layers and we are just sick and tired of looking at the layers -- then that is the way it is" (7).

Consider the alternative case. If there is an infinite amount of beliefs to be had, then the chances of discovering the correct ones out of the ocean of possibilities seems hopelessly slim. At least, a position that doesn't trust the senses would have no way of discerning the correct and less-correct ones. We would be limited by what we could imagine, and may miss certain possibilities outside of the realm of our experience. For example, if a man hypothetically never knew hunger, he would also have no knowledge of being too full. Conversely, a position such as Aristotle's that does trust the senses would find a tight correlation between proposed theories and realities in determining correct theories i.e. scientific inquiry that naturally progresses. We still face the above problem of searching, but in this case philosophy would not be a hindrance to science so long as we can use the senses.

For these reasons I'm inclined the think the senses are a form of truth. I consider the Experience Machine just as real as whatever world we're living in, because the machine I picture in my mind is essentially this world as far as I can tell.

One last note: Castle asks what is philosophy and records player responses. A good proposal was "what science doesn't deal with"--although this is perhaps too narrow. I just wrote "everything", but of course this is unsatisfying. Philosophy is perhaps the hardest category to pin down, although my best guess at the moment would be: thinking about thinking. This includes most metaphysics, ethics, language, games, math, religion, and everyday conversation. It excludes most sciences, except psychology and behavioral econ, I think. The latter two fields are much less science and much more logical, rational explanation, which is what I think philosophy values more highly than data. It also excludes art and literature, although they can certainly be philosophic to the degree that they encourage thinking about thinking. 

Between Stanley, Castle, and Bertrand Russell's excellent History of Western Philosophy, I've been pretty busy thinking about philosophy (8). Although by no means is this blog supposed to be only philosophy. I don't anticipate posts being this long, especially during school. Anyway, the important thing in my mind is to devote a little time to explore your own thoughts and see where they lead. As I'll explain in more depth (hopefully) next time, I think this is perhaps the most important thing one can do for himself. These type of fringe thoughts often end up being the most valuable to record. And the most fruitful.

References:
(1) Castle, Island, Forest, Sea
(2) The Stanley Parable
(3) The Matrix
(4) Simulacra and Simulation -- Jean Baudrillard 
(5) The School of Athens -- Raphael
(6) Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen
(7) "On Science and God" -- Richard Feynman
(8) The History of Western Philosophy -- Bertrand Russell