Interested in reading 1 Philosophy & 1 Psychology book. Hoping to read more about explanation/analysis instead of storybook/novels type.

Can you gurus recommend me the best of the best, of 1 each? Something you treat as holy bible of the subject. Coz right now i think i can only read 2 books.

Please state title & authur, and which bookshop have em.

Thankyou.

I'm going to recommend something that totally misses your criteria above because i imagine you're looking for some sort of comprehensive text book.

Sophie's World by Jostein Gardner. Read it ages ago and it basically gives an introduction to philosophical ideas while being packaged in a novel within a novel form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World

+1 if you're looking for an intro to the different forms of Philosophies.

Sophie's World is a good beginner's introduction, but please do realize that philosophy is so broad that no single book can be considered the "holy bible" of the subject. Furthermore, it's worth differentiating between Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy. Sophie's World serves as an introduction to Western philosophy only.

anything else? i prefer general i think most pple east or west holds the same philosophy. Only difference are minor due to culture differences.

That's very inaccurate. Or else you have a very different concept of what the word "philosophy" means. I believe I speak for the rest of the people who have posted in this thread when I say that we use the word "philosophy" to refer to it as an academic discipline. You seem to use it in a sense of "personal philosophy", as in personal attitudes towards life and the world. Please know what you want.

Academically, Western philosophy is drastically different from Eastern philosophy. You could say that Western philosophy is the precursor of science and is still based on reason and logical arguments. Eastern philosophy however is very spiritual and is actually categorized in many Western academic departments as a branch of religion.

yes it's very different.

and sophie's world is a good book for entrance...before you pick what kind of philosopher you like to learn more.

i don't think there a lot book out there that have comprehensive views of philosophy and even if there is it might bore you to death.

so my suggestion, go and read sophie first. if you can finish it and be interested in philosophy come back here and we can suggest other books for further reading.

Is reading wikipedia's summary give me enough insight on the book?

No.

All that summary does is let you in on the vehicle by which the different philosophies are introduced to the reader.

While it serves as an introduction to philosophy, it also forces the reader to understand the underlying principles behind them.

While 2+2=4, it doesn't just let you accept that 4 is the answer but instead it makes you understand why 4 is the answer. It is still a relatively 'easy' read but it is quite exhausting because it introduces so many new and different concepts to someone who has not read up on philosophy beforehand.

what type of psychology book you looking for? self-help? currently i'm reading a book called personality plus by Florence Littauer. it's about how to understand others by understanding yourself. I borrow from my college library I'm not sure if this is what u call psychology books cos I'm not so good in books genre

psychology? hmm that's even a more vast area.

i remember reading the kinsey book or research when i took human behavior under psychology.

and no reading a summary of the book would get you nowhere.the book serves as an intro to each philosopher ideas and how they develop it.

for further info on each philo you basically need to dig deeper.

You can start with the introducing series of books from Icon books, quite cheap, easy to find, and easy to read. They're an even better choice for the newbie as the book has summaries regarding philosophy as a whole, or summaries regarding specific authors or fields of your choice.

Best of all is that they work and provide the necessary foundation to move on to the works of popular philosophers.

+1

I think what TS truly need is to spend a little more on the search engine by typing in 'philosophy' and 'philosopher', by the definations and differeciates in between all of these, and he/she still gets any interests to go on, he should get Sophie's World, which is written merely for secondary school students as a door to peek into adults' world. Perhaps, TS should really drill into the defination of philosophy, which is more critical, as i assume he is needing it for study purposes... In short, philosophy is everything around us, our parents have taught us their philosophy of life all along, but they might not know it is called philosophy. In fact, each and everyone of us are having our own sets of 'skills' to deal with our everyday's life from age 0 till death... if we insist our thoughts strong enough, and get it supported by others, we will become a new philosopher live long in google search one day

TS - to your first post, other than my suggestion above, your further step is to find out the followings philosopher's details in google: they are Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, and their relationship. They are the oldest(?) in ancient Roman times, but it is not fair cos I personally love many more others younger philosophers works and I'd really like to share with you, however, it is not the time yet. I believe by understand the basic concepts of these three philosopher, which is relatively easy and general, you would be able to pass your first exam on this field so to speak. hah.

This post has been edited by secretsquirrel: May 7 2009, 09:47 AM

I recommend

1) The Republic - Plato
2) Utopia - Thomas More
3) The Prince - Machiavelli
4) The Social Contract - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
5) The Trial and Death of Socrates - Plato
6) Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle


You will notice that there are many different publishers who publish the same book, but try to get the one by penguin classics for the good introductions.

penguin classics

not smelly and thin paper easy to get torn... I have my Divide Comedy from the same publisher too

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Added on May 8, 2009, 3:59 pmThis post has been edited by secretsquirrel: May 8 2009, 03:59 PM

wah most of the book recommended is text book.

I like Plato erotic dialogue.Descartes and Kant.

Haha... They are not textbooks to me, it's about the love of knowledge and the admiration of logical thinking.
I have Critique of Pure Reason by Kant, I find it very much heavier compared to the other philosophers' writings.

what kind of psychology r u seeking?..

as for me, because my course have psychology, so we r using Santrock's Educational Psychology...

I know Kant are quite heavy.after all the man is a crazy to stick to routine and discipline all the time.

i just say is like a text book because i remember the books were all mentioned in history text book as the book that revolutionize the way human think or society ought to behave.

but for me, i prefer to learn philo from learning the greek mythology and tragedies first, then slowly proceed to the aristotle,plato and socrates and then to the next school of thought.

it gives you background how the idea is develop.

Psychology books...

I'm reading Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect, and The Time Paradox.

Petrotoxin is right. The books that he recommends are of good ideas and truly truly evokes thought and ponder.

Philosophy is broad and starting slowly is the way to go.

I enjoy and adore Schopenhauer and Nietzsche philosophy better than others. Perhaps im being a pessimistic in life (N) and i found it echo my thoughts.

i would recommend jostein gaarder's Sophie's World. it's a nice introduction for people new to philosophy, and still an eye opener even tho ur an expert in gramsci, kant, descartes etc

I'm reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini. Bought two days ago from Kinokuniya at RM51.84 (original price RM72). That 28% less is from Daruma Card.

Amazon (with reviews): http://tr.im/ngTr
Kinokuniya (with RM): http://tr.im/ngUk