I have recently become a fan of philosophy and have in turn began to read a fair share of philosophy essays and deeply philosophical fiction novels. These books really open up your mind to different realities you may have never considered and they truly broaden your intellectual horizons. Reading in general is one of the few ways to really boost your intellectual nature, but reading deep and philosophical books, in my personal opinion, doubles the intellectual stimulation.
You're probably asking what is a philosophical reading? Honestly, it is any essay, short story, novel, poem, or play that stimulates philosophical thought process via a blatant or underlying philosophical question. The reading will, in most circumstances, induce regular book closings for deep introspective thought or arguing with ones self. You may have read one of these and not even have been aware of it.
The aim of this thread is to explain some of the deep pieces you have read and how they influenced your thinking, what you perceived it's immediate and underlying messages to be, and obviously to try and sell the book for others to pick up. I don't really care about a format to how you post, just don't be too short and be sure to be specific on how the writing made you feel.
I'll start off with mentioning the best philosophical pieces I have read:
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
I'll begin by explaining Brave New World in a nutshell. BNW is a sci-fi novel right off the bat with it's futuristic setting and it's creepy cloning technology. However, deeply rooted in this techno-babble that Aldous Huxley creates is a philosophical look at the height of human society and how at it's peak society will reach a period of self-destruction in where brain washed clones who are bred into rigorous social classes rule the world. Through hypnotic brain washing and bred defects the world controllers can force the masses into social structure. The novel eventually brings in the opposite of perfect society - the Savage, to counterbalance and shame the "perfect" structure of the world. It really strikes a chord in me how through idyllic language and far out science fiction Huxley(who wrote it in 1932) can almost predict some of the social calamities that would befall the world in the upcoming 40 to 50 years after BNW. It's a good read for intermediate(12th grade requirement in FL) readers. It'll get your brain juices flowing, for sure.
I'll explain the other books in future posts!
You're probably asking what is a philosophical reading? Honestly, it is any essay, short story, novel, poem, or play that stimulates philosophical thought process via a blatant or underlying philosophical question. The reading will, in most circumstances, induce regular book closings for deep introspective thought or arguing with ones self. You may have read one of these and not even have been aware of it.
The aim of this thread is to explain some of the deep pieces you have read and how they influenced your thinking, what you perceived it's immediate and underlying messages to be, and obviously to try and sell the book for others to pick up. I don't really care about a format to how you post, just don't be too short and be sure to be specific on how the writing made you feel.
I'll start off with mentioning the best philosophical pieces I have read:
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
I'll begin by explaining Brave New World in a nutshell. BNW is a sci-fi novel right off the bat with it's futuristic setting and it's creepy cloning technology. However, deeply rooted in this techno-babble that Aldous Huxley creates is a philosophical look at the height of human society and how at it's peak society will reach a period of self-destruction in where brain washed clones who are bred into rigorous social classes rule the world. Through hypnotic brain washing and bred defects the world controllers can force the masses into social structure. The novel eventually brings in the opposite of perfect society - the Savage, to counterbalance and shame the "perfect" structure of the world. It really strikes a chord in me how through idyllic language and far out science fiction Huxley(who wrote it in 1932) can almost predict some of the social calamities that would befall the world in the upcoming 40 to 50 years after BNW. It's a good read for intermediate(12th grade requirement in FL) readers. It'll get your brain juices flowing, for sure.
I'll explain the other books in future posts!