28 Important Philosophers List the Books That Influenced Them Most During Their College Days

in Books, Philosophy | November 3rd, 2014

The web site Demasi­a­do Aire recent­ly asked “some of the world’s most impor­tant philoso­phers which three books influ­enced them the most while under­grad­u­ate stu­dents.” And, from what we can tell, they got a good response. 28 influ­en­tial philoso­phers duti­ful­ly jot­ted their lists, and, for at least the past day, Demasi­a­do Aire has been offline, seem­ing­ly over­whelmed by traf­fic. Thanks to the Inter­net Archive’s Way­back Machine, we can recov­er these lists and pro­vide you with a few high­lights. We have added links to the texts cit­ed by the philoso­phers. The free texts have an aster­isk (*) next to them.

Charles Tay­lor (McGill Uni­ver­si­ty):

–Phénoménolo­gie de la Per­cep­tion, Mau­rice Mer­leau-Pon­ty

–The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov*, Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky

–Jalons pour une théolo­gie du Laï­cat, Yves Con­gar

Daniel Den­nett (Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty):

“That’s easy:

–Word and Object, Quine.

–The con­cept of mind*, Gilbert Ryle

–Philo­soph­i­cal Inves­ti­ga­tions, Lud­wig Wittgen­stein

“I got to study with Quine and Ryle, but Wittgen­stein had died before I encoun­tered his work”.

Alexan­der Nehamas (Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty):

–Apol­o­gy of Socrates*, Pla­to

–Nico­machean Ethics*, Aris­to­tle

–Ethics*, Spin­oza

“Also, I should point out that Nietzsche’s On the Geneal­o­gy of Moral­i­ty* had a huge effect on me when I was a grad­u­ate stu­dent and had a for­ma­tive influ­ence on my philo­soph­i­cal devel­op­ment”.

David Chalmers (Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty):

“I was an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent in math­e­mat­ics rather than phi­los­o­phy, but the answer is”:

–Gödel, Esch­er Bach, Dou­glas Hof­s­tadter

–The Mind’s I, Dou­glas Hof­s­tadter & Daniel Den­nett

–Rea­sons and Per­sons, Derek Parfit

You can view lists by oth­er philoso­phers, includ­ing Alain de Bot­ton, Wendy Brown, Peter Mil­li­can, and more here. The image above comes via by MjYj.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

44 Essen­tial Movies for the Stu­dent of Phi­los­o­phy

Down­load 100 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Philoso­pher Por­traits: Famous Philoso­phers Paint­ed in the Style of Influ­en­tial Artists

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Listen to 21-Year-Old David Letterman’s College Radio Show (1969)

in Comedy, Radio | April 7th, 2014

Over thir­ty years at the desk of his very own late-night talk show, mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions of fans, the respect of come­di­ans the world over: David Let­ter­man has had, by any mea­sure, an awful­ly good run. Though they had to know it could come soon­er or lat­er, thou­sands of view­ers, since Let­ter­man announced last Thurs­day that he plans to retire in 2015, face the immi­nent prospect of a world with­out the Late Show as they know it. For the young and young-ish among them, many of whom didn’t come into the world them­selves until after Letterman’s 1982 nation­al debut (see video at bot­tom), this con­sti­tutes an entire­ly new and trou­bling­ly less absurd tele­vi­su­al real­i­ty. But the mas­ter com­e­dy host didn’t sim­ply emerge on to the scene, ful­ly formed, those 32 years ago. Any­one who’s watched long enough to notice the fre­quen­cy of Letterman’s ref­er­ences to Indi­anapo­lis, his home­town and the media mar­ket that grant­ed him his first “big” chance as a weath­er­man, knows that he nev­er for­got his roots.

As with many illus­tri­ous careers, Letterman’s hum­ble ear­ly shot fol­lowed even hum­bler, ear­li­er shots. Just above, you can hear the 21-year-old “Dave Letterman”’s broad­cast from April Fool’s Day 1969 on WAGO-AM, the closed-cir­cuit radio sta­tion he helped to found at his future alma mater, Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty. Though only a five-minute clip, this record­ing show­cas­es not just Letterman’s preter­nat­u­al micro­phone pres­ence, but his way with the near-psy­che­del­ic walls of sound effects, seem­ing­ly free-asso­cia­tive speech, and pure wack­i­ness that so came into its own in the late six­ties and ear­ly sev­en­ties. (The Fire­sign The­ater would soon per­fect it.) Let­ter­man fol­low­ers who must know every­thing — and they cer­tain­ly exist — should note that, when he calls a deliri­ous-sound­ing woman in this seg­ment, he calls none oth­er than Michelle Cook, the very first Mrs. Let­ter­man. Though we have yet to learn the iden­ti­ty of Letterman’s Late Show replace­ment, I feel cer­tain, after this lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence, that the Let­ter­man of twen­ty years from now will rise from the ranks of pod­cast­ing. Lis­ten out for him; he may not drop col­or­ful phras­es just like “horse den­tures falling into a rust­ed how­itzer artillery shell,” but you’ll know him when you hear him. Or her.

Below you can watch Bill Mur­ray’s appear­ance on Let­ter­man’s first 1982 show.

via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tom Waits and David Let­ter­man: An Amer­i­can Tele­vi­sion Tra­di­tion

R.E.M Plays “Radio Free Europe” on Their Nation­al Tele­vi­sion Debut on The David Let­ter­man Show (1983)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Dissident Poet Joseph Brodsky Gives Six Life Tips to College Grads (1988)

in Life, Poetry | November 4th, 2013

Image from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Year­book, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Although Joseph Brod­sky was one of the most cel­e­brat­ed Sovi­et dis­si­dents of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the Nobel Prize-win­ning poet had been unerr­ing­ly hound­ed by the repres­sive Sovi­et gov­ern­ment, which had labeled his poet­ry as “porno­graph­ic and anti-Sovi­et.” Refus­ing to aban­don his writ­ing, Brod­sky was repeat­ed­ly brought to court, and once sen­tenced to 18 months of labor in the Arc­tic region of Arkhangel­sk. Dur­ing one of his court­room appear­ances, the young poet dis­played an admirable lev­el of tes­tic­u­lar for­ti­tude when the judge asked him, “Who has rec­og­nized you as a poet? Who has enrolled you in the ranks of poets?” Brod­sky, defi­ant, replied “No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of the human race?”

In 1972, Brod­sky left the USSR for Amer­i­ca, where he was wide­ly sought as a lec­tur­er (his aca­d­e­m­ic bed­post includ­ed notch­es from Cam­bridge, Colum­bia, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts, and Mount Holyoke). On the heels of his win­ning the 1986 Nation­al Book Crit­ics’ award for crit­i­cism for Less Than One and receiv­ing the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in 1987 (porno­graph­ic writ­ing, it seems, does quite well with the crit­ics), Brod­sky was invit­ed to give the 1988 com­mence­ment address at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan.

Brod­sky’s remarks are far from the gal­va­niz­ing dose of inspi­ra­tion that many com­mence­ment address­es impart, and cer­tain­ly not what Michi­gan grad­u­ates were expect­ing. Rather than uplift, the poet­’s words sober­ly ground the audi­ence; instead of wrap­ping them in a warm self-assured­ness, the life tips are jar­ring, like an ice bath. Brod­sky’s address is a mix of wry humour, acknowl­edge­ment of our absur­dist exis­ten­tial dilem­ma, and bold, hon­est com­pas­sion. Read­ing Brodsky’s advice, one can’t help but feel that the poet val­ued his flawed human­i­ty even more than his art; like­ly, they were insep­a­ra­ble.

Here’s a boiled-down ver­sion of the poet’s remarks:

1) “Treat your vocab­u­lary the way you would your check­ing account.” Expres­sion often lags behind expe­ri­ence, and one should learn to artic­u­late what would oth­er­wise get pent up psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. Learn to express your­self. Get a dic­tio­nary.

2) “Par­ents are too close a tar­get… The range is such that you can’t miss.” Be gen­er­ous with your fam­i­ly. Even if your con­vic­tions clash with theirs, don’t reject them—your skep­ti­cism of your infal­li­bil­i­ty can only ben­e­fit you. It will also save you a good deal of grief when they are gone.

3) “You ought to rely on your own home cook­ing.” Do not expect soci­ety to arrange itself to your benefit—there are too many peo­ple whose desires con­flict for that to hap­pen. Learn to rely on your­self, and help those who can­not.

4) “Try to not to stand out.” Do not cov­et mon­ey or fame for their own sake. It is best to be mod­est. There is com­fort join­ing the ranks of those who fol­low their own dis­creet paths.

5) “A par­a­lyzed will is no dain­ty for angels.” Do not indulge in vic­tim­hood. By blam­ing oth­ers, you under­mine your deter­mi­na­tion to change your cir­cum­stances. When life con­fronts you with hard­ships, remem­ber that they are no less an intrin­sic part of exis­tence. If you must strug­gle, do so with dig­ni­ty.

6) “To be social is to be for­giv­ing.” Do not let those who have hurt you live on in your com­plaints. For­get them.

The full text—irrevocably more pithy and eloquent—may be found here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

George Saun­ders Extols the Virtues of Kind­ness in 2013 Speech to Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty Grads

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

The “Most Amazing [Borrowed] College Welcome Speech Ever”

in Uncategorized | August 23rd, 2013

Geor­gia Tech sopho­more and Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing major Nick Sel­by gave a rous­ing wel­come speech at the 2013 Fresh­man Con­vo­ca­tion. It did­n’t take long for the speech to go viral. Or for Gawk­er to real­ize that the speech had been bor­rowed from a 2008 speech giv­en by Andy Stone, once the debate team cham­pi­on at Ari­zona State. (Click here and then skip to the 8:40 mark to see the sim­i­lar part of Stone’s speech.) But here’s per­haps the most straight­for­ward expla­na­tion. It turns out that Sel­by was once coached by Stone, and on his Face­book page, Sel­by writes: “I had an awe­some speech coach in high school by the name of Andy Stone, and was absolute­ly thrilled when he agreed to let me use the end of his award-win­ning speech as the foun­da­tion for my own.”

Allan Bloom’s Lectures on Socrates (Boston College, 1983)

in | August 9th, 2013

Accord­ing to Archive.org: “Allan Bloom deliv­ered this talk as part of the series enti­tled “Philo­soph­ic Per­spec­tives” at Boston Col­lege in 1983. The series was intend­ed to help teach­ers of under­grad­u­ates in their teach­ing of those great works that are essen­tial to a lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The series addressed the decline of lib­er­al learn­ing in the Uni­ver­si­ties, in Amer­i­ca espe­cial­ly. In this lec­ture Bloom dis­cuss­es the found­ing of the idea of lib­er­al edu­ca­tion, and the mean­ing of the philo­soph­ic life expressed in the exam­ple of Socrates. The con­flict between Phi­los­o­phy and the City, or Phi­los­o­phy and Polit­i­cal Life is explored by way of an inter­pre­ta­tion of Pla­to’s Apol­o­gy of Socrates.”

Lec­ture 1:

Lec­ture 2:

Lec­ture 3:

Lec­ture 4:

This course has been added to our col­lec­tion of 750 Free Cours­es Online.

Allan Bloom’s Lectures on Machiavelli (Boston College, 1983)

in | August 9th, 2013

Accord­ing to Archive.org: “Allan Bloom deliv­ered this talk as part of the series enti­tled “Philo­soph­ic Per­spec­tives” at Boston Col­lege in 1983. The series was intend­ed to help teach­ers of under­grad­u­ates in their teach­ing of those great works that are essen­tial to a lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The series addressed the decline of lib­er­al learn­ing in the Uni­ver­si­ties, in Amer­i­ca espe­cial­ly. This lec­ture presents an inter­pre­ta­tion of Machi­avel­li’s “Prince” and teach­es one how to under­stand Machi­avel­li’s art of writ­ing. An inter­pre­ta­tion of the “Prince” is giv­en chap­ter by chap­ter.”

You can stream the five audio lec­tures below.

Lec­ture 1:

Lec­ture 2:

Lec­ture 3:

Lec­ture 4:

Lec­ture 5:

See our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Princeton v. Yale, 1903: The Oldest College Football Game on Film

in Film, History | February 23rd, 2012

You can thank Thomas Edi­son and his motion pic­ture cam­era for many things: Bike Tricks Caught on Film in 1899; Footage of Mark Twain from 1909; The World’s First (and Slight­ly Scan­dalous) Hand-Tint­ed Motion Pic­ture (1895); The First Kiss in Cin­e­ma, 1896; and now this — footage of the 1903 Prince­ton v. Yale foot­ball game. The two teams were unde­feat­ed, and 50,000 spec­ta­tors were on hand. The video starts with the play­ers tak­ing the field (Prince­ton first, Yale sec­ond) and some panoram­ic views of Yale’s sta­di­um. Then (around the 2:00 mark) we get to the high­lights of the game.

The clip above is appar­ent­ly the old­est col­le­giate foot­ball footage sur­viv­ing today. And, in case you’re keep­ing score, Prince­ton won the game 11–6.

But if you’re count­ing the num­ber of Free Cours­es pro­vid­ed by the two uni­ver­si­ties, we have the score at 38–1, with Yale com­ing out way on top.

via Retro­naut and the Reel Mudd

How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks

in Books, e-books | August 12th, 2010

A quick fyi for any col­lege stu­dent look­ing to save some mon­ey on text­books this year. Last week, The New York Times pub­lished a help­ful guide to low­er­ing text­book costs. The com­pre­hen­sive list tells you where you can find free ebooks and cheap elec­tron­ic text­books online, while high­light­ing e‑commerce ven­dors that rent tra­di­tion­al text­books at a reduced cost. (Take Chegg for exam­ple.) In total, the guide lists 20 dif­fer­ent resources. If you’re head­ing to col­lege soon, it’s well worth a look.

Don’t miss Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter and Face­book!

The College Dorm Window Show

in Random, Technology | May 12th, 2010

Stu­dents at Poland’s Wro­claw Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy got a lit­tle techie (or is it tech­no?) this week, turn­ing their dorm win­dows into a full col­or light show. Hap­pi­ly, we can report that all lights were con­trolled wire­less­ly. Thanks Bar­tosz for send­ing this our way.

Is The College Bubble Next?

in Current Affairs, Education | June 1st, 2009

From The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion:

Is it pos­si­ble that high­er edu­ca­tion might be the next bub­ble to burst? Some ear­ly warn­ings sug­gest that it could be.

With tuitions, fees, and room and board at dozens of col­leges now reach­ing $50,000 a year, the abil­i­ty to sus­tain pri­vate high­er edu­ca­tion for all but the very well-heeled is ques­tion­able. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Cen­ter for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and High­er Edu­ca­tion, over the past 25 years, aver­age col­lege tuition and fees have risen by 440 per­cent — more than four times the rate of infla­tion and almost twice the rate of med­ical care. Patrick M. Callan, the cen­ter’s pres­i­dent, has warned that low-income stu­dents will find col­lege unaf­ford­able.

Mean­while, the mid­dle class, which has paid for high­er edu­ca­tion in the past main­ly by tak­ing out loans, may now be pre­clud­ed from doing so as the pri­vate stu­dent-loan mar­ket has all but dried up. In addi­tion, endow­ment cush­ions that allowed col­leges to engage in steep tuition dis­count­ing are gone. Declines in hous­ing val­u­a­tions are mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for fam­i­lies to rely on home-equi­ty loans for col­lege financ­ing. Even when the equi­ty is there, par­ents are reluc­tant to fur­ther lever­age them­selves into a future where job secu­ri­ty is uncer­tain.

Is this more doom and gloom­ing? Or is this some­thing to wor­ry about? Your thoughts?
via Andrew Sul­li­van’s Dai­ly Dish