10 Philosophy Books For Your Perusal (Part 3)

The third book was something of a challenge for me because picking one text by this author is a hell of a challenge. There is literally NO field that he has not impacted in some manner. Psychology: The Sickness Unto Death. Sociology: Two Ages. Philosophy: Either/Or. Literature: Prefaces. Theology: Works of Love. Critical Theory: Attack Upon Christendom. However, given my predilection for critical theory and the workplace and employees and organizational communication, my choice came down to:

Soren Kierkegaard

“Alas, it is horrible to see a man rush toward his own destruction.”

Keeping up with the Joneses. Abusing employees. Fear. Getting things done. Accomplishments. Stress. Pressure. Life. In an age of popular books on self-improvement that list habits and prescriptions of do's and dont's, (7 Habits; First Things First; Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity) or pithy nonsensical tomes that are nihilistically oriented (Eat, Pray, Love; The New Mood Therapy; The Secret) here is a work that questions human motivation and will. 

In one whole section with a relentless persistence SK makes refrain of the question:

"Do you live as an individual?"

SK believed the crowd, the public, to be a hiding-place in which the individual may abdicate his true quest for inward authenticity and responsibility. The crowd is a sink of cowardice in which individuals are relieved of individual responsibility and will commit acts they would never dare to do alone. This recalibration of man from the public is a central theme of Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing.

What is the good and how do we do the good? In a sustained argument, Kierkegaard takes on the philosophy of utilitarianism, which says the best choice is the one that least to be best outcomes for the most people.  Can people be used as a means to an end (even a supposed good end)? If you are doing good merely for self-aggrandizement, are you really doing the good? If you do good only half-heartedly, are you really doing the good? Are you doing the good if you are acting out of fear or to avoid punishment?

SK left us a challenging examination of the heart and mind, from which ensue all of the popular habits and prescriptions. What is single-mindedness? How is it formed, and what does it look like? How are our motivations and ambitions conflicted? How do we throw off the things the public wants to be our own? Do you know what is your calling, what is your vocation, and have you accepted it? This book is not only one of the easiest of SK's tomes to read, but one that will - if you take it seriously - change your life.

10 Philosophy Books For Your Perusal (Part 2)

Ok...so Adam Smith was the first post in the series. That was back in February. I've been a little bit busy. Got a new job, moved to a new state. That kind of stuff. The rest of this list will not take quite as long to arrive on my page. Promise. So, without anymore delay, here is #2:

Albert Camus - The Rebel

“What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion.”

So begins Albert Camus’ essay The Rebel. What does it mean to be a rebel? Is rebellion merely a rejection, a renunciation? Not according to Camus. A rebel is a person who affirms the existence of a line that he will not cross. In doing so, this person also affirms his life and existence, that his personal existence has some positive value. The twentieth century was proving that history is a slaughter-bench, drenched with disease, injustice, and especially man-made death. One of Camus' points in The Rebel is to demonstrate the existential problems of man cannot be assuaged by political solutions. The Rebel offers an analysis of how, after 150 years of nihilism, metaphysical revolt has given way to state sponsored terror.

When we rebel, it is because we have decided that a human society has some unquestionable value. Camus emphasized that such defiance is and should be fundamentally social and communal. Life is fundamentally lived with others. Absurdity enters existence not simply because one's private needs go unmet, but because so many conditions exist that destroy family and friends, waste our shared experience, and rob human relationships of significance. The rebel is triggered by individual suffering and the suppression of another: “I revolt, therefore we are.”

The Rebel is Camus’ best, most sustained philosophical work. In it he insists the rebellious and protesting man is what is best in him, not the docile and quiescent. Camus explains how, in both philosophy and politics, the reigning attitude of individualistic nihilism leads to dictatorship (fascism and/or communism). Camus systematically strips bare those who have used Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, de Sade, et al as justification for abuse of power. It is a book that should be read by people who wish to see the inborn impulse of rebellion inspired by a new spirit of action—by those who understand "that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love." 


We will get to stange forms of love when we get to the next book on the list. Kierkiegaard's Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing.