# Reading > Philosophical Literature >  Modern Philosophers

## Aurora Ariel

I was just wondering if anyone has any thoughts of modern(currently alive)philosophers such as Peter Singer-the Australian philosopher who resides at Princeton University and also holds a post in Australia for three months of the year.Do you read modern philosophers as well?I would be interested in hearing about some modern philosophers actually alive today...

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## brshfr

I don't know that I can think of any "modern" philosophers, all those I can think of are dead. Even song writers of late that have seemed to been taken on as philosophy to life are dead, like Lennon and Harrison. I don't know that I know of any living, I guess really we all could be considered a philosopher but that's just a vague answer.  :Confused:

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## atiguhya padma

Aurora Ariel,

I've read a number of modern philosophers (some many years ago, so not quite fresh in my mind). At Uni I studied a work by Roger Scruton which was completely misguided called Sexual Desire. It really was a laughable attempt to analyse sexuality. Like Aristotle has done, he constructed a reasoned argument and then concluded that this must be the way we behave, rather than looking at our behaviour and then constructing a reasoned argument. 

I have read Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons which is a very difficult work but very inspiring and well worth the effort. In my opinion, it is one of the best works of the latter half of the 20thC. 

Alisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is an interesting read, and an attempt to resurrect Virtue Ethics. I would rather it stayed firmly buried in the past of Aristotle, but it's still a well written work.

Richard Rorty is worth reading. I enjoyed Philosophy and Social Hope, and he is one of the few really good liberal writers. He also has a philosophy which is indebted to the pragmatism of William James, whilst uniting that with an idealist perspective. I have his classic work Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature, and will get round to reading it sometime.

I also have David Chalmer's The Conscious Mind, which I shall also read sometime. It is very much praised by philosophers and scientists involved in brain research. However, he does pedal dualism, which is extremely unfashionable (or at least it was when I was studying).

A C Grayling, Alain de Botton, Julian Baggini and Simon Blackburn are all popularisers of contemporary philosophy, and all worth dipping into.

Umberto Eco's Kant and the Platypus is a remarkable work, leaning firmly on European semantic and semiotic philosophy. 

I have read some articles by Singer and admire him for his sense of purpose and his standing up for his cause. I have much sympathy for his views. 

AP

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## mono

I have heard of Peter Singer, from one of my former philosophy professors, but have not read any of his work. Hopefully I will get a chance to look into it sometime soon.
A few contemporary philosophers and thinkers I have read: Steven Pinker (amazing!), Jürgen Habermas, Paul Edwards, and I read bits and pieces of A.C. Grayling.
I cannot remember the name of a woman who wrote an incredible book, for which she earned much credibility, but the title contained "lies" or "lying," referring mostly to ethical and moral philosophy.

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## Psycheinaboat

_Love and Will_ by Rollo May is rather interesting. May only recently departed (1994, I think).

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## Plechazunga

What about Lyotard, he's only been dead for a relatively few years.

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## Aurora Ariel

Thanks for your reply. I will definitely investigate this recommendation further. Previously, I have only read Alain de botton and Peter Singer, but now plan to research these other philosophers and books. I have known about botton and Singer for the last few years, but originally started reading the ancient philosophers. Bye!

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## subterranean

I can only recall some names, like Peter Berger, Thomas Merton.. I took this class Social Theory at college and we mostly discussed the old giants. There's this saying that I love alot, I forgot by whom, which says " When man defines situations as real, they are real in their consequences"...

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## flounder

Modern philosophers...I'm thinking Bertrand Russel or perhaps (??) Charles Bukowski (although he died in '94, i think).

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## mohan kumar

Recently I read a book by Thomas Moore called Dark Nights of the Soul. It is very disturbing but it is interesting.He advocates to probe into our hidden dark sides.

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## okmit

A philosopher is a person who lives and thinks according to a particular philosophy.Alas, we are all philosophers to some degree,and all living!
However some notables,Pat Baker(under fire at this time),Pope Benedict XVI(under scrutiny at this time)Usama bin Laden(incognito at this time)Fidel Castro(under supression at this time)etc.,etc..Hmm.

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## ThatIndividual

It's funny, this is the second time that I've clicked on this thread with the expectation to find a discussion of DesCartes, Hume, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, etc. When I think of Modern I think of these guys. (Quite frankly, I am again disappointed.)

This causes me to wonder... Is there anything left for philosophy? What can these 'modern' philosophers, i.e. present-day philosophers, contribute to the Western Philosophic tradition? Are we still arguing about the mind and the brain with Daniel Dennett or... What's there to talk about anymore?

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## ThatIndividual

Allow me allow Peter Singer to stand as an exception... I have read some extremely provoking articles by this fellow, one in particular that argues that it is the _responsibility_ of the affluent to step in and take care of the impoverished. I quite like him.

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## Countess

Modern philosophers are, alas, oftentimes redundant. If you enjoy theological philosophy, then I recommend "Can Man Exist without God?" by Ravi Zacharias. I have read and reread that book so much that it looks like a used textbook that has been recycled some ten times. 

Personally, I believe all good writers are philosophers (Cooleridge, I think, also supported this idea.) The problem I have with modernists / philosophers is that they inevitably start with an agenda (many times its political) and they write in such a way as to support their agenda. I prefer to explore a topic without adding my value judgements insofar as that is possible, and let others debate it or make up their own minds what they believe.

I guess that's my philosophy, huh? (-:

T

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## rachel

In my mind Pope John Paul 11 is second to none. His work on sexuality and many other topics I think will stand the test of time and evoke many thoughts and discussions in generations to come.

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## subterranean

Maybe you were talking about "being genuine", I'm not quite sure. However as the world keeps on changing, there's always a chance of contributing new ideas. I mean Hume or Spinoza didn't live in the era where there are many people spend most of his days watching TV or surfing the net. I don't know whether there's already a philosophical theory in regards to televeision or multi media. Further, as the basic ideas are already established, maybe it's time to dig more on "practical" ideas of philosophy. 




> It's funny, this is the second time that I've clicked on this thread with the expectation to find a discussion of DesCartes, Hume, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, etc. When I think of Modern I think of these guys. (Quite frankly, I am again disappointed.)
> 
> This causes me to wonder... Is there anything left for philosophy? What can these 'modern' philosophers, i.e. present-day philosophers, contribute to the Western Philosophic tradition? Are we still arguing about the mind and the brain with Daniel Dennett or... What's there to talk about anymore?

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## ThatIndividual

You have an interesting point, I suppose. I think that people like Baudrillard can take us to those heights, but I'm not sure how it goes farther. 

The eternal questions are worn out, and unhinged from the sun, we are floating away from any definitive point into nothingness.

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## subterranean

Well, I think those sort eternal or old ideas won't really sell today unless they are "customized" to more practical forms, like now we have philosophical counseling, philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of artificial intelligence. So, yea.., there are still rooms, I guess.

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## Martha Q

philosophy means love of knowledge.....it will never drop into non existence. Many philosophers say that post Hegel philosophy started to overcome itself. Since the 1960's there has been a terrible crisis regarding the role of philosophy in everyday society....
a strong debate between analitical and continental philosophy (analitical representing on the most part anglo and continental representing philosophers like Scopenhauer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Kierkegaard, Adorno and so many others). Two currents that move in different areas and in very different ways. The objective should be to unify but hat is most unrealistic. Franca D'Agostini was, in my opinion, the thinker who managed the best to explain the pres and posts the pros and cons etc etc of this crisis.

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## Morgenstern

Who is Peter Singer? Can you suggest me about modern philoshopers?

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## Martha Q

well, peter singer is not exactly my cup of tea. The most influential modern philosophers are in my opinion, or most influenced me, take it as you wish, are Gianni Vattimo, Milan Kundera who ha written books like The Unbearable Lightness of being, Identity, Ignorance etc etc....and Dummet. There are so many others but this space is surely not enough.

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## ThatIndividual

Subterr... surely you didn't mean to imply that philosophy is intended _to sell?!?_ Whether it sells or not, certainly should not be the issue. But rest assured, I understand the very fine points that you are making, I only needed to clear that point. Let us be quite sure that some of the greatest philosophy ever written barely sold a copy during the lifetime of the author.

Martha... As for your assessment of analytical vs. continental... I believe that it is already unified. I have encountered so many different takes on what exactly is the dividing line. To some, analytical is more clear and logical in style. That's what the 'analytical' philosophers say. They say that continental phi. is simply poetic philosophy and, thus, not _really_ phi. at all. (That seems to me quite an absurdity.) As for others, they claim that it's simply a time and place that draws the lines. As you say, Schopenhauer and Sartre, Hegel and Kierkegaard, blah blah blah blah.... So is it being French or German that makes you continental? Or is it an obsession with difficult, and unsolvable problems like Being? (We can be quite sure that the analytics call Heidegger continental, and wherefore, oftentimes dismiss his philosophy as rubbish.) I think it's all one in the same. I see no difference, unless you _want_  there to be a difference. Personally, I've quite boiled this down to a psychological explanation. The analytics don't quite understand the continental, they don't like the style because it's too deep, too non-mathematical. So, they call it illogical because that preserves their philosophical pride. (Let us not be fooled, the philosopher is the proudest human under the sun.) The continentals are usually more accepting of the analytic style, but usually are just plain bored with it. It's dry as a bone, however, it's very useful. But it is, I'm afraid, not enough equipment to dig as far as some philosophers would like to dig. Take Heidegger for example... Being And Time is quite like an analytical work in style, but because of the difficulty of the problem therein, coupled with his tendency (because of the NEED) to come up with his own terms, it seems cumbrous and difficult to understand. Analytics are quick to say something is rubbish if they don't understand it because, frankly, if it DID make sense "they _would_ understand it!!! Ha! This is what is so amusing anyway about the entire thing. To me, that is.

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## Martha Q

unified? wouldn't know about that....its just hard to talk about philosophy these days..one because there is no more Philosophy but many philosophies and even more resons to call one-self a philosopher...two because we mostly talk about applied philosophies (politics, science, logic, religion...) and not about philosophy as knowledge,as 
way of thinking, as a pure argumentative style free independant and not connected to its applications and three because there is the suspicion that philosophy as so doesn't exist or is just a useless leftover of western culture, unable to communicate with other forms of knowledge or answer questions, "solve" problems that characterize modern society......
where does it all go from here?

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## genoveva

"What is a modern philosopher?" is a good question!

I think there are a lot out there who would not necessarily label themselves as "philosophers". What comes to the forefront of my mind is the philosophy of education: Howard Gardner, Alfie Kohn, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Sandra Dodd, Daniel Goleman...

Then there's Bob Dylan.

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## KarlB

This little book has truly peeked my curiosity!
it is *Philosophy Bites* by authors David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, philosophers themselves.

There is a web site by the same name full of interviews with philosophers on various subjects.
This reading has opened up a whole new interest and I'm researching these individuals that have gotten my attention.
Get it from your... :Wave: ... local library... 

Good reading, I thought!
Karl

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## Dodo25

Singer is a must-read for anyone philosophically inclined. For once, ethics makes total sense. 

So is Daniel Dennett on another subject (philosophy of mind). He ended the tedious free will debate, presented a highly promising approach to solve the hard problem of consciousness, and applied Darwinian thinking to all the disciplines of science. 

Richard Dawkins' 'The Selfish Gene' and 'Unweaving the Rainbow' have great philosophical insights too. 

'The Hidden Reality' by Brian Greene is another great book, philosophically interesting because it deals with the 'reach of science', and obviously scientifically interesting because it presents a theories that can explain literally everything there is, was and will be. 

Basically, if you read 'Breaking the Spell', 'The Selfish Gene', 'Unweaving the Rainbow', 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea', 'Consciousness Explained', 'Practical Ethics', 'Freedom Evolves' and 'The Hidden Reality', your worldview will skyrocket and you'll have amazing, intellectually satisfying answers to questions you might never even have considered. 

There are many other great philosophy books, but these few are special, to me at least, in the sense that they completely blew my mind and opened up new perspectives.

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## mal4mac

Bryan Magee has written some good popular works, some are based on interviews with modern philosophers, many of which can be found on YouTube. Chomsky said the interview with Magee was the best popular presentation of his work in print:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EksuA...EC9216B96D9C07




> Alisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is an interesting read, and an attempt to resurrect Virtue Ethics. I would rather it stayed firmly buried in the past of Aristotle, but it's still a well written work.


Yes, managed to get through this one. Quite interesting ideas, but it's a very dry, tough read (like most modern philosophy...) In this area, I found the works of Pierre Hadot and Martha Nussbaum more approachable.




> Richard Rorty is worth reading. I enjoyed Philosophy and Social Hope, and he is one of the few really good liberal writers. He also has a philosophy which is indebted to the pragmatism of William James, whilst uniting that with an idealist perspective. I have his classic work Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature, and will get round to reading it sometime.


I've read both of these and I agree he's a very good writer. But don't forget J.S. Mill - he's a *great* liberal writer, his Autobiography is wonderful.




> I also have David Chalmer's The Conscious Mind, which I shall also read sometime. It is very much praised by philosophers and scientists involved in brain research. However, he does pedal dualism, which is extremely unfashionable (or at least it was when I was studying).


I prefer Colin McCabe. Mysterianism seems the only response to the 'the problem of consciousness' -unless ( and if...) there's a big breakthrough.

Interesting how many big, tough philosophy books you will 'read sometime'. Go on, admit it, you are, and would rather be, reading novels  :Smile: 




> A C Grayling, Alain de Botton, Julian Baggini and Simon Blackburn are all popularisers of contemporary philosophy, and all worth dipping into.


I agree, and they're usually in the library. Worth a dip if you feel like a change from reading novels....

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## ladderandbucket

I have been reading John Gray who I often see cited as an Important Living Philosopher. Perhaps this says more about the state of philosophy than anything else. His books don’t _feel_ like philosophy – there is far too much conjecture and anecdote and he is somewhat given to overstatement. He does present a very interesting view of the world and where we are headed but I can’t help feeling he is a little too eager to shock. Nevertheless I would recommend him for entertainment value alone, especially to literary types as he is obviously a fanatical reader and makes many references to fiction he has read. 

Later this year I intend to read Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit. It looks a bit technical for me but his ideas about identity sound fascinating. I would be interested if anybody else has read this book and what they thought of it.

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## arrytus

These three modern living philosophers will be well known and I cannot ascribe them enough approbation:


*Jean Luc Nancy* [french]- most well known work: _Globalization_. Best I've read: _Being Singular Plural_. Yet/next to read: _Birth of Presence._


*Alain Badiou* [french]- most well known work/best I've read: *Being and Event*. Best overview: _Theoretical Writings_. Yet/next to read: _Conditions_.


*Giorgio Agamben* [italian] most well known work/best I've read: _Homo Sacer._  Another good one is: _Language and Negativity_ [hard going though if you don't have a decent amount of linguistic knowledge]. Next/yet to read: _Potentialities_

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EDIT ADDED:

going over the other posts I feel like I should make clear this is not [as most of the others are] popular philosophy but academic/scholarly [scilicit, actual/real] philosophy. Nancy and Agamben are Heideggerian disciples and Badiou has a propinquity with some meld of Deleuze and Russell [in terms of mathematizing/analytical ontology and not their respective perspectives per se]. 

In terms of popular philosophy Antonio Damasio [american] is quite popular. 

there are other continentals who descend from the Baudrilliardian and Lacanian styles such as Virilio and Zizek, but as I've not read them I cannot comment on them other than to say they to my mind deserve enough attention that they are on my list.

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EDIT 2:

Geez how did I neglect *Jurgen Habermas?!* [german]. He's probably the most well known living philosopher [other than Chomsky, who I also elided but I don't grant him much importance philosophically: he stays mainly with a very limited and ephemeral political writing nowadays and his linguistic contributions have long been surpassed], and writes on pragmatics influencing sociology [later works] and linguistics [earlier].

Also John Searle, but I don't care for him. His works on linguistics descend from Wittgenstein and Austin and his most important work is :Speech Acts.

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## mal4mac

> Later this year I intend to read Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit. It looks a bit technical for me but his ideas about identity sound fascinating. I would be interested if anybody else has read this book and what they thought of it.


"Too technical" is kind. I thought it was *very* badly written. As with Kant and Heidegger, I was reduced to painstakingly parsing the paragraphs into sentences of normal English, and, as with Heidegger, I was left with little of substance. I now find such exercises too boring, and gave up after twenty pages - and read another Dickens novel instead (ahhhhhh... the relief...)

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## Heteronym

I enjoy the books of Mary Midgley, an English moral philosopher. She writes about science, ethics, instinct, animal behavior, and even a bit of literature. I've read *Wickedness, Man and Beast* and *Heart and Mind,* and found them all very intelligent, humanist and well argued.

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## Heteronym

> It's funny, this is the second time that I've clicked on this thread with the expectation to find a discussion of DesCartes, Hume, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, etc. When I think of Modern I think of these guys. (Quite frankly, I am again disappointed.)
> 
> This causes me to wonder... Is there anything left for philosophy? What can these 'modern' philosophers, i.e. present-day philosophers, contribute to the Western Philosophic tradition? Are we still arguing about the mind and the brain with Daniel Dennett or... What's there to talk about anymore?


 :Crazy: 

Considering that Descartes probably never even touched a human brain in his lifetime, let alone have the scientific instruments to analyse the mind that we have today, I'd say there's quite a lot to discuss about the brain/mind duality.

And Rousseau: what did he actually know about primitive communities to make his wild claims about how society corrupts individuals? The man never even left Europe; he lived, by my knowledge, in France, Geneva and the UK. Forgive me if I laugh at his pseudo-anthropological observations about the state of the natural man.

John Locke's _tabula rasa_ is not only redundant, it's downright wrong in light of what the neurosciences have discovered about the human mind.

Most of the classic philosophers cogitated from the comfort of arm chairs, oblivious to actual facts. They elaborated elegant theories in words; that's one of the problems with words: anything can be construed with them, even impossible or wrong things.

Modern philosophers are today scientists, economists, anthropologists, historians. We can no longer afford to have a Lord making up a wild theory while he sips his glass of port from the comfort of his couch. Modern philosophers, whom you put between contemptuous parentheses to diminish them and question their knowledge, are people like Noam Chomsky (who knows more about politics than Machiavelli or Hobbes), António Damásio (who knows more about the brain/mind duality than Descartes), Joseph Stiglitz (who knows more about economics than Malthus or Smith), and etc.

Knowledge grows, old truths are discredited, and intellectual heroes are shown to, more often than not, being wrong.

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## Heteronym

> The problem I have with modernists / philosophers is that they inevitably start with an agenda (many times its political) and they write in such a way as to support their agenda. I prefer to explore a topic without adding my value judgements insofar as that is possible, and let others debate it or make up their own minds what they believe.


Hobbes' _Leviathan_ shows a huge bias towards centralized authority; most medieval religious-philosophical books showed a bias towards Church doctrine and Christian ethics. An agenda will always slip into one's thinking because one's full personality influences one's mode of thinking.

I find it embarassing and sad the excuses people come up with to justify the fact that they don't read modern philosophy. Why don't you just admit you don't want to read it? Be honest with yourselves.

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## Judas130

Most popular philosophy - Grayling, for example - is glued into marketing 'happiness' as a consumer product, or how best to realise the 'happy' life. vomit-inducing. We also have those writers mapping their bias ideals onto the faculty of science - writers like Shermer ('the mind of the market') or, recently, Sam Harris, with the idea of a 'science of morality', that science can 'determine human values', instead just a reheating of the cold leftovers of American utilitarian values, presented as 'scientifically' self-justifying in comparison to the 'East', or the Islamic cultural enemy. As a utilitarian, Singer really tried to make something very stale into something important. he failed. James Lovelock did it better with Gaia.

Karl Popper. (The Logic of Scientific Discovery)
Edward Said. (Orientalism)
J.L. Mackie. (Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong)
John Gray. (Straw Dogs, Enlightenment's Wake, Black Mass)
Carl Sagan. (Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos)

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## mal4mac

> Most popular philosophy - Grayling, for example - is glued into marketing 'happiness' as a consumer product


Well a book is a consumer product, but are you arguing that philosophers should have nothing to do with publishing books? All the philosopher you mention write books and market them!

Or are you arguing that they are *primarily* publishing their books to make money rather than trying to get ideas across? If so, I think you are (largely) wrong. 

I've read Grayling, and several other popular philosophers, and they don't seem to be primarily money-motivated

Bertrand Russell is a renowned popular philosopher (amongst other things!) and has written a popular book called "The Conquest of Happiness". But he gave away all his money, so he can hardly be accused of being primarily a money grubber! 

Bryan Magee worked a half-time job at the BBC, giving him time to write popular philosophy books - earning a lot less than if he had worked full time and put media money-grubbing above pursuing his interests.

Many great philosophers have concerned themselves with happiness, it's an entirely appropriate subject for philosophers, popular or not...

"Since all of us desire to be happy, and since we evidently become so on account of our usethat is our good useof other things, and since knowledge is what provides this goodness of use and also good fortune, every man must, as seems plausible, prepare himself by every means for this: to be as wise as possible. Right? - Socrates

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## Dialectic

Charles Taylor is excellent, especially if you grow tired of the narrow minded polemics of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and the like. He's Christian so one must keep in mind that his religious identity is going be reflected in much of his writings, but nonetheless he makes many valid and compelling arguments relating to the value of religion in the public sphere. He has a book "The Secular Age" which is quite good, but many of his essays serve as better introductions to the broader schema of his thought. I recommend his essay "Why we need a radical redefinition of secularism," which can be found in the book "the power of religion in the public sphere," which contains a number of other essays from very impactful and substantive contemporary philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas and Judith Butler.

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