What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

Coincidentally I decided just the other day that I need to read Basho's travel journal Narrow Road To The Deep North in the very near future, after having a critic highlight a section on Basho coming across an orphaned three year old.

but right now having both of these on the go:

NB
The passage about the abandoned child is actually from Basho's first travelogue, Nozarashi Kikō, which Wikipedia translates as Records of a Weather Exposed Skeleton, written about 10 years before Narrow Road. It's a rather disturbing passage and one Basho clearly meant to be disturbing.

[Spotted Horses]

Stone Mattress, a collection of "wicked tales" by Margaret Atwood. This is the second time I've read this collection and the wickedness ranges from dystopian to vaguely supernatural to just nasty. It is deliciously wicked.

[Kalevala]

Stone Mattress, a collection of "wicked tales" by Margaret Atwood. This is the second time I've read this collection and the wickedness ranges from dystopian to vaguely supernatural to just nasty. It is deliciously wicked.

I'll have to look into it.  I've read some of her books over the years.  The one which is haunting me at the moment (and has over the years thinking of women's plight in various countries....including particularly now in the US) is The Handmaid's Tale which came out decades ago.

K

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Non-Existence of the Real World - Jan Westerhoff.

[AnotherSpin]

The Non-Existence of the Real World - Jan Westerhoff.

Notably, entire books are being written, published, and sold to prove something that is plainly obvious, known to each person from their own direct experience: the manifested world is nothing more than an illusion.

[Spotted Horses]

I'll have to look into it.  I've read some of her books over the years.  The one which is haunting me at the moment (and has over the years thinking of women's plight in various countries....including particularly now in the US) is The Handmaid's Tale which came out decades ago.

K

Ironically I've never read The Handmaid's Tale, although it is Atwood's most well known work. I remember encountering it when it was relatively new and thinking, "huh, the patriarchy is so over, it's not coming back." One of my least perceptive thoughts. At this point it seems to depressing a topic to read about in a novel.

My favorite books of hers are Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin. I also recently read one of her early books, Surfacing, and found it compelling. I'm generally not a poetry person, but I found her poetry collections Power Politics and Dearly to be compelling.

[Florestan]

Notably, entire books are being written, published, and sold to prove something that is plainly obvious, known to each person from their own direct experience: the manifested world is nothing more than an illusion.

I'm sorry but this is not my experience at all. On the contrary, everything I lived, experienced and learned in 50 years taught me that the external world is completely independent of my own will, thought and feeling; it had existed long before I was born and will continue to exist long after I will die. And I suspect I'm far from being the only person in the world in this respect.

[Brian]

Ironically I've never read The Handmaid's Tale, although it is Atwood's most well known work. I remember encountering it when it was relatively new and thinking, "huh, the patriarchy is so over, it's not coming back." One of my least perceptive thoughts. At this point it seems to depressing a topic to read about in a novel.

I read Severance, a novel by Ling Ma about people trying to survive a mysterious global pandemic, in May 2020...but that wasn't nearly as miserable a read as it sounds. I haven't tackled Handmaid either.

[Mandryka]

The Non-Existence of the Real World - Jan Westerhoff.

I did some work on anti realism with Michael Dummett and John McDowell. My B.Phil dissertation looked at the implications of Kripke's "rigid designation" for the mind/world distinction. I have no idea how the subject has evolved over the past 30 or so years.

[Spotted Horses]

I read Severance, a novel by Ling Ma about people trying to survive a mysterious global pandemic, in May 2020...but that wasn't nearly as miserable a read as it sounds. I haven't tackled Handmaid either.

There's also Atwood's MaddAdam series, a dystopian tale of the aftermath of a pandemic. I didn't find it Atwood's best at the time, but perhaps due to be revisited.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I did some work on anti realism with Michael Dummett and John McDowell. My B.Phil dissertation looked at the implications of Kripke's "rigid designation" for the mind/world distinction. I have no idea how the subject has evolved over the past 30 or so years.

Big names. Always I liked ontology. Mine was about the US Federal Reserve Board, not as sexy as your area.

[JBS]

I'm sorry but this is not my experience at all. On the contrary, everything I lived, experienced and learned in 50 years taught me that the external world is completely independent of my own will, thought and feeling; it had existed long before I was born and will continue to exist long after I will die. And I suspect I'm far from being the only person in the world in this respect.

The thing is both you and @AnotherSpin  are right.
Yesh (Existence) is the somethingness of this world, Ayin (Nonexistence) is its nothingness, Yesh Amiti (True Existence) is the Reality that both includes and transcends Yesh and Ayin.
Sometimes we are at the level of Yesh, sometimes at the level of Ayin, the goal is to be at the level of Yesh Amiti

I've been reading these two books. Thirty-Two Gates is the more detailed and informative of the two.

[AnotherSpin]

The thing is both you and @AnotherSpin  are right.
Yesh (Existence) is the somethingness of this world, Ayin (Nonexistence) is its nothingness, Yesh Amiti (True Existence) is the Reality that both includes and transcends Yesh and Ayin.
Sometimes we are at the level of Yesh, sometimes at the level of Ayin, the goal is to be at the level of Yesh Amiti

I've been reading these two books. Thirty-Two Gates is the more detailed and informative of the two.

Close your eyes, and things will disappear, that is, they will cease to exist. After that, you can only think that things are still there. Thinking = imagining, which is nothing more than an illusion. In deep, dreamless sleep, there are no objects, that is, the apparent world. Books aren't needed here; any child knows this directly. Or an adult free of far-fetched concepts

[Florestan]

Close your eyes, and things will disappear, that is, they will cease to exist.

They absolutely won't. What ceases to exist is only your visual perception of them, but you can still experience them with your other senses. If you have a shit right under your nose, closing you eyes will not make its smell go away. If you fall from the first floor, closing your eyes will not prevent your bones from breaking. And if you are in the middle of an aerial raid, closing your eyes won't silence the sirens and explosions (at least that much should have been obvious to you by now).

[Mandryka]

You guys may enjoy Hilary Putnam's paper "Brains in a Vat"

https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Brains%20in%20a%20Vat%20-%20Hilary%20Putnam.pdf

[AnotherSpin]

You guys may enjoy Hilary Putnam's paper "Brains in a Vat"

https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Brains%20in%20a%20Vat%20-%20Hilary%20Putnam.pdf

Thanks, I'll try to read it. I hope it's not too long and not too intellectual. The moment I finished my spiritual search, I lost my ability to read philosophical texts. The cost of freedom

[Mandryka]

Thanks, I'll try to read it. I hope it's not too long and not too intellectual. The moment I finished my spiritual search, I lost my ability to read philosophical texts. The cost of freedom

It's good because it makes clear how the question you're discussing is about the relation between thought and the world. And that question is essentially logical - how is reference possible? 

[hopefullytrusting]

Currently, Galloway's Protocol (the book to start reading about the control society presaged by Deleuze aka the Internet was never free nor was it going to make us free)

[JBS]

Thanks, I'll try to read it. I hope it's not too long and not too intellectual. The moment I finished my spiritual search, I lost my ability to read philosophical texts. The cost of freedom

The only people who have finished their spritual search are the dead. You may think you have put in on pause, that's all. But humans start searching the moment they are born, and never stop; even when they think they are not searching, they are searching.

You've gotten to Ayin. Yesh Amiti awaits.

[AnotherSpin]

The only people who have finished their spritual search are the dead. You may think you have put in on pause, that's all. But humans start searching the moment they are born, and never stop; even when they think they are not searching, they are searching.

You've gotten to Ayin. Yesh Amiti awaits.

If it makes it easier for you, call it dead. In a sense you can grasp, that might be accurate.