No money no books

It sounds sad but it's true. There will be no money for new book this month. I have to be satisfied with the Gruyer book only this christmas holiday. All money will go to our move to our appartement. Yes, we are likely to move to our new appartement. It is a good news of course!
No new book but new appartement just on the new year!

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December vacation book shopping

Due to financial situation, I don't think we'll go anywhere this chrismas-new year holiday. It will be one full week from Saturday December 25th to January 3rd. Maybe I'll have another day on Friday 24th.

Reading some books will be very likely to be my main activity during the period. What book will I read? I know that I have already ordered Guyer's The Cambridge Companion to Kant book and still in rereading the Gardner Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. These two books will be the more likely to be read. But, I would have re-read the Gardner book and started some pages of Gardner on December 25th and intensively reading Kant last two months may make me bored. So, I might read some other books.

But what books? I have some interesting books that I haven't had time to read. Let's name a few of them. First of all, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid of Hofstadter. I have read some first pages of the book when I decided to stop for several reasons. First reason is the book is more serious than I thought. You need some papers to do some pseudo-exercises uin the book. Second reason is the story about Bach was quite hard to follow since I have no music knowledge. But, maybe I will give another retry for this book this christmas

Other book that of my interest and already in my personal library is Reasoning About Plans of Allen. I have read first two chapters of the book but I would like to re-read them. The book is always interesting, especially the first chapter when Allen proposes a planning representation. The second chapter about plan recognition is less interesting.

A book that interests me but not yet in my personal library is the book of the 2004 nobel winner Jelinek, The Piano Teacher or La Pianiste in French. If I order the book, it is the French version would be the more likely to be the ordered one. I saw the film directed by Hanneke and read the novel may be interesting especially after the winner has won the nobel prize.

Another book that caught my eyes is Set Theory and Its Philosophy: A Critical Introduction of Michael Potter. This book seems very interesting and very recent. I may order this book instead of the Jelinek's book.

Finally, some other books that may interest me are: La Confrérie des Eveillés of Jacques Attali, Gilbert Sinoué Le Livre de saphir, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of Kuhn, or Introduction to Logic and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences of Tarski. Or even some more academic but money maker Geometric Concepts for Geometric Design of Wolfgang Boehm, Geometric Methods and Applications: For Computer Science and Engineering of Jean Gallier, Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics of Philip Schneider.

I will wait of course until the end of the month before making any order, if any. From here and there, some may change of course...

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Gardner's Kant

This Gardner Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reasonbook makes me mad. I almost finish it, have already had a lot of things entered in my mind, but I could not express them in my own words. It means simply that I don't really understand it and makes me a little bit nervous. Is it because the book itself that bad? Or is it because Kant itself bad? Or it is because the hard-core philosophy IS hard? I have no clear idea.

First, I thought that I was not that ready to read hard-core philosophy and I ordered Simon Blackburn book Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. Then, I continued to read Gardner and found that my lost was not really that bad. OK, then it is probably the book. I cancelled the Simon Blackburn's and ordered Guyer's The Cambridge Companion to Kant. At least this book will help to clarify things in Gardner's book. Another possibility is that the Gardner book is not readable without the Critique of Pure Reason itself. We'll see.

On waiting for the Guyer's book, I will try to finish Gardner and maybe re-read again.

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Kant Bibliography

On reading the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, I've made the list of Kant's related books in English. They are not exhaustive list, but they look the most interesting ones. They are not the book that are written by Kant either. I would like to read two or three of them. Here they are in alphabetical order:

• Allison, Henry E. Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. Yale University Press; Rev&Expand edition (March 1, 2004). It is the most likely book that I would read together with Guyer.
• Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Dialectic. Cambridge University Press; (June 20, 1974). This book seems to criticise Kant, so maybe I would like to read it after I really understand what Kantian is.
• Dickerson A.B.Kant on Representation and Objectivity. Cambridge University Press; (November 6, 2003). It talks about the B-deduction, which I still don't get it. Expensive book though.
  
• Ewing , A.C. A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The word Short is encouraging but at the same time worrying. Can Kant be explained in a short book one?
  
• Forster Eckart. Kant's Transcendental Deductions: The Three Critiques and the Opus Postumum. It seems to be an advanced book.
• Guyer Paul. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge . Cambridge University Press. Guyer seems to be one of the most important Kant interpreter..
• Guyer Paul. The Cambridge Companion to Kant . Cambridge University Press; (January 31, 1992). This book, together with Allison book is the most likely to be read. It seems to be simpler to Routledge book.
• Kuehn Manfred. Kant: A Biography. Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition (August 19, 2002). A Kant biography book. It arrives just behind Guyer and Allison as the book to read. It may be simpler to read the biography first.
• Langton Rae. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford University Press; New Ed edition (March 1, 2001).
  
• Longuenesse Beatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge : Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Seems interesting since it seems to talk much about Analytic, the most difficult part to grasp so far in Routledge book. But, it seems to be too advanced, I'm not sure she will do better than Gardner to explain Analytic to me.
• MelnickArthur. Kant's analogies of experience. University of Chicago Press; (1973). An old one, difficult to find.
  
• Neiman Susan. The Unity of Reason: Reading Kant. Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (November 1, 1997) . It is mentioned in Routledge book as the first reference for Dialectic.
• Scruton Roger. Kant: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press; Rev edition (November 1, 2001).Aha, a short one (less than 100 pages), could it be a good book?
• Smith Norman Kemp, Gardner Sebastien. A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'.Palgrave MacMillan; 2nd edition (September 1, 2003). This is Gardner book as well and a classic one. Big book.
  
• Strawson Peter F. The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Routledge; New Ed edition (December 1990). Seems to be an important book. Is it easy enough for me?
• Van Cleve, James.Problems from Kant. Oxford University Press (2003).
  
• Wood Allen W. Kant . Blackwell Publishers; (June 30, 2004). The book title tells everything about the book..:-) It is a very recent book.
  

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Baca Kant

Ceritanya saya sedang tertarik Kant. Ketertarikan itu sebenarnya bisa dilacak sejak waktu masih kuliah dulu, walaupun tidak langsung. Dulu waktu kuliah saya sempat baca buku tentang Habermas terbitan Kanisius. Sekarang sudah lupa judul bukunya. Terus lagi, dulu beberapa teman senang sekali mengutip tokoh-tokoh sekolah Frankfurt , Habermas dan klannya itu. Belakangan saya lalu tahu bahwa sekolah Frankfurt itu sering disebut-sebut sebagai neo-Kantianisme.

Terus, selama musim panas kemarin, saya baca bukunya Russell, The History of Western Philosophy. Di buku itu bab tentang Kant sangat menarik. Yang bikin saya tertarik pada mulanya adalah perbedaan mengenai a priori dan empiris. Sekarang, saya tidak terlalu bisa menjelaskan apa bedanya, tapi yang jelas ada hal-hal yang bisa diketahui semata-mata dari pemikiran, tanpa harus melalui pengalaman -- apriori , ada juga yang bisa diturunkan dari pengalaman. Lalu, yang menarik lagi adalah konsep transendental idealismenya yang mudahnya cerita bahwa apa saja yang kita dapat dari pengalaman tidak dapat dianggap sebagai 'things in themselves' karena pengetahuan kita terbatasi oleh mode kita mempersepsi pengalaman itu.

Yang juga menarik dari Kant menurut Russell adalah pengaruhnya pada modern-philosophy, walaupun Russell sendiri tidak setuju menganggap Kant sebagai filosof modern terbesar. Juga dari buku Russell ada cerita tentang bagaimana teraturnya hidup Kant dan keteraturannya sempat berhenti sewaktu dia membaca Emile nya Rousseau.

Tapi, sepertinya Russell tidak terlalu setuju dengan Kant., tapi saya belum paham ketidaksetujuannya itu. Mungkin saya harus baca lagi Russell juga, atau buku-bukunya yang lain. Tapi sementara ini, cukuplah Kant dulu.

Karya Kant juga terkenal sebagai karya yang tidak mudah dibaca, karena memang Kant menulis bukan untuk kebanyakan orang, tapi untuk kalangan akademis filosofi. Sepertinya memang tidak mudah, apalagi buat orang seperti saya yang berlatar informatika, jadi mungkin butuh waktu untuk bisa mengerti sebagian saja. Tapi, tak apa-apa, saya tidak buru-buru, kok.

Nah, begitulah. Semua itu membuat saya tertarik lagi dengan Kant. Sekarang; saya sedang baca buku Gardner dari Routledge soal Kant dan bukunya Critique of Pure Reason:
Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason . Kesan pertama soal buku ini lumayan, tapi begitu membahas bab Analytic, wah, saya benar-benar tidak bisa lagi mengikuti. Tapi, tidak apa-apa, baca terus, nanti mudah-mudahan akhirnya mengerti.
Soal buku Gardner ini, saya bakal cerita lagi lain kali.

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