Some recent reads

Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology by Daniel Dennett. I just added Dennett to my "Favorite Books" list on my profile page. Not because I agree with him, but because he has staked out the issues that I tend to move towards as well. The difference is in our assessment of the issues, but we agree on the meta issue of which issues should be addressed. I'm currently reading The Intentional Stance (I'm stuck in the far-too-long chapter "Beyond Belief" which defends his almost-but-not-quite eliminativism), and will move on to his new book afterwards, probably.

Physicalism, or Something Near Enough by Jaegwon Kim. You should read everything Kim writes. He is one of the most important voices in philosophy of mind. I'd like to make a website devoted to Kim's writings, analogous to the websites Andrew Bailey has made for Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and others. This book, which I disagree with for the most part, is his attempt to solve the mind-body problem and mental causation, which he also addressed in his excellent Mind in a Physical World. He seems to think he is successful -- and Kim is emphatically not one of those overconfident philosophers who solves deep problems with superficial analyses -- but he says he is still left with qualia. That's why it's near enough to physicalism: he's solved the most important and difficult part, and the remainder is a difficult but nowhere near as significant issue.

Reason, Metaphysics, and Mind edited by Kelly James Clark and Michael Rea. These are the proceedings from Alvin Plantinga's retirement conference. The essays aren't on Plantinga's philosophy, but rather (and I approve of this wholeheartedly) on issues that Plantinga wrote on extensively. As with any collection there are some good and some not as good, but it's definitely worth it.

The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel by Jordan Scheetz. Jordan is one of my best friends, so I'm completely biased towards this book. We went to the same school, and we both took a class on Aramaic. This is relevant because his book is a focused commentary on Daniel, one of two Old Testament books (the other being Ezra) with a significant portion written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. This book is a short commentary, but Jordan has mastered the languages so completely, it's incredible. Some general editor compiling a new series of Bible commentaries better contact him, because if he wrote a comprehensive commentary on Daniel, it would be amazing.

Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright. Very good. I need to start buying his Christian Origins and the Question of God series, seeing as how he's just published a fourth volume on Paul.

Jesus and the Logic of History by Paul Barnett. I've had this book for 15 years and never read it. I finally took it off the shelf a couple months ago. It's outstanding. One very interesting point he makes is how scholars start studying Jesus with the gospels, and never move on. He suggests that we start with the New Testament epistles because the information they contain about Jesus is a) tangential to the points they're making to their audience, and b) was already accepted by the original audience -- that is, the statements were meant to remind the readers about something, or put it in a specific context they may not have thought of before. Barnett suggests this makes these statements immune to many of the methodologies used to evacuate the gospels of historical validity.

The Martian by Andy Weir. My wife brought me back a pre-publication copy of this novel from a conference she attended in Chicago last month (it was officially published this month). It's about one of the first manned explorations of Mars, and one astronaut being accidentally abandoned there and struggling to survive, the hope of rescue, etc. I read a lot of science-fiction, so I'm referencing this book in lieu of a long list. My reasons for singling out this one are that a) it's a particular subject that I love: near-future exploration of the solar system; b) it threads the needle of being a very pleasant read while being nice hard science-fiction: the guy really knows the science and the technology (or at least is able to convince a layman like myself that he does). This is made all the more impressive by the fact that c) it's the author's first work. For my fellow science-fiction fans, I recommend it.

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