To JMc: the series by Piers Anthony that you mentioned is called The Magic of Xanth, which did get pretty silly after a while, and there are far too many of them for them to not get silly (I think I found book 24 of the series in a used bookstore once). The Incarnations of Immortatlity are different than the Xanth novels. It is a collection of only seven books that form an intricately woven story, each book is a different perspective of the same plot, which all cumulate in the the last book. Each one is the story of one of the main characters who are human beings that stepped up to fill the office of the beings that control our world, Death, Time, Fate, Nature, War, Good, and Evil. Throughout the first five books the incarnation of evil (Satan) is the antagonist and you will spend most of the series believing he's a complete asshole, until you get to For Love of Evil, which is his story and you find out why he is doing the things that he does and he will become your favorite character. These books challenge the widely accepted Christian moral doctrine, though the author tends to use outlandish and make believe situations to make his point.
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was a great book I really liked the ideas behind it though I can't say that I agree with everything. Everytime we learn something new in this class I always relate back to it in my mind, though the memory of what happened in the book is no longer fresh in my mind, so I'm not going to make a serious attempt to relate it back to Utilitarianism, well maybe, but not yet.
Memnoch the Devil is very religious in nature, the basic plot being that the Devil has been stalking Lestat and wants him to be his right hand man. Memnoch takes Lestat through time to witness the Creation, the Fall, and the Passion and then to Heaven and Hell. It's interesting points are that like Piers Anthony's books, it challenges Catholocism and raises interesting questions about such issues as Creationism v. Evolutionism, fear and death, gender and God, and what it means to be human (that last part is a little vague)
To Nick: I don't know those other books, so I am sorry to dissappoint. Secondly, Ayn Rand is considered one of the most influential philosophical minds of the 20th century, her area is called Objectivism. Richard Bach is also well known, though it is for Illusions but his previous work, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which is also read within an academic setting, though I'm not sure that he is given much thought outside of the highschool level. And I don't think that having a degree in philosophy is all that important when it comes to writing philosophy. Great minds don't always come out of an academic setting, and it doesn't take years of intense study to be able to seriously contemplate the world around us. The very first philosophers weren't schooled in philosophy, it takes thoughtfulness, inquisitiveness, and a mind for abstract thought.
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Well, I don't intend for this to be taken the wrong way, but here are a couple things that everyone can agree with:
Just because someone does math, they are not a Mathematician.
Just because someone can think scientifically, they are not a scientist.
So my question is why is it that people think they CAN seriously make such claims concerning philosophy and philosophers? What is it about philosophy that leads people to think that it's some sort of everyman discipline that anyone with half a brain can lay claim to? Why is "philosopher" a title that can be given to any curious 11 year old, but "engineer" is a title that's rather strictly reserved for people with post-secondary degrees in the subject?
It is wrong for me, as a student, to claim to be a Philosopher. It is not wrong for Prof. McCrickerd however. Why? The same reason that Professors in the Biology department can be called Professional Scientists but their students cannot. The experience with, education in, dedication to, and recognition in the field makes Professor McCrickerd a Philosopher. The same goes for Camus and Sartre and other Philosophers turned novelists. Of course the first Philosophers didn't study Philosophy in a stricy academic sense, but neither did the first doctors or scientists or mathematicans.
All in all, while talented authors can write books ABOUT Medicine, unless they have a medical degree, I'm not going to take what Michael Critean has to say on the topic too seriously. The same goes for philosophy.
Why is there this double standard? Seems to me like a perfect example of Gorgias and the problem of rhethoric to me.
*Crichton (sorry)
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