10 Most Important Books

no novels?? ill make my own list when u finish burning all the books

 

as much as i hate to say it, id have to say its
1. the bible..king james version

another big one: war and peace

also, shakespeare?

 

what good are practical books on farming and other stuff if you cant rebuild a decent society? I'd personally go heavy on greek philosophy/literature/science...the rest will come in time.

 

Greek Philosophy = Plato, Plato = Greek Philosophy.

One might suggest his complete works, to which I might then suggest ...

The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper.

 

if we're going to start all over, then forget about taoism. let's try no religion and then see what happens.

 

1. The Bible
2. The US Constitution
3. "Pragmatism" by William James
4. "Utilitarianism" by Mill
5. "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith
6. "Leviathan" by Hobbes
7. Francis Bacon's New Organon
8. "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Wittgenstein
9. Newton's Principia
10 Hegel's "Philosophy of Right"

...that's all we need.

 

i have a text book entitled "world of ideas" which features the most important aspects of all ten of those selections, so if you take that book instead then you still have nine more selections. now we can take novels!!

 

We are trying to rebuild the world... not trying to pass a philosophy class. So there is no substitute for primary texts.

 

well if you take the books you've suggested then all you're doing is creating one big philosophy class. if we're given a chance to start over, i say we start from scratch. the last book i'd want to read would be smith's "the wealth of nations". i'd be writing my own philosophy text...but i guess i'm a leader, not a follower.

 

yeah... but we have to build upon what has already been built... that is history. If we start from scratch then we are killing History.

 

1. The Choice Theory by William Glasser, M.D.​
2. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman​
3. Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World​
4. Wilderness Medicine Paul S. Auerbach ​

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That is all for now, it is taking longer than I thought.........lol​

 

considering the whole premise of this thread is assuming that the world has gone to shit, then why oh why would we want to repeat history?

 

Exactly my point.

we won't repeat history if we read it.... and we have to read history to correct it. We can take those books with us, as they represent our current thought. Then we can criticize it in the light of the catastrophy, and figure out its flaws, and then build a greater society...

 

Exactly...

the last thing i would want is Greek/Roman guidelines on civilizations. Been there done that.
And the list of tomes...........war and peace.....omg.......I'd kill myself.

 

Perhaps we restart with a solid base of all the most important aspects of science, and engineering and such, and completely rewrite philosophy and such from scratch? Why not?

 

point taken, but lets just agree to disagree.

 

The Tao Te Ching

 

I'd make philosophy a restricted subject, illegal to discuss in public, along with religion.

 

Philosophy? Illegal?!