I wish to thank Todd Davis for his taking time to send some suggestions
for my brilliant young student in China. I have listed below the main
titles Todd suggested, and I follow his list by a private post from John
Ransom. I will be most grateful if anyone has additional recommendations or
wants to second any of the titles listed below. I will check my E-mail for
the last time at 5:00 a.m., C.S.T., tomorrow morning. Thanks, --Bob
> Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 10:23:01 -0800
> From: "Todd B. Davis" <tdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Individualism primers...
> > Robert F. Jones writes:
> >A 22-year old student, about the brightest I have taught in 30 years,
> >is now in China teaching English before heading off this fall to graduate
> >school. He is reading Nietzsche for the first time. He has asked me to
> >send him a book that treats individualism, there being little available in
> >English in Qinhuangdao. I am sorry that he was no more specific than that!
>
> > I am at a loss as what to come up with. My field is not philosophy. I
> >am a Montaigne scholar, but I think he wants something more classically
> >philosophical. What about the Spaniard from Salamanca?
> Todd B. Davis replies:
> individualism. A useful book which investigates this to some extent is Fred
> Evans' "Psychology & Nihilism"(State University of New York Press, 1993). Evans
> subtitle for this book is "A Genealogical Critique of the Computational Model of
> Mind). Insofar as the computational theory of mind is replete with
> individualistic assumptions, this would be one starting point. . . .
> . . . Michael Polanyi has written a well celebrated book in
> this regard: "Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical philosopy" (University
> of Chicago Press, 1962)
> . . . . Simon Critchley
> addresses some of the most pressing questions relative to this community in his
> Book "The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas" (Blackwell Publishers,
> 1992).
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Date: Thu, 09 Mar 1995 20:53:09 -0500 (est)
From: John Ransom <RANSOM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: temp. suspend delivery
>ON Nietzsche, I recommend Laurence Lampert's _Nietzsche's Teaching_. I admit
>it, Lampert is a Straussian. But he provides a fascinating read of
>Nietzsche's _Zarathustra._
>On individualism, I'll just suggest something that comes to mind; you can of
>course disregard. The best writer on the evolution of individualism I've ever
>read is Simmel. His _Philosophy of Money_ is simply fascinating on this
>stuff. Shorter but also important is his essay "The Web of Group
>Affiliations" in _Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations._ There's also a
>collection of essays from Simmel titled _Individuality and Social Forms_. I
>recommend all of these.
>
>
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