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This section of The Pepper Page is devoted to great writings. You might have noticed that reading seems to have become a fad as of late, with superstore book warehouses opening up all over the place and providing an absolute glut of really bad books. Well, if you're into Ann Rice, or are just aching to get your hands on the latest Oprah's Book Club selection you might as well leave now. If you're into improving yourself through education, read on and enjoy.
Philosophy
Search the Bible- "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight."
Aristotle: Nichomachian Ethics- Arguably Aristotle's greatest work. Defines the highest good as happiness, then attempts to define happiness and examines how one ought to attain it.
Politics: How ought men to be governed?
Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov- If any author has ever stated the human condition more clearly than Dostoevsky does in this novel, I don't know about it. As an added bonus, this novel contains "The Grand Inquisitor", a fascinating study of the relationship between God and man. Read it.
Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan- In my opinion, a pretty sad excuse for a treatise on government. Attmpts to use direct descent from Adam (the first man) to give legitimacy to the monarchy. Still, important to be familiar with in contrast to John Locke.
John Locke: 2nd Treatise of Government- Want to know where American political philosophy came from? Read this. Absolutely the best work written on government in the modern age.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding- Epistemology
Immanuel Kant:Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals- I'm not a big fan of Kant, but he's thought-provoking and worth reading.
A Critique of Pure Reason
Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra- "An awakened one is Zarathustra: what wilt thou do in the land of the sleepers?"
Plato: The Republic- Socrates' attempt to find justice leads him to create the "perfect city", which itself lacks justice. Read closely.
Symposium- It's all about love, baby.
Timaeus- Haven't read it, you tell me.
Other
Stuff that didn't fit into other groups.
Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: This book, "should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual
on motorcycles, either."
Sun Tzu: Art of War
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Many of these files are in zip format in order to reduce file size and save you time on downloads. If you don't have it, you can download Winzip in order to decompress them.
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