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I'd tend to recommend anything that leaves you especially confused and unlikely to believe that anything philosophical is genuinely certain. Toward that end, I'd recommend: George Berkeley, _Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonus_. (I don't think Berkeley anywhere near proves his idealist case, but he exposes the complexity of perception quite nicely.) Paul Feyerabend, _Against Method_. (In case you thought there was an orderly progress of knowledge.) Martin Heidegger, _Basic Writings_. (Requires a carton of cigarettes or several. For a lighter version, try Robert Solomon's From Rationalism to Existentialism.) Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life. (Emphasizes contingency, pointing out the odds against our even having this conversation, never mind us all being humans speaking English.) Ferdinand De Saussure, _Course in General Linguistics_. (Explains signified/signifier, doesn't reach hard for certainty in their relationship.) I find even the later Wittgenstein too likely to promote belief in semantic certainty, so I doubt my selections or the reasons for them will prove popular with a semantically-minded crowd, never mind the authors of the books I've noted. -- Simon St.Laurent Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets Errors, errors, all fall down! http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org
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