Sunday, August 30, 2009

Books That I Want

Just randomly felt like writing about the books I'm looking forward to reading. I'll have to wait until I finish school and get a decent job before I can buy them (I'm unemployed and in college right now) but if anyone wants to send me one as a gift, you can do so by going to my Amazon WishList. Let it be known that I have no problem with used books!

1. Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief

This book is about philosopher David Hume's infamous problem of induction. Induction is a form of reasoning in which we generalize from a limited number of things that all things of that category are the same. For example, the sun has risen every day of my life, so I reason that it will tomorrow morning. The problem of induction is that this form of reasoning is a nonsequitur: There is no logical argument that the sun must rise tomorrow or even that it probably will rise tomorrow. What I've observed in the past really doesn't seem to have any bearing on what will happen in the future.

2. UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus

This book debunks the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus. The author compares the growth rate of myths and legends today to the possible growth rate of the legends in the NT from the original events.

3. Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins

This book is supposed to be a thorough report on the current state of origin-of-life studies, and current theories.

4. Resurrecting Old-Fashioned Foundationalism

This is a philosophical book defending a theory of knowledge called Strong (or Classical) Foundationalism. Since I believe that Foundationalism is the most promising theory of knowledge mankind has devised, I'm eager to read this defense of it.

No comments: