Updating Mortimer Adler’s Classical Reading List

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of titles on here because I just don’t see how…well, I’m not going there.  And I’ve changed some works by some authors.  I think Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is far more powerful and infinitely more relevant to FEMA-Camp America than are his novels.  I’ve BOLDFACED the ones I have already read.

1. Homer – Iliad; Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus – Tragedies
4. Sophocles – Tragedies
5. Herodotus – Histories (I’ve read it but I need to reread it)
6. Euripides – Tragedies
7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes – Comedies
10. Plato – Dialogues
11. Aristotle – Works
12. Epicurus – “Letter to Herodotus”; “Letter to Menoecus”
13. Euclid – Elements
14. Archimedes – Works
15. Apollonius – Conics
16. Cicero – Works (esp. Orations; On Friendship; On Old Age; Republic; Laws; Tusculan Disputations; Offices)
17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil – Works (esp. Aeneid)
19. Horace – Works (esp. Odes and Epodes; The Art of Poetry)
20. Livy – History of Rome
21. Ovid – Works (esp. Metamorphoses)
22. Quintilian – Institutes of Oratory
23. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia
24. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola; Germania; Dialogus de oratoribus (Dialogue on Oratory)
25. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic
26. Epictetus – Discourses; Enchiridion
27. Ptolemy – Almagest
28. Lucian – Works (esp. The Way to Write History; The True History; The Sale of Creeds;Alexander the Oracle Monger; Charon; The Sale of Lives; The Fisherman; Dialogue of the Gods; Dialogues of the Sea-Gods; Dialogues of the Dead)
29. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations
30. Galen – On the Natural Faculties
31. The New Testament
32. Plotinus – The Enneads
33. St. Augustine – “On the Teacher”; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
34. The Volsungs Saga or Nibelungenlied
35. The Song of Roland
36. The Saga of Burnt Njál
37. Maimonides – The Guide for the Perplexed
38. St. Thomas Aquinas – Of Being and Essence; Summa Contra Gentiles; Of the Governance of Rulers; Summa Theologica
39. Dante Alighieri – The New Life (La Vita Nuova); “On Monarchy”; Divine Comedy
40. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales

Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks

1. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
2. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly; Colloquies (I’ve read different parts of Erasmus
3. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
4. Thomas More – Utopia
5. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises
6. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel
7. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion
8. Michel de Montaigne – Essays
9. William Gilbert – On the Lodestone and Magnetic Bodies
10. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote
11. Edmund Spenser –; The Faerie Queene
12. Francis Bacon – Essays; The Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum; New Atlantis
13. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays
14. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Two New Sciences
15. Johannes Kepler – The Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Harmonices Mundi
16. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; Generation of Animals
17. Grotius – The Law of War and Peace
18. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan; Elements of Philosophy (It’s on the Shelf)
19. René Descartes –  Discourse on the Method; Meditations on First Philosophy; 
20. Corneille – Tragedies (esp. The Cid, Cinna)
21. John Milton – Works (esp. the minor poems; Areopagitica; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes) (In progress)
22. Molière – Comedies (esp. The Miser; The School for Wives; The Misanthrope; The Doctor in Spite of Himself; Tartuffe; The Tradesman Turned Gentleman; The Imaginary Invalid; The Affected Ladies)
23. Blaise Pascal –  Pensées;
24. Boyle – The Sceptical Chymist
25. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light
26. Benedict de Spinoza – Political Treatises; Ethics
27. John Locke – A Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Currently reading)
28. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Opticks
29. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays on Human Understanding; Monadology
30. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe;
31. Jonathan Swift – The Battle of the Books; A Tale of a Tub; A Journal to Stella; Gulliver’s Travels; A Modest Proposal
32. William Congreve – The Way of the World
33. George Berkeley – A New Theory of Vision; A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (On the shelf)
34. Alexander Pope – An Essay on Criticism; The Rape of the Lock; An Essay on Man
35. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; The Spirit of the Laws
36. Voltaire – Candide; 
37. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
38. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; Lives of the Poets
39. David Hume – A Treatise of Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; History of England (Currently on the shelf)
40. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on Inequality; On Political Economy; Emile; The Social Contract; Confessions
41. Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
42. Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations (Currently on the shelf)
43. William Blackstone – Commentaries on the Laws of England
44. Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason; Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals;Critique of Practical Reason; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace
45. Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;(Currently reading)
46. James Boswell – Journal; The Life of Samuel Johnson
47. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier – Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry)
48. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – Federalist Papers (together with the Articles of Confederation; United States Constitution and United States Declaration of Independence)
49. Jeremy Bentham – Comment on the Commentaries; Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions
50. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Faust; 
51. Thomas Robert Malthus – An Essay on the Principle of Population
52. John Dalton – A New System of Chemical Philosophy
53. Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier – Analytical Theory of Heat
54. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – The Phenomenology of Spirit; Science of Logic;Elements of the Philosophy of Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History (I’ve read most of these)
55. William Wordsworth – Poems (esp. Lyrical Ballads; Lucy poems; sonnets; The Prelude)
56. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Poems (esp. Kubla Khan; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner );Biographia Literaria
57. David Ricardo – On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
58. Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice; Emma
59. Carl von Clausewitz – On War
60. Lord Byron – Don Juan
61. Arthur Schopenhauer – Studies in Pessimism
62. Michael Faraday – The Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity
63. Nikolai Lobachevsky – Geometrical Researches on the Theory of Parallels
64. Charles Lyell – Principles of Geology
65. Auguste Comte – The Positive Philosophy
66. Honoré de Balzac – Works (esp. Le Père Goriot; Le Cousin Pons; Eugénie Grandet;Cousin Bette; César Birotteau)
67. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Representative Men; Essays; Journal
68. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
69. Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America (Halfway through reading)
70. John Stuart Mill – A System of Logic; Principles of Political Economy; On Liberty;Considerations on Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women;Autobiography
71. Charles Darwin – On the Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography (Currently reading)
72. William Makepeace Thackeray – Works (esp. Vanity Fair; The History of Henry Esmond;The Virginians; Pendennis) (On the shelf)
73. Charles Dickens – Works (esp. Pickwick Papers; Our Mutual Friend; David Copperfield;Dombey and Son; Oliver Twist; A Tale of Two Cities; Hard Times)
74. Claude Bernard – Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
75. George Boole – The Laws of Thought
76. Henry David Thoreau – Civil Disobedience; Walden
77. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – Das Kapital (Capital); The Communist Manifesto
78. George Eliot – Silas Marner
79. Herman Melville – Typee; Moby-Dick; Billy Budd
80. Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov
81. Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary; Three Stories
82. Henry Thomas Buckle – A History of Civilization in England
83. Francis Galton – Inquiries into Human Faculties and Its Development
84. Bernhard Riemann – The Hypotheses of Geometry
85. Henrik Ibsen – Plays (esp. Peer Gynt; Brand; Hedda Gabler; Emperor and Galilean; A Doll’s House; The Wild Duck; The Master Builder) Currently reading
86. Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace; Anna Karenina; “What Is Art?“; Twenty-Three Tales (Currently reading)
87. Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; The Mysterious Stranger
88. Henry Adams – History of the United States; Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres; The Education of Henry Adams; Degradation of Democratic Dogma
89. Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Common Law; Collected Legal Papers
90. William James –  The Varieties of Religious Experience; (Currently reading)
91. Henry James – The American; The Ambassadors
92. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morality; The Will to Power; Twilight of the Idols; The Antichrist
93. Georg Cantor – Transfinite Numbers
94. Jules Henri Poincaré – Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method; The Foundations of Science
95. Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams; Three Essays to the Theory of Sex;Introduction to Psychoanalysis; Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego; The Ego and the Id; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
96. George Bernard Shaw – Plays and Prefaces (Have on shelf)
97. Max Planck – Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography
98. Henri Bergson – Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
99. John Dewey – How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; The Quest for Certainty; Logic – The Theory of Inquiry
100. Alfred North Whitehead – Process and Reality; (I have on shelf)
101. George Santayana – The Life of Reason; Scepticism and Animal Faith; The Realms of Being (which discusses the Realms of Essence, Matter and Truth); Persons and Places
102. Vladimir Lenin – Imperialism; The State and Revolution
103. Bertrand Russell – Principles of Mathematics; The Problems of Philosophy; Principia Mathematica; The Analysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits; History of Western Philosophy
104. Albert Einstein – The Theory of Relativity; Sidelights on Relativity; The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of Theoretical Physics; The Evolution of Physics
105. James Joyce – “The Dead” in Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man;Ulysses (Have on shelf)
106. Jacques Maritain – Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of Knowledge; Freedom and the Modern World; A Preface to Metaphysics; The Rights of Man and Natural Law; True Humanism
107. Franz Kafka – Metamorphoses (Currently reading)
108. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Gulag Archipelago, vol. 1-3.  Currently reading.

ePistemologian’s Progress

Courtesy to Bunyan,

This list was taken from Craig and Moreland (2003): 627-639.  It’s a specialized list of technical works in philosophy and theology.  The theology section was kind of soft, so I didn’t spend too much time transmitting those titles.  I only listed works that a) are in LC’s library or b) I otherwise must have, assuming they weren’t in LC’s library.

I hope to have this finished by 2020.

This list doesn’t include a lot of previously read philosophy (Coplestone, Gilson, Bahnsen, Van Til et al)

Books that have an (*) by them are books I’ve added to Moreland’s list.

Chapter 1: General Philosophy; History of Philosophy; basic issues

*Coplestone, Fr. History of Philosophy (about four volumes). (read)

*Russell, Bertrand.  A History of Western Philosophy (read).

Chapter 4: The Problem of Skepticism

Slote, Michael.  Reason and Scepticism (1970).

Chapter 5: The Structure of Justification

Audi, Robert.  Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction (1998).

Chapter 6: Theories of truth and postmodernism

Groothuis, Douglas.  Truth Decay.  (Have read); mostly fantastic, but DG has since rejected the presuppositional outlook in this book.

Willard, Dallas.  “How Concepts Relate the Mind to its Objects: The God’s Eye View Vindicated?” Philosophia Christi, 2nd ser., vol 1, no.2 (1999): 5-20.

*Stackhouse, John.  Humble Apologetics.

Chapter 7: Religious Epistemology

Alston, William.  Perceiving God (1991).

Plantinga, Alvin.  “The Foundations of Theism: A Reply.”  Faith and Philosophy 3 (1986): 298-313.

——————.  Warrant: The Current Debate.

——————.  Warrant and Proper Function (currently reading).

——————.  Warranted Christian Belief (have read).

Plantinga, Alvin, and Nicholas Wolterstorff.  Faith and rationality (have read).

*Wolterstorff, Nicholas.  Reason within the Limits of Religion. (read)

Chapter 8: What is Metaphysics?

Chisholm, Roderick.  On Metaphysics (1989).

*Hasker, William.  Metaphysics (1983) (read)

Plantinga, Alvin.  The Nature of Necessity (1974).

van Inwagen, Peter.  Metaphysics (1993).

Chapter 9: General Ontology: Existence, Identity and Reductionism

Craig, William Lane, and J. P. Moreland, eds. Naturalism: A Critical Analysis (2000).

Suarez, Francis. On the various kinds of distinctions.

Chapter 10: General Ontology: Two categories–property and substance

Chapters 11 and 12: The Mind-Body Problem

Kim, Jaegwon.  Mind in a Physical World (1998).

Moreland, J. P.  and Scott Rae.  Body and Soul: Human Nature and the crisis in ethics.

Chapter 13: Free Will and Determinism

Fischer, John.  The Metaphysics of Free Will. (1994).

Kane, Robert.  A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (2005).

Rowe, William.  Thomas Reid on Freedom and Morality (1991).

Chapter 14: Personal Identity and Life After Death

Hick, John.  Death and Eternal Life (1976).

Chapter 15: Scientific Methodology

Moreland, J. P.  Christianity and the Nature of Science (1989).

Chapter 16: The Realism-Antirealism Debate

Chapter 17: Philosophy and the Integration of Science

Chapter 18: Philosophy of Time and Space

Craig, William Lane.  God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II.

———————–.  Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time.

Einstein, Albert.  Relativity: General and Special Theories.

Chapters 19-22: Issues in Ethics

Geisler, Norman.  Christian Ethics: Issues and Options.

*Feinberg, John and Paul. Ethics for a Brave New World (2010) (have read)

*Holmes, Arthur.  Ethics.

Pojman, Louis.  Ethics: Discovering Right from Wrong.

Chapters 23-24: The Existence of God

Barrow, John.  The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Beck, David.  “The Cosmological Argument: A Current Bibliographical Appraisal.”

Craig, William Lane.  The Kalaam Cosmological Argument.

Craig, WIlliam Lane and Quentin Smith.  Theism, Atheism, and Big-Bang Cosmology.

Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.

Ganssle, Gregory.  “Necessary Moral Truths and the Need for an Explanation.”

Hackett, Stuart.  Resurrection of theism.

Hume, David.  Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Martin, Michael.  Atheism: A Philosophical Justification.

Plantinga, Alvin.  The Nature of Necessity.

—————–.  The Ontological Argument.

Rowe, William.  “Circular Explanations, Cosmological Arguments and Sufficient Reason.”

Vallicella, William. “On an Insufficient Argument Against Sufficient Reason.”

Chapters 25-26: The Coherence of Theism.

Adams, Robert.  “Divine Necessity”

Craig, William Lane.  God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II.

Creel, Richard. Divine Impassibility.

Hasker, William. The Emergent Self.

Helm, Paul.  Divine Commands and Morality.

Leftow, Brian.  “God and Abstract Entities.”

Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge

Nielsen, Kai.  Ethics without God.

Plantinga, Alvin.  Does God Have a Nature?  (read)

————–.  “How to be an Anti-Realist.”

—————.  The Nature of Necessity.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas.  “Divine Simplicity.”

* ——————–.  Divine Discourse (1993) (read)

Chapter 27: The Problem of Evil

Hick, John.  Evil and the God of Love

Plantinga, Alvin.  God, Freedom, and Evil.

—————–.  The Nature of Necessity.

Rowe, William.  “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.”

Chapter 28: Creation, Providence, and Miracle

Craig, William Lane.  “Creation and Conservation Once More.”

Freddoso, Alfred.  “The Necessity of Nature.”

Helm, Paul. The Providence of God.

Hume, David. “Of Miracles.”

Morris, Thomas.  Divine and Human Action.

*Strobel, Lee. ed. The Case for a Creator.

Suarez, Francisco.  On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence.

Chapter 29: Christian Doctrines (I): The Trinity

(see other sources)

Chapter 30: Christian Doctrines (II): The Incarnation

Bayne, Tim. “The Inclusion Model of the Incarnation: Problems and Prospects.”

Freddoso, Alfred. “Human Nature, Potency and the Incarnation.”

Morris, Thomas.  The Logic of God Incarnate.

Chapter 31: Christian Doctrines (III): Christian Particularism

Added a new page

It’s a work in progress.

My non-existent neo-Plantingian Interview

This interview never happened.  It is between me and myself.  On a more serious note, I have noticed that my philosophical readings do not fit into any specific category.  That is good, I suppose, since “joining a school” is not the best start.

Question: You read Van Til, doesn’t that make you a Van Tillian?

Answer:  Not really.  I don’t find all of his apologetics convincing, but I do appreciate his reading of Greek and medieval theology.  I think he has a lot of promise in that area.  More importantly, Van Til, better than anyone else at his time, showed the importance of God as a Covenantal, Personal God.

Q.  But didn’t you used to promote Thomas Reid’s Scottish philosophy?  All the Van Tillians I know reject it.

A. There are two different “Van Tillian” answers to that question, and his reconstructionist disciples only knew one of them.  In Survey of Christian Epistemology (p. 132-134) he notes that if the Scottish school takes man’s cognitive faculties as a proximate starting point and not an ultimate one, then there is no real problem.  Further, we see Thomas Reid and Alvin Plantinga saying exactly that.   Elsewhere, however, Van Til was not as careful in his reading of Reid, and the reconstructionists read him as condemning Common Sense Realism.

Q.  So, is there a contradiction between the two schools?

A.  If the above distinction is made, I am not convinced there is.

Q. You keep mentioning Alvin Plantinga.  Are you a Reformed Epistemology guy?

A. I’ve read quite a bit of Wolterstorff and Kelly James Clark.  I like what they have to say.  I am not an expert on Plantinga so I have to demur at that point.  I do think there is a dovetailing between Thomas Reid and Plantinga, and if that convergence holds there is an exciting opportunity to unite Reformed guys along different epistemological and even geographical lines.

Q. What do you mean?

A. The guys in Westminster (either school) claim Van Til.  There is a debate on how well they understand him, but that’s beside the point. I think I have demonstrated above that there is no real contradiction between the two at least on the starting point.  This means that guys who hold to some variant of Common Sense epistemology and/or Van Tillian presuppositionalism do not have to be at loggerheads.

Q.  There is still one other Dutch giant you haven’t mentioned.

A.  You mean Herman Dooyeweerd, right?

Q. Correct.

A.  If you trace the development of the Reformed Epistemology school, you can find something like Dooyeweerd at the very beginning.  When Wolterstorff and Plantinga edited Faith and Rationality, they were at that time strongly influenced by Dooyeweerd. I am not saying that’s where they are today.   However, I do believe that Dooyeweerd’s contention that all men have a pre-theoretical “faith commitment” from the heart is in line with what Kelly James Clark and Van Til say about pretended neutrality.

Reflections on Scottish Independence

Given my Scottish background and heritage, perhaps it’s surprising that I’ve stayed quiet on the upcoming Scottish vote.  Obviously, I don’t live there and should be somewhat reticent about offering advice that won’t be taken.

Still, the referendum does provide for critical reflection which can shine light upon our own situation in America.  Tentatively, for what little it’s worth, I think it would be neat to see it happen, but with that said:

Nothing changes on the national level

Very few Christians are able to make an intelligent distinction between “nationalism” and “jingoism.”  Nationalism is simply Genesis 10 and Acts 17.  In some’s desire to attack Kinism, they end up espousing Marxist views on race and border.  I’m not a Kinist (whatever that word means), but in rejecting Kinism please don’t reject Genesis 10.  I used to perform an experiment on critics of Kinism:  I used to quote Acts 17:26 without stating the verse and watch reactions.

In a debate with an Orthodox apologist he explicitly told me too bad for Paul, this is what it means today.  Such a view was pure Marxism, of course (especially ironic for an Orthodox guy), but at least he was consistent.

The Scottish nation has existed for over 1,000 years and even though today it is Leftist and a shadow of its former glory, it’s still a nation.  The Scottish State and Government apparatus is an entirely different matter, and the referendum will affect that.

So even if “Better Together” wins, the Scottish nation will still be the Scottish Nation.

Will they be poor?

Probably.  I don’t see their keeping the pound and it is no guarantee they will be in the Eurozone (and stay out of that Harlot of Revelation 17).  If they can make money off of their oil reserves that might help.

On the other hand, Europe is socialistic.  It’s not like Socialists have any ability to keep long-term wealth apart from the threat of sanctions and the barrell of a gun.  So for Socialists to tell Scotland they will be poor if they don’t’ stay is somewhat hypocritical.

Will they be threatened nuclearly (or newkular, to quote Bush)?

This is among the better objections.  However, Scotland has somewhat natural borders.  If Hitler couldn’t take England at the height of his power in wartime, Scotland probably won’t be invaded by anybody anytime soon.  And if they are out of NATO, that simply means they won’t have to die in Bankers’s Wars.

Look at their geography.  They are literally at the far North end of the world on an island.   Even in a technological age it would be difficult.

But will they be holy?

This is what matters the most.   The Church of Scotland is borderline apostate.  At least the Roman church isn’t that large. I know an independent Scotland and popery often go together, but today’s Pope opposes independence.

 

 

Beer Journal: Abita Abbey Ale

There is this Arab gas station in town that sells quality beers for well under the retail price (I’m pretty sure something illegal is involved, but I can’t prove it and I don’t want to know). I went there today to get a pint of this Chocolate Stout that has a relatively high alcohol content (but won’t get one drunk) and a rich taste.   They were out of that.  There was the Abita Andy Gator, which is an okay brew, but I wanted something more.

I saw they had an Abita Abbey Ale.  While I was initially wary, it did promise a “liquid bread” experience, and I love thick beers.  That’s what I left with. 

Review:

Opening:  Strong, bold opening taste.  Very fresh and clean. It promises a caramel taste but I didn’t notice it.

Finish:  Have you ever tasted an overipe fruit or strong tart taste?  That’s what it reminds me of, yet it wasn’t unpleasant.  

Overall:  4 out of 5 stars.  Will purchase again if there isn’t the chocolate stout available.  Not the best beer I’ve ever had (still partial to Nevada Stout) but superior to the Samuel Adams’ varieties.

C-Mass (Review)

This book is an “application” of the principles of his previous Convict Conditionings. He references earlier exercises but often doesn’t explain them. You can google and figure it out.

He promises 20lb-30lb gains from bodyweight alone? Well, this is a half-truth. You probably won’t gain 20lbs of lean muscle anytime soon. However, he is right in contrasting training for neural strength (think Pavel Tsatsouline) and training for muscle growth.

Pros:

I honestly learned a lot of new stuff. I’ve been doing a combo of kettlebells and bodyweight training for two years, and have done some form of weight training for close to two decades, and I still learned a lot of new exercises. And it works. I’ve gained close to 25lbs in two years from some variety of bodyweight training.

His dieting advice is mostly sound. You don’t need outside “help.” Eat a lot of hearty, manly food and work hard and you will be fine. Shucks, even drink a beer from time to time.

A lot of the sciency principles are sound and he does a good job explaining why stuff works.

Cons:

As others have pointed out, the language is a problem. I’m used to the “bro” culture and I can get past some language. But dropping the F-bomb every page really doesn’t add anything. Further, while I am all for making fun of the “Be-liebers” and some of the slams towards the metrosexual Jersey shore community are funny, he overdoes.

I am not convinced that bodyweight purism is the way to go.   Pavel has shown conclusively that kettlebells can heal and rehab the body and add insane strength.    Further, I am not sure about dropping deadlift altogether.   It s a raw strength exercise with real life application.

And the truth remains, if you want to pack on real mass real quickly, nothing equals barbell squats.  Personally, I don’t do barbell squats because I don’t have the equipment, but it is the real mass gainer.  Even more, Wade praises guys like Saxon, Reg Park, and Steve Reeves, yet these guys all used forms of weightlifting.

Some notes on Nietzsche

1.

I finished The Basic Works of Nietzsche (ed. Kaufmann) the other day.  It was a running project for about seven years.  Love him or hate him, it is one of those classics of the Western canon that must be dealt with, or at least acknowledged. Nietzsche was one of the few philosophers who could actually write.

2.

I had fun reading this.

3.

A full review is impossible at this stage.  I read the book a couple hundred pages a time for over seven years. I simply don’t have the whole narrative in my mind, though I get the general argument.   So, this post is simply “notes” on Nietzsche.  I plan to reread certain sections and get Kaufmann’s Portable Nietzsche next month.

4.

The first book was the Birth of Tragedy.  While Nietzsche himself later eschewed parts of this book, and few scholars follow it strictly today, it is by far the most interesting.  Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche points out that Greek culture is not simply “Apollonian” (serene).  It is also Dionysian (wild, debauched, chaotic).   No big deal.  A number of Patristic writers made the same point.  Nietzsche adds a most genius conclusion:  the two poles demand one another.

5.

If we can say it another way:  there is no healthy mean between Heraclitean flux and Platonic unity.

6.

The Gay Science and 75 Aphorisms are a collection of sayings of varying interest.

7.

I am not ready to give a full report of his ethics:  Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil.  I sort of get what he is saying.   He often made brilliant psychological insights.

8.

He credits Dostoevsky with teaching him everything he knew about psychology.

9.

It is fun to read Goethe alongside Nietzsche. Is the mature Goethe Nietzsche’s Dionysus?

These are introductory notes written in a Nietzschean format.

Beer Journal: Dewar’s White Label

Yes, I know Scotch is not a beer, but I didn’t feel like creating a new category.  I normally avoid hard liquor but I realized I needed to be a good Presbyterian and drink Scotch. I didn’t want to splurge, which meant all of the good single malts were out.   I saw a good deal on Dewar’s White Label.

Pros:

1.  Fairly cheap, but it isn’t rotgut.
2.  Mixes well with soda and quite good over rocks.

Cons:

1.  Disgusting if taken straight.
2.  Doesn’t have a heavy peaty taste normally associated with Scotch.

Retractare: Theologia Viator

I now accept the model of “pilgrimage” as a valid hermeneutical framework for theology.  This doesn’t mean the “fetishism” of medieval pilgrimages to go worship a skeleton, but rather affirms doing theology in this life as a midway point to the Age to Come.

My initial problem was with how I saw it applied and also with my own priorities in life.   I could not see how a Pilgrim Theology could square with “winnin’ da gummint back for Jee-Zus.”

My priorities were in the wrong place.  A theologia viator is ideal for life in the church.  It has a necessarily eschatological thrust to it.