Very Short Introductions

Which of these are worth reading and which should be avoided?

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Good;
Aristotle
Art Theory
Barthes
Classics
Complexity
Egyptian Myth
Empire
German Philosophy
Literary Theory
Poststructualism


Bad
Hegel
Marx

Seriously, both of the two above were written by Peter Singer. Multiple Hegel scholars has remarked that they believe that Singer wrote them out of spite because he hates Hegel and Marx and he wanted to poison the well on their scholarship but writing intentionally wrong and shitty introductions.

Not that user but I would add the Hume one to the bad list. It was not actually an introduction but more of a repacked essay by an academic that quarrels over a particularly narrow part of his philosophy.

It would be cool to make a img where they are listed as good or bad and why.

Can someone explain to me what I would benefit from reading Very Short Introductions?
Is it supposed to be something I read to see if I enjoy it? Or to understand the basis of what it is?

They purport to provide a 100 page summary of a field of study and a bibliography of important works in that field. How you benefit from that is up to you. My hope is that I can use them to expand my breadth of knowledge without committing to full-length textbooks or masses of primary sources.

Thanks anons. More suggestions/warnings welcome.

This would be cool. A flowchart would be interesting as well. I'll probably make one for the books I read, but there's so many of them.

>over 500 titles in the series

better get started lol

Good:
>Aristotle
>author is a Professor of Ancient Philosophy, edited a complete collection of Aristotle's works

>Classics
>edited by two respected experienced classics scholars, one of which described as "Britain's best-known classicist"

>German Philosophy
>author respected by other German philosophers like Frank and Habermas and also is a translator of Schelling and Schleiermacher

Bad:
>Hegel and Mark
>author's only significant work on animal rights

This may be cherry picking but I think there's an easy way to know if the book you're reading will be shit or not.

I got the Spanish civil war one and its just too fucking short.

>Hegel and Marx
>get utilitarian to write them
who greenlit this...

>There are 520 of these

What in the fuck

did u cop the ten gig torrent of audiobooks of those? shit is dank af, some are missing, but it has a hell of a lot of them

>>Hegel and Mark
>>author's only significant work on animal rights

fuck that singer's hegel one is tight af, he should have stuck hegelian shit instead of becoming a vegan kook

youtube.com/watch?v=ceM8GITkKxg

what is marx but the ultimate utilitarian? take all of the output of the economy and give it to each worker according to his need, mill wouldn't even be mad

they are clearly intend for a university level audience, they are way more in depth than a teaching company class on the same subject

Im guessing its gone?

Im sure all of these are in pdf form in one place

it's on myanon and demonoid i'm sure

>demonoid

Holy shit I wonder if I still have an account with that place. Completely forgot about it

collabedit.com/cy2qg

Irony:

1) The Very Short Introductions are known for being slim volumes which perform their series' title with respect to intellectual subjects: philosophy, literature, the arts, science, and politics.
2) The covers of the books look like modern art, with two painterly rectangles of color often being separated by a middle area, or intermediate area of color.
3) There exist over five hundred entries in the series. The series has been carried on for several years and is highly prolific, touching on all areas of intellectual culture and inquiry, per the above.

...

4) There does not exist an entry in the series which discusses the artwork of Mark Rothko.

There's a lot of stuff in the world you dope.

Can I use them to "skip" on philosophers I don't want to get into in depth, let's say Aquinas for exemple.

I imagine if you were never ever going to read them, then sure why not

i did that with the one on the beats and ended up thoroughly enjoying it, the beats are cunts, but the book was good

It's not like spoilers exist for philosophy. You can read these first and then go read the primary source if you're interested. In fact I think that's the whole point.