Greetings Veeky Forumserati, it’s that time again. Grab a book, paper, and pen, and let's get a /comfy/ thread going while we talk about something to better us all.
About a week ago, I saw a meme list circulating around for autodidacts, which was both inspiring but also irritating. While the list contained many good books, I felt it was presented in a haphazard way, with poor reading orders and extraneous works that would do a beginner no good without outside help. I promised an user that I would make my own suggestions while maintaining the spirit of the all, which was to establish a core curriculum for autodidacts. I am not interested in circlejerking books; instead, I am interested in providing a concise but reasonably complete intellectual foundation that is accessible to anybody with at least the average high school background. It is my hope that, by completing this list, I would be able to pass on the good word and help passionate and determined autodidacts find a substitute for the liberal arts education they deserve but never received.
I will be posting my own version of the meme list and the accompanied reasoning shortly. Also on the docket are various “Renaissance Men” discussions: where to continue in literature, the humanities, and the sciences after the /autodidact/ core is completed; what type of lifestyle changes ought to be made for the pursuit of learning; how do artistic and practical skills fit into /autodidact/ general; do we have the resources to a build a community for this purpose, complete with compiling resources on Google Drive, fostering discussion on Discord, etc. Once again, I wish to thank all of the encouraging and productive posts from the last thread, and I hope we can continue the spirit of camaraderie here again.
Pic-Related: the flags of the Baltic nations, minus the 9gag watermark (thanks user!)
>The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction How to Read a Book – Mortimer Adler The Art of Fiction – David Lodge
>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning Creative & Critical Thinking – W. Edgar Moore Thinking, Fast & Slow – Daniel Kahneman The New Oxford Guide to Writing – Thomas Kane A Mind for Numbers – Barbara Oakley
>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum The Trivium – Sister Miriam Joseph Pre-Calculus – Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager Atlas of World History – Patrick O’Brien Western Philosophy: An Anthology – John Cottingham
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Total: 10 books covering a vast amount of foundational topics. You should be ready to tackle any sort of literature, philosophy, social science, science, etc., with relative ease once you've finished this list. Liberal arts in a nutshell.
Xavier Gomez
>The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction
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>How to Read a Book - Mortimer Adler Your autodidact journey needs to start somewhere, and since you’re going to be doing a lot of reading, you might as well start here. You'll learn to skim, analyze, and compare all different kinds of texts while squashing bad reading habits and improving concentration. I recommend that you do whatever it takes to thoroughly digest this book, even if it means working up to spending 30 minutes per day reading and practicing annotating while reading. Once you've finished the book and put its advice into practice, you've learned how to effectively read non-fiction, both in analyzing single books and synoptical comparisons between books.
>The Art of Fiction - David Lodge This is a good place to start before you start reading fiction seriously, so you learn to appreciate the basic language of literature and point them out during your autodidact journey. It provides examples of literary devices and analyzes why they are effective by exposing you to snippets from relevant literature. Combined with “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler, this book will enhance any dilettante’s reading skills and make them well-equipped to tackle literature on their own. Anthology-style books are a theme of this book list, since they serve as eclectic sources of exemplars, which are both effective for teaching and for future reference.
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Kayden Edwards
>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning
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>Creative & Critical Thinking - W. Edgar Moore Most critical thinking textbooks are mass-produced garbage designed not to sharpen the mind but to dull it. As an old-fashioned and comprehensive account of the various methods of thinking, this book is not one of them. It takes a general approach to thinking, taking from history, philosophy, psychology, logic, and some mathematics in order to reframe common problems and make them easier to solve while avoiding typical pitfalls. Unfortunately, this is one of the two books on this list that are hard to find online, so you may need to visit a university library or buy a used copy, or perhaps check out The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley as a substitute. For convenience, I’ve uploaded some sample excerpts and table of contents to inform your decision: dropbox.com/sh/nzrzylohf6vg1ml/AABbd5ie1Rp3d4SYmGH8nFLDa?dl=0
>Thinking, Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman This book is a continuation of the “cognitive psychology” behind critical thinking, which forces you to ask what you are doing when you are thinking. The brain comes equipped with various “heuristics”, or shortcuts in thinking that were not evolutionarily designed for the modern world. As you might imagine, this leads us to make poor decisions when we’re not aware of how make decisions. Absorbing this book thoroughly would be enormously helpful to cultivating the sort of self-awareness that makes us better thinkers.
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to be continued (part 1)
Benjamin Clark
>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning
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>The New Oxford Guide to Writing - Thomas Kane To write is to think, which makes it crucial that we improve our writing skills, especially when we need to communicate our newfound understanding. Aided by countless excerpts of cherished writing, Kane stacks this book to the hilt with a vast amount of practical, thoughtful, yet incisive information that allows individuals to see the multitude of possibilities available, while still leaving the reader with the versatility to focus and employ their own style in their writing repertoire. Just like “The Art of Fiction” by David Lodge, this is an anthology, which makes it valuable as a reference long after it has been read.
>A Mind for Numbers - Barbara Oakley While it is important to adopt the obsessive desire to learn, without having the proper tools, you will struggle with the more challenging material. The subtitle “How to Excel at Math and Science” is a misnomer, because this book is a light, but useful read on how to conquer any academic subject. Drawing from basic concepts from psychology and practical experience, this book gives you tips and tricks to enhance productivity, like chunking, interleaving, space repetition, memory palaces and more. If you already have a well-established system and some grit to boot, then you don’t need to read this book, but many struggling autodidacts will find this an invaluable resource. Barbara Oakley also has a free MOOC called “Learning How to Learn” on Coursera for those interested, which covers the same topics.
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(part 2)
Cooper Gutierrez
>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum
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>Pre-Calculus – Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager Stitz & Zeager decided to write this book after getting irritated with mass-produced textbooks that scammed students with new editions every year without actually preparing them for college. It’s harder than your pre-calculus textbook in high school, so it will require some grit at first, but you will be thankful that you took the time to strengthen your foundations before going further into mathematics or the sciences. If an impressionable autodidact leaves with an understanding of the difference between functions and curves, good quantitative problem-solving skills, and the know-how to tackle advanced applications later on in calculus, then I'm satisfied.
>The Trivium – Sister Miriam Joseph This book covers “the Trivium”, which consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, the foundations of a classical liberal arts education. Consider this the rigorous extension of Creative & Critical Thinking, where you will be immersed into the nitty-gritty of grammar and Aristotelian logic. A word of advice, this book is remarkably dry, but the information and exercises contained will make you a sharper thinker in all of your future endeavors. What makes the trivium appealing is its proposition that there exists a natural chain connecting the nature of reality, the rules of thought, the structure of language, and the art of persuasion. Once you’ve struggled through this book, you’ll grow to appreciate this sentiment. If you chose The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley instead, consider only doing the grammar section. There is some overlap with The Art of Fiction by David Lodge, but I don’t think it is significant.
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to be continued (part 1)
Cameron Murphy
>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum
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>Atlas of World History – Patrick O’ Brien This was one of my favorite books to read while growing up, and it served me well for acing my AP history classes in high school. “Atlas of World History” by Patrick O’Brien is a solid textbook on world history, from prehistory to close to the modern day, around the 1990s. Lots of informative graphs, expositions, etc., lots of coverage about economics and culture, and no region of the world goes untouched. It's a solid introduction to somebody who wants to figure out a general sense of "what happened". I had the Philip’s version, but I think any publisher will do.
>Western Philosophy: An Anthology - John Cottingham I don’t think there is a better compiled anthology out there with such well-chosen selections. This is a textbook containing primarily edited, condensed, and referenced pieces of philosophy, organized by category and chronological order. Each piece of philosophy is prefaced with context and stakes, and the end of every major section has several philosophical prompts that allow you to strengthen your understanding and practice philosophical writing. While as an anthology, it does not do proper justice to any particular philosopher, it is very good at introducing one to the basic questions of philosophy in general and how the great thinkers of history approached them. Unfortunately, this book is hard to find online, so if you’re looking for an alternative introduction, I recommend A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. I have personally gotten a lot of mileage out of this book, so I taken the liberty to upload a table of contents to better inform your decision: dropbox.com/sh/1urouba1pfk8ujk/AAChqwjMWAE2kcXP4KWJjSg5a?dl=0
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(part 2)
Lucas Lopez
Here are some additional pursuits you can take after finishing the autodidact core curriculum:
>OPTIONAL: Starting Arts The Story of Art - E.H. Gombrich Meaning in the Visual Arts - Erwin Panofsky Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards ABCs of Reading - Ezra Pound Music In Theory And Practice - Bruce Benward
>OPTIONAL: Starting Social Skills Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler What Every BODY Is Saying - Joe Navarro The Games People Play - Eric Berne No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert Glover The UCBC Improvisation Manual - Matt Bessmer
>OPTIONAL: Starting Science Fundamentals of Physics - David Halliday Principles of Modern Chemistry: D. W. Oxtoby et al. Campbell Biology - Various Authors Learning Statistics with R - Daniel Navarro
>OPTIONAL: Starting Chemistry Organic Chemistry - Jonathan Clayden et al. Physical Chemistry - D. A. McQuarrie & J. D. Simon Inorganic Chemistry - G. L. Miessler Materials Science and Engineering - William Callister
>OPTIONAL: Starting Molecular Biology The Machinery of Life - David Goodsell Essential Cell Biology - David Alberts et al. Principles of Biochemistry - A. L. Lehninger et al. Neuroscience - Dale Purves et al.
>OPTIONAL: Starting Law Philosophy of Law - Kaufmann, Arthur Introduction to Legal Thought - Engisch, Karl Introduction to Philosophy of Law and to the Theory of Contemporary Law - Kaufmann, Arthur Methodology of the Science of Law, Larenz, Karl The Concept of Law, Hart, H.L.A.
>OPTIONAL: Full Mathematics Track OPTIONAL: Full Mathematics Track
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Here's a list to learning advanced mathematics, starting from around high school. This list is comprehensive, but the books don’t have to be done in order if you are looking for specific goals. For example, if you want to do real analysis, you could probably just do Knisley > Velleman > Apostol (optional) > Tao. But if you want to be systematic, I think this is the way to do it by mirroring a typical math curriculum.
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>0. Khan Academy This is not where you start. This is where you go if you're stuck. Where you go if you're struggling due to poor high school education, a lack of concentration skills, mathematical immaturity, or lapse of grit. Should be considered training wheels and fully abandoned somewhere within category 1, maybe category 2.
>1. Foundations of University Mathematics Pre-Calculus - Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager Calculus: A Modern Approach - Jeff Knisley & Kevin Shirley The Art and Craft of Problem Solving - Paul Zeitz
>2. Introduction to University Mathematics Linear Algebra and Its Applications - David C. Lay Calculus of Several Variables - Serge Lang Differential Equations - Shepley Ross
>3. Introduction to Proofing and Survey of Higher-level Mathematics How to Think Like a Mathematician - Kevin Houston How to Prove It - D. J. Velleman Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning - A.D. Aleksandrov, A.N. Kolmogorov, & M.A. Lavrent'ev
>4. Bringing It All Together: The First Test of Pure Mathematics Calculus Vol. I & II - T. M. Apostol Principles of Topology - Fred H. Croom Analysis I & II - Terence Tao
>5. Further Reading in Pure Mathematics: Introductions Linear Algebra - K. M. Hoffman & Ray Kunze A Book of Abstract Algebra - C. C. Pinter An Introduction to Formal Logic - Peter Smith Concrete Mathematics - R. L. Graham, D. E. Knuth, & Oren Patashnik Introduction to Graph Theory - R. J. Trudeau Introduction to Probability - D. P. Bertsekas & J. N. Tsitsiklis Applied Partial Differential Equations - J. D. Logan Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos - S. H. Strogatz Foundations of Applied Mathematics - M. D. Greenberg
Forgot to mention that Creative & Critical Thinking can be replaced by The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley and that Western Philosophy: An Anthology can be replaced by A New History of Philosophy by Anthony Kenny.
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Well, that's all I have for now. Quick reminder about the other topics for discussion: >on the docket are various “Renaissance Men” discussions: where to continue in literature, the humanities, and the sciences after the /autodidact/ core is completed; what type of lifestyle changes ought to be made for the pursuit of learning; how do artistic and practical skills fit into /autodidact/ general; do we have the resources to a build a community for this purpose, complete with compiling resources on Google Drive, fostering discussion on Discord, etc. Happy learning!
