New Books

A few new books that I'm really enjoying or have recently enjoyed:

Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
Descartes' Bones - Russel Shorto
The Best of All Possible Worlds - Steven Nadler
Warranted Christian Belief - Alvin Plantinga

Since college I had written Descartes off as a guy with one pithy phrase ("I think, therefore I am") and an outdated idea ('ghost in the machine'/soul-body complete distinction). But I've recently realized how important Descartes is for modern philosophy, and Descartes' Bones is an excellent history of the man and his philosophy, really well written by New York Times columnist Russel Shorto. Nadler's book is a sequel of sorts to the Descartes book, as it traces his line of thought and the reaction to it through three important philosophers (Malebranche, Liebnitz, Arnauld). I'm a big fan of both of these books, and they are both extremely accessible, historical, fun accounts to read.

I have a few areas of study that I want to try to blog about soon, such as whether God intervenes in life and what that might look like, and whether we actually have distinct, immaterial souls. So I'm going to try to work on that.

Oh, and the Steve Martin book is amazing. Makes me appreciate his stand-up way more than I already did.