James Aitchison

Philosophy and Ideas

Book Notes

The blog includes notes on books I have found particularly valuable. I include for each book a summary paragraph, the main arguments in around a dozen bullet points, my comments, some links, and extracts from the text.

Favourite Books

What are my favourite books? This is the current list of the books I am most fond of, have found most illuminating and most admire for their ideas and their writing:  

  1. Steven Pinker. The Better Angels of our Nature.
  2. Sean Carroll.  The Big Picture.
  3. Joshua Greene.  Moral Tribes.
  4. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radel and Peter Singer.  The Point of View of the Universe.
  5. Anil Seth.  Being You.
  6. Joseph Henrich.  The Secret of Our Success.
  7. David Deutsch.  The Beginning of Infinity.
  8. William MacAskill. What We Owe The Future.
  9. Jonathan Haidt.  The Righteous Mind.
  10. Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow
  11. David Edmonds. Parfit
  12. Toby Ord.  The Precipice.
  13. Stephen Finlay. Confusion of Tongues
  14. Jared Diamond.  Guns, Germs and Steel.
  15. Richard Layard.  Happiness: Lessons From A New Science.
  16. Bertrand Russell. Autobiography
  17. Daniel Dennett:  From Bacteria to Bach and Back
  18. Alistair Norcross. Morality By Degrees
  19. Steve Stuart Williams: The Ape That Understood The Universe
  20. Sam Harris: The Moral Landscape

List of Book Notes by First Name of Author

These are the book notes included on the blog by alphabetical order of author’s first name.