What is the best American work of literature/philosophy?
>>8223480
>literature
moby dick
>philosophy
n/a
>>8223480
>American
>literature
>>8223507
nice edge
>>8223497
philosophy can include people who migrated to the US like mises or Carnap
>>8223480
>literature
Arguable. Moby-Dick is an obvious choice, along with The Sound and the Fury, Pale Fire, and Gravity's Rainbow; but then there are less popular picks, like The Recognitions, The Public Burning, The Lime Twig, The Tunnel, and Women and Men, which, if you ask me, are all equally deserving of the title.
>philosophy
Even more difficult to answer, mainly because there are so few that exist and even fewer worth mentioning.
>>8223527
>Even more difficult to answer, mainly because there are so few that exist and even fewer worth mentioning.
If you had to pick one, the best, to read, what'd it be? I have to get one for a class.
>>8223559
Yep, pragmatism guys like Rorty and whoever else
You could argue that Thoreau is the most important US philosopher given the impact of Civil Disobedience
>best
is too relative of a term.
pedestrian, in fact.
>>8223497
The Federalist Papers
John Rawls
>>8223480
Typically lauded as among the best of American writing are: the novels of Henry James, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, as well as Norman Mailer, Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy; the poetry of Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost; the works of William James and Charles Pierce are probably among the more well respected of American philosophers.
>>8223741
oh and Emerson definitely should be on this list as well since he's equal parts literature and philosophy and was extremely influential on the development of distinctly American literature. From him we get Hawthorne, the Alcotts, Thoreau and Melville.
I left out TS Eliot from the poets but he should definitely be in there.
>>8223480
lit, anything by Homer
phil, Critique of Pure Reason
>>8223908
dude at least try
>>8223515
>Carnap
WS Burroughs- Nova Trilogy
>>8223497
fucking Quine you dickhead
The Scarlet Letter
Ulysses
America owns the world.
Had this discussion with a friend a while ago. I chose Bellow's Adventures of Augie March. He chose Mailer's The Executioner's Song. Can anybody tell me what is so great about this book? It's about 1,000 plus pages of what seems to be a capital punishment case? What is so literary significant about it? My friend said it frames the portrait of a decaying American culture perfectly and that I need to read it to understand. Well I'm fucking not, so can somebody who sings its praise condense that shit and convince me to read it, and tell me how much of a pleb I am for passing up "the great American novel"?
Literature: Moby Dick
Philosophy: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Rorty - The Mirror of Nature
James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
Sallis - Being & Logos
y'all filthy continentals forgetting about sallis, make me fuckin sick baka
The best American work of philosophy is the entire literary collection of Ayn Rand.
