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The Reading Room

A Syllabus For Doubting Yourself

Five books on the machinery of your own judgement, in the order I would set them.

a list by Theodore Pike8 books

  1. Thinking, Fast and Slow

    Start here. Read it slowly and argue with chapter four.

    Daniel Kahneman

    1
  2. Influence

    Read second, as a case study in what the first book predicts.

    Robert B. Cialdini, PhD

    2
  3. Meditations

    The pre-modern version of the same project, and in places the better one.

    Marcus Aurelius

    3
  4. Man's Search for Meaning

    Where the argument stops being academic.

    Viktor Emil Frankl

    4
  5. Sapiens

    Included as the seminar cautionary tale. Read it and find the unmarked leaps.

    Yuval Noah Harari

    5
  6. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    Read after the first two and before the argument.

    Thomas S. Kuhn

    6
  7. 7
  8. Godel, Escher, Bach

    Optional, and the students who take it up never regret it.

    Douglas R. Hofstadter

    8