(Part 2) Best epistemology books according to redditors
We found 234 Reddit comments discussing the best epistemology books. We ranked the 128 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Charles Pigden and Brian Keeley started to write about the philosophy of conspiracy theories in the nineties.
Charles Pidgen mentions here (in a conspiracy-like tone) that it is suspicious that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has omitted their work on the topic, as well as the works of other names such as Coady, Dentith, Hagen, Basham, Clarke and Stokes.
The only name that had a link there was Dentith's, because he just wrote a book called The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories. Wherein I found.. what appears to be his full name... : Matthew Richard Xavier Xander Xanthias Xerxes Xanatos X Dracos Hieronymus Oliphant Ransome Dentith
Here are a bunch of resources to get you going:
Philosophy for Beginners is a free introductory lecture series from Oxford University.
The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russel.
Check out podcasts. Philosophy bites is a good one for beginners. Here's one on epistemology: Jennifer Nagel on Intuitions about Knowledge
What is This Thing Called Knowledge? is a good introduction to episteology.
Some classic that are accessable for a beginner:
And here's a free lecture course on epistemology.
So most of the arguments have been either hypothetical situations or concerns about the arguments you made about tyrannical governments. I agree with some other posters that you're a bit excessively concerned about government overreach - laws (and interpretations thereof) change constantly, and not necessarily always for the slightly worse. But I'm mainly going to talk about political philosophy here, so hopefully this is different from the responses you've gotten so far.
What is the political philosophical argument for free speech? There are two very distinct reasons why we might like free speech, but people often get them confused. The first is an ethical reason: we think it's right that people get a say in laws which they are subject to. This is fairly uncontroversial. The second is practical: free speech will improve the knowledgeability of the voting public and therefore improve the quality of decisions voters make. This last point is only made by proponents of a specific type of democracy called deliberative democracy.
One of the simplest political philosophical arguments against unlimited free speech is to simply ask whether unlimited free speech actually does make the voting public more knowledgable or not. Because remember, it's a practical and empirical claim, not an ethical one. So while we all want to let people have a say in the laws they're subject to, letting everyone have a say in the laws they're subject to might make those laws worse, or better sometimes and worse other times. We have to investigate the world using the tools available to political scientists and political philosophers to determine what the practical consequences of unlimited free speech actually are.
As it happens, the actual practical usefulness of unlimited public debate is not uncontroversial among political philosophers. Unfortunately I haven't been a student in quite a while so I don't have journal access and I don't remember the contents of these papers super well, but two texts I would strongly recommend reading if you can find copies are I M Young's Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy and Lynn M Sanders Against Deliberation.
I'm sorry I can't do more than throw links at you, but I'm really not confident enough in my memory of these texts to paraphrase them for you. So instead I'd like to ask a hypothetical question based on the arguements made in these (and other) papers: what if unlimited free speech leads to less informed and therefore inferior decisions by the voting public? We might then want to find ways to partially restrict free speech such that deliberative spaces reliably contribute to - rather than detract from - voter education and rationality.
Now, you might argue that that represents a restriction of freedom, but I would counter by saying a) more informed voters will improve the lives of citizens of a democracy, even those who find their views curtailed and b) I am not advocating any restrictions on voting itself, only on the public expression of certain views which only serve to misinform. We still have a democracy if everyone can vote and most views can be expressed, we just don't have a dogmatic adherence to deliberative democracy. At the very least, even if you prefer unlimited free speech to optimal voting outcomes, you would have to agree that pursuit of optimal voting outcomes is a decent argument in favour of restrictions on free speech.
Edit: I've just remembered that Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice is an interesting book that deals with these themes as well, if anyone is interested enough to buy a book about this stuff.
Contemporary Debates in Epistemology may be a good starting point for you.
Bro, I is new to tha philosophy game too. Fucking get on wikipedia, and just keep clicking links till your like "DAMN, THIS GUY SPEAKS TRUUUTH". Then buy his fucking books man. Books are the ONE.
Also this is fucking great as an introduction: http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Does-All-Mean-Introduction/dp/0195174372/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382663106&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=tomas+nagel+what+does+it+all+mean
Mental health services are supposed to help. But sometimes psychiatric professionals cause damage by denting the credibility of individuals, a legacy which can last a lifetime. This is a particular problem for women who have experienced trauma, and get placed into what many see as the dustbin diagnosis of 'Borderline Personality Disorder'. The relatively new notion of 'Epistemic Injustice' may help us understand why.
Epistemic Injustice, a concept developed by philosopher Miranda Fricker, is when wrong is done to someone in their capacity as a knower. A subtype - Testimonial Injustice - refers to how the levels of credibility we give one another can be inflated or deflated owing to prejudices about groups which swirl in the social atmosphere. These prejudices can be overt and pre-emptive, for example excluding patients from meetings where their care is being discussed, thus cementing the skewed power dynamic between professional and patient. Or they may be more subtle. For example, if a patient discloses a piece of their personal history as potentially significant, a clinician may appear empathic but offer no follow-up question, or send out cues like picking up notes to block further conversation. Some of these responses are to do with the ever increasing lack of time in the NHS for meaningful connection. But most are to do with unconscious negative prejudices about particular groups.
No group in mental health is subject to as much prejudice as those given a diagnosis of 'Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder' or 'Borderline Personality Disorder' (BPD). 'BPD' is storied as a syndrome characterised by experiences such as fear of abandonment, extreme mood lability, an unstable sense of self, and self-harm. Women - for it is 75% women - with this diagnosis are labelled as 'manipulative' and 'attention seeking'. This kind of language use, which would be seen as pejorative elsewhere, situates professionals as knowing something about the complicated nature of personality disturbance attributed to such women; it boosts membership of the in-group 'professional'. But these hermeneutical claims just do not fit the evidence. 'BPD' is so dubious a category scientifically that it was almost dumped from the latest version of the biggest international diagnostic bible. It clusters women who dissent, who disobey, who resist together, as if these reactions were signs of pathology rather than spirit against the odds.
Yet 'BPD' as a category remains, serving as a kind of shorthand between professionals that there is something difficult about someone, that this particular patient might produce strong feelings like rage or desire in the clinician, that a distance needs to be kept. Staff who like women with this diagnosis are seen as procuring 'splitting' between team members, and are forced themselves to toe the line of being equally distant to show professional competence. A&E staff, reading this label in notes, take suicide attempts less seriously. GP receptionists act with hostility, the prejudice against women with 'BPD' being that they are time-wasting yet again for attention, undeserving somehow. These reactions imply connecting with women with this diagnosis is what Fricker calls an 'ethically bad affective investment'. These deny women the kind of relationships that could help heal. This discursive disenfranchisement kills.
Testimonial Injustice works subtly but powerfully here. Abuse histories are acknowledged on the surface, but the pathologisation of understandable emotional sequelae, and a treatment focus on controlling emotions in the present, rather than foregrounding the testimony of survivors, reinforces the abuser's attacks on survivors' epistemic subjectivity ('noone will believe you', 'it's your fault for seducing me'). Category inclusion undermines the fundamental right to speak and be heard.
These credibility slurs are experienced viscerally by survivors. Many people report, for example, a sudden shift to kindness, understanding and empathy after a change of diagnosis from 'BPD' to 'Bipolar Affective Disorders'. Self-harm and suicide attempts are suddenly reacted to with compassion and care. By contrast, those who cannot get their diagnosis changed feel branded for life.
We must campaign to get rid of the diagnosis of 'BPD'. But we must not simply create a new label - Chronic PTSD - for the same prejudices will slide on to it. To really change the negative stereotypes, we need a new language, a new social understanding of why and how people end up in deep distress, and how contact with psychiatric services can damage.
Fricker offers a pertinent example. In the 1960s, society did not recognise sexual harassment, so the behaviour of harassers was typically tolerated or even excused. As a result, women were victimised because the wider social context did not label such behaviours as sexual harassment. Indeed such women were seen as troublemakers until they had a chance to meet together, to forge a new language that would come to give a discursive platform for other women to speak from.
We need a similar consciousness-raising, language-generating process in mental health. One where professionals step back from imposing understanding, imposing labelling, and wait to be led by frameworks that develop from survivors.
We need, in doing this, to acknowledge the historical wrongs done to survivors in the mental health system, wrongs that continue today. We need to do this in acknowledgment that professionals have often squashed survivor initiatives into a shape services recognise, and further pathologised those who object. We need to do this, urgently, ethically, to redress the silencing of survivors, a testimonial injustice the psychiatric professions have inadvertantly colluded with.
If you would like to share your experiences or opinion, please tweet using the hashtag #TraumaNotPD
Wish I had time to engage properly today but I don't. Here's some well regarded arguments for realism you can look into if you haven't already.
Enoch's Taking Morality Seriously Shafer-Landau's [Moral Realism: a Defense] (https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-Defence-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0199280207/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNVDTNHGJW3FHXNR8821), Oddie's Value, Reality and Desire, Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism, Parfit's On What Matters Wedgwood's The Nature of Normativity, Cuneo's The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism.
And here's some free papers you can read (too lazy to name them all, sorry):
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Boyd5/publication/240034001_How_to_Be_a_Moral_Realist/links/556f6f4308aec226830aab09/How-to-Be-a-Moral-Realist.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/4116101/Why_Im_an_Objectivist_about_Ethics_And_Why_You_Are_Too_
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=433000088031098030104101075089022124028072042008084011092124087113084016108098084005098003032035018116033080110110127020085084106080012039033080068103113067015099089032030091083096096084064089109093065079071016028099008078093021125125068072101086002&EXT=pdf
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=207103102008006126082026003080087077015002001000090086121025066112086090029103080091030096049125038001052020081100031102121000046002046043009065006112075102115099049080048111067091106094117103109111097113120126103124079110093018090122114122112110007&EXT=pdf
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~umer/teaching/intro181/readings/shafer-Landau2005EthicsAsPhilosophyADefenseOfEthicalNonnaturalism.pdf
http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1007/s11245-016-9443-7?author_access_token=R2EN7zieClp6VWWEo8DyZPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6_LyD8T3yNLLNQUBcKQRpfV5lbirZE36eSIc6PLipzIUjIvQrTe9aO4meFw0oJ_Dp784B0R9TnA9qTFaNLe9oWPQUaroxf3o-BsITKWjp_6Q%3D%3D
http://www.owl232.net/5.htm
Another way to state this concern, in a more meta-philosophical way, would be that philosophers are really interested in figuring out what knowledge is. They want to get the details right and understand what that means.
One could make a K=JTB~GC or something, but that doesn't tell us what is doing the '~GC' work. Furthermore, what does such a view say when you get into the epistemology literature like Linda Zagzebski's "The Inescapability of Gettier Problems"?
A further concern, along these same lines, is that with a K=JTB~GC account, we don't know how to evaluate that position other than criticizing it as ad hoc. Thus, closing off a natural route to something like Timothy Williamson's view that knowledge is prime.
This is all just to say that the reasons for it are somewhat methodological and are concerned with the answer being unsatisfying given the goals of epistemology, and it (kinda) closes off new theories of knowledge that reject the JTB model.
OP, nobody should try to change your view because you're right. You're identifying a practice by the media that some media observers/experts have for years been calling "The View from Nowhere" (a story takes no position and provides no context but instead it just says "one the one hand, this person said this, and on the other hand this person said this"). It's basically reporting like a stenographer.
This idea reveals the problem, unrecognized by many people, with our longtime insistence on having "objective" media.
Here's an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_from_nowhere
Here's the book where the concept originated: https://www.amazon.com/View-Nowhere-Thomas-Nagel/dp/0195056442
The subject of the theory of knowledge is called Epistemology. There is plenty of material available on the subject. Here is the text that we read in my course on the subject. It may be a bit much for a nine year old, but most of the arguments presented are fairly simple and should give you a good place to start discussions. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470672099/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687762&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1405107391&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=11SPNPJFC3S32NF5V29Q
Yes. Trust me when I say that you'll need second literature if you are willing to understand one line of, for instance, the Critique of Pure Reason. There are good introductory books on Kant out there that can help you.
If you know almost nothing about his philosophy, I recommend Scruton's or Wood's books that approach his whole philosophy without any details, making it accessible. A good start. At the same time you could give the Prefaces A and B, and the Introduction of the first Critique a try.
For what I call "intermediary literature", there is Gardner's "GuideBook", and having "A Kant Dictionary" by your side would help a lot.
Some might recommend Allison's defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, I think it is great, started to read it some weeks ago, but as well as Strawson's The Bounds of Sense or Heidegger's Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics, it is way advanced.
The most important thing is that you (or any other who is reading this and is also interested in Kant) are motivated, that you don't quit when read at the first time and understand barely nothing. With effort and persistence it gets better.
p.s.: I do not intend to advertise for Amazon, you can read the synopses and reviews and buy somewhere else.
Clayton Littlejohn, in his Justification and the Truth-Connection, takes the idea that truth-guaranteeing justification is required for knowledge and develops it non-skeptically.
The picture that comes out is a kind of knowledge-first epistemology (Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits also owes a great debt to Zagzebski).
The author says that
>In order for the level of justification for a belief [to be knowledge] to be non-arbitrary, it is clear that one should be aware of all of the relevant pieces of information
Williamson and Littlejohn would say the only thing you need to be aware of to guarantee the truth of p is p. They argue that "being aware of p" is just another way of saying "knowing that p". So whether you're justified in believing p is determined by whether you are aware that p, which is determined by whether or not you know p.
Similarly, the only evidence you need to have a guarantee of the truth of p is p. If your evidence is what you know (Williamson believes this. Littlejohn's account is more complicated), then we get: Whether you're justified in believing p is determined by what your evidence is, which is determined by what you know.
What this points to, I would say, is that saving JTB by going for SJT doesn't do much saving: Strong justification just is knowledge.
I would suggest next to read Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume. It is not often suggested on this subreddit but it is a great philosophy book that really for the first time in western history argued for a scientific skeptical worldview that demanded provable evidence for every claim. I don't agree with Hume on every point but i think his viewpoint is one to understand and argue with since in my view he is the most substantial philosopher of the modern era. it is kinda difficult reading though because of his 1700s writing style.
This book (or any book published by Routledge) gives a great into on the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0415891752/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452488236&sr=1-5&keywords=philosophy+of+mind
Metaphysics:
Conee and Sider's Riddles of Existence is a good place to start, I think.
You might also be interested in epistemology, given your enjoyment of the Matrix. Some epistemologists argue that we cannot know that we aren't in matrix-type scenarios.
Check out Pritchard's What is this Thing Called Knowledge? for a very accessible intro.
The big topics in metaphysics in the past ten years or so have been meta-ontology, metametaphysics, and grounding. You can introduce yourself via these Stanford Encyclopedia entries.
Ontological Commitment
Metaphysical Grounding
Here are some important books and collections.
Metametaphysics edited by David Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman
Writing the Book of the World by Theodore Sider
Quantifier Variance and Realism by Eli Hirsch
Metaphysical Grounding edited by Fabrice Correia and Benjamin Schneider
Yes. Counterfactual analyses of causation are pretty popular. David Lewis rehabilitated them, and LA Paul and Ned Hall have done a lot of work sympathetic to counterfactual analyses. See their Causation: a user's guide.
Most of the books for particular areas are going to require a little background knowledge, unless the book is explicitly titled "into to ____," or something like that. You might be better off starting with one of the general introductions, the Blackburn one is good Nagel has a pretty good intro that's not listed.
There are two ways of answering this question, and most arguments on this issue tend to be arguments between these two responses. The kind of problem that I'm talking about is the subject of Thomas Nagel's book The View From Nowhere, which I highly recommend. I'm going to quote the first paragraph now:
>This book is about a single problem: how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world, the person and his viewpoint included. It is a problem that faces every creature with the impulse and the capacity to transcend its particular point of view and to conceive of the world as a whole.
The question of the (un)importance or (in)significance of humans within the universe stems from our feeling of wonder when presented with unfathomably huge things. It frequently invoked when someone wants to convey a message about the fragility or insignificance of humanity or the earth - Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech is a famous example. This feeling is often called the sublime, although that word has a lot of philosophical baggage. The problem emerges when we contrast our felt importance with our (relative) physical minuteness. Truly understanding our physical insignificance on astronomical scales, it is often said, would cause some sort of psychological breakdown or enlightenment experience.
The two ways of responding to this question tend to be associated with the two views that Nagel was talking about. Which one wins out depends on the individual thinker's philosophical style. Proponents of the "perspective of a particular person" tend to say that humans are important because, well, humans are important. (Another way of putting it is "I am important, because I am important") This is a tautology - but this does not mean that it is wrong, as we shall see. Proponents of the "view from nowhere" (the "objective view") tend to come up with arguments similar to the one you mentioned, based on analyses of physical size or other measurable quantities (like gravitational influence).
These two responses stem from the nature of the word "important". When we say that something is important, we mean that it influences some implied phenomenon to a large extent. Such a phenomenon could be the political stability of a country, or the success of a financial venture, or the answer to a question. For instance, the statement "bees are important" is true when talking about food supplies or biodiversity, but false when talking about what makes for an enjoyable film.
The question arises, then, what is the meaning of "important" when used in a general sense? The two responses I spoke of earlier differ in their answer to this question. For proponents of the perspective of the particular person, something is important in general if its existence and/or state has a large role in determining the state of one's life. (A common variant on this view treats the determining factor as perspectives in general, which is taken to mean humanity or "life"). Obviously - tautologically, in fact - humanity is important on these terms. For proponents of the "view from nowhere", however, what makes something important in general is the magnitude of its influence on existence in general - that is, its role in determining the state of the universe. Gravitational relations (for example) are very important here, as are other fundamental forces or phenomena that affect them to a large extent. However, what is not important here is the existence of a few monkeys on an insignificant rock orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable galaxy.
(There is, of course, a third answer - to take the "view from nowhere", but to treat humanity as fundamental in determining the nature of the universe as a whole. This response is common in religious thought, but is also found in some secular formulations of the anthropic principle. Humanity's influence here is teleological - the universe is understood to be as it is in order to make humanity possible. Thus, if humanity did not exist, neither would the universe.)
Essential Philosophy
Nothing and Everyting: how to stop fearing nihilism and embrace the voice, by Val N. Tine.
https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Everything-fearing-nihilism-embrace-ebook/dp/B06VVJ2629
Maybe this one? https://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Beginners-Guide-Guides-ebook/dp/B00L1EP1RG
Yeah, I'm thinking about either adding in philosophical works like Hume and Kant, or adding in more in the Middle Ages section. I'm torn because the authors you cite heavily influenced western thought, while I'm also sensitive to being accused of being too western.
Also, Wealth of Nations is so long. I think I can add in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. I'll add in Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy too.
Thanks for the comments! I think your recommendations hit me at just the right time.
EDIT: I think I'll add in Two Treatises too and probably Rousseau's The Social Contract. Should I add The Federalist Papers?
Look, rather than trade barbs, here's links to two of my books: https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Conspiracy-Theories-M-Dentith/dp/1349472883 and https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/taking_conspiracy_theories_seriously/3-156-e9d0fdf3-56ea-4798-a05d-b239d42dd74b. Oh, and my PhD thesis: https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/17107/whole.pdf
So, yes, I have a PhD thesis on this topic. And you might want to look slightly further into deHaven-Smith: he has numerous peer-reviewed articles on conspiracy theory and a book, "Conspiracy Theory in America," Texas University Press. You are slandering him based upon a pretty basic Google search.
<Blind faith is un-Buddhist.
I don't disagree, but I'm an academic. The understanding of Buddhism I have is academic and my arguments are based in issues of history as I understand it.
<I quote scholars and you quote yourself, as if you are an authority. State your name and your credentials then.
This tells me that my arguments alone are insufficient to identify me as an authority to you- really I wouldn't claim to be on this topic. As I said, I study mostly American Buddhism today- no I will not provide my name because I like to preserve some anonymity on the internet. I have a M.A and am doing PhD coursework. The problem that you are having is that you are not taking an academic view of the discussion.
>Your faith is greater than your wisdom
This is an ad-hominem fallacy at its best. I'm not Buddhist at all. I have no faith because I study the topic. I respect the tradition but I certainly don't worship in it. This is a discussion about historical understanding- something that you have garnered from questionable scholars. Here is a brief reading list of real scholars you can take and read to see what actual authorities in the field are saying.
Don Lopez: Elaborations on Emptiness
Don Lopez: The Heart Sutra Explained this is a series of translated commentaries on the Heart Sutra. Though it uses the long version, which is problematic.
J.L Austin: How to Do Things With Words This will tell you a lot about the linguistic empiricists and how words function in religious settings.
If you want to read the theory that I do you might also read
Alfred North Whitehead: Process and Reality
Also:Whithead's Symbolism: It's meaning and Effect
And
Bruce Lincoln's Authority
For Buddhist histories that are not popularist:
Peter N. Gregory: Tsung-Mi and the Sinification of Buddhism
Gimello's Paths to Liberation
or his Studies in Ch'an and Hua-yen
For modern philosophical takes on Buddhism Nancy Frankenberry's Religion and Radical Empiricism though to understand her you need a wider knowledge base than you probably have. Here, let me suggest something for you to read first:
James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
James: The Will to Believe
James: Pragmatism
Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Rorty: Consequences of Pragmatism
This one is particularly important for you:
Rorty: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth
You want to know about the origins of Buddhism? How about Vajrayana?
Snellgrove: Indo-Tibetan Buddhism
Pollock (a great book): The Language of the Gods in the World of Men
For a modern take: Wedemeyer: Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism
Davidson: Indian Esoteric Buddhism
Bhattacharyya: An Introduction to Buddhist Esoterism These last few present conflicting views on the nature of Tantrism, particularly the last one that might fit your "fundamentalist" category.
TO understand American Buddhism better:
Merton: Zen and the Birds of Appetite
Eck: A New Religious America
Tweed (this is one of my favorite books ever) The American Encounter with Buddhism 1844-1912
Neusner (ed) World Religions in America
on individuals: Sterling: Zen Pioneer
Hotz: Holding the Lotus to the Rock Sokei-an was a traditionalist and a near mirror of Thich Nhat Hanh, yet his teachings never took off.
Since you Love Thich Nhat Hanh: Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962-1966 and the companion to that, Merton's journals
Another of Hanh's Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire This is before he was popular and so is much more interesting than some of his later works.
Also Mcmahan: The Making of Buddhist Modernism
I see this as being two potentially quite separate issues. The first is simple exposure - please be acquainted some very important contemporary philosophical thinkers:
Slavoj Zizek:
Richard Rorty:
Bernard Stiegler:
The other issue you raise with your definition of the word "decent" is that most philosophers have relied on the trickle down effect in order to impact on societal thinking, and the trickle down effect takes time. A lot of philosophers were influential on "tomorrow's" thinking, ie. people didn't realise how important their work was during their lifetime.
What I can tell you is that the works of the three thinkers above are very robust and very relevant to today's thinking.
Use a good translation: http://www.amazon.com/Critique-Reason-Cambridge-Edition-Immanuel/dp/0521657296
Try out Allison (as well as Guyer's) commentaries.
Also check out a good Kantian dictionary: http://www.amazon.com/Kant-Dictionary-Blackwell-Philosopher-Dictionaries/dp/0631175350 (since much of his conceptual scheme consists of neologisms).
Lastly, you should check out Strawson's essay' The Bounds of Sense.' http://www.amazon.com/The-Bounds-Sense-Critique-Reason/dp/0415040302. It's sort of a modern 'take' on Kantian themes (not an exegesis of Kant, but a modernization of some of the arguments. It actually sheds some light on Kant's project).
And good luck, try not to be discouraged. I've had two graduate seminars on Kant and they've both been difficult. But, it's not just nonsense. There is some agreement about the structure (and importance) of many of the arguments in the critique and they're worth grappling with, even if you're dealing with reconstructions of the arguments from commentaries.
If you feel like reading the preface Yirmiyahu Yovel has a good introduction based off it: Hegel's Preface to the "Phenomenology of Spirit". It is based off the 'introduction to Hegel' course he taught for more than twenty years.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) gets taught very rarely in this department. The department recognizes the need to have a course on Kant's CPR (or, alternatively, on Kant's shorter version of the CPR, his "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics"), but the Maryland philosophy department (a) doesn't have many faculty who work on the history of philosophy, and (b) those faculty who do work in the history of philosophy either do work on ancient philosophy (Rachel Singpurwalla, Quinn Harr, Kelsey Gipe) or on Spinoza and other historical Jewish philosophers (Charles Manekin).
Sam Kerstein of course does work on historical Kant, but Sam's focus and interests in Kant is fairly exclusively directed towards Kant's moral philosophy. This is why Sam teaches a 400-level class on Kant's Groundwork every other year or so.
The upshot is that I am the first person to teach a course on Kant's CPR at this department in many years (6+). I'll probably teach the course again either next school year or, if not next year, then the following year. Unfortunately, that sounds like it might be too late for you (from what you've said, it sounds like you graduate this year).
Fortunately, I would argue that it is better for you to have taken a class on Kant's Groundwork before you graduate than Kant's CPR. Kant's ethics is more important to contemporary philosophy than his epistemology and metaphysics. That being said, I do hope you decide to give the CPR a read on your own time someday or at least read a secondary source on Kant that covers the important content from the CPR in detail.
If you decide to read Kant's CPR on your own, let me recommend some resources. First, I'd suggest you watch the following two videos about Hume and the following three videos on Kant as background (although, unfortunately there isn't a video connecting Kant to Hume through how Kant's CPR is in large part a response to Hume's skepticism):
You might want to also read one general secondary source on Kant's whole philosophical system before the CPR. Here are a few suggestions to pick one from - all accessible to a upper-level undergraduate student or graduate student. I am not sure which one would be best to recommend:
There are also several specific secondary sources aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that specifically cover Kant's CPR. One of these might be useful to have besides you as you read the CPR for those times you get lost:
I think it's not the best for this particular goal. The section "general introductions" contains a lot of books that are mostly appetizers. If you have already decided to study systematically to build a solid foundation you can downright skip these.
All the books of the other sections are either classics in their own right (therefore, you will study the meat of them in your study of the history of philosophy, and you will do so in the context of what they were replying to, what kind of assumptions they made etc.) or famous but not essential books that have been chosen according to the tastes of the author of the list (therefore you don't need them for foundations; you can always choose to include them in your list if you decide they are valuable in their own right).
So I say skip all the list for now. A much better and much faster way would be to read Anthony Kenny's history of philosophy. If you work through it making sure you understand all the arguments, your focus, thinking, and comprehension skills will already be at another level.
After that, you can start grappling with the Critique of pure reason. Be warned that most of the "introductions", "guides", "explanations" and "companions" to the CPR are actually investigations of obscure points that manage to be harder to read than the actual CPR. The best two books that I found that are actually introductory guides to CPR are this and this.
Despite the titles, they are not "Kant for dummies". They are actually dense expositions which require concentration, familiarity with terms used in philosophy, and knowledge of what came before Kant (both offer a quick overview, but if you don't already know what it's talking about it will just leave you dizzy). Of course, if you have already done step 1, this will be a breeze for you.
I suggest you read both before opening the real CPR, but if you only have patience/time for one: Rosenberg is more one-sided, more focused on certain aspects, and somewhat less clear on some points, but he will really get you excited on what the CPR can mean - it will become a great adventure that could possibly transform your whole understanding of yourself and the universe. Gardner is less exciting, but he is so clear, so exhaustive in predicting what kind of doubt can arise for the reader and in presenting the different interpretations, that it is scary.
You should check out Terence Cuneo's The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism. Cuneo's argument is basically that there's no good case against the existence of ethical norms which doesn't apply equally to epistemic norms--the often unspoken rules we use to evaluate whether or not our beliefs are justified.
The idea that beliefs can only properly be supported by certain specific kinds of (presumably empirical) evidence is one example of an epistemic norm. The scientific method may not be inherently normative, but the position that it's the best way to find out what's really true about the universe is another story.
I think those handbooks/companions are better suited for people who are already familiar with some philosophy, or are taking a class where they can get some guidance. For someone who is completely new to philosophy and learning on his own, I think introductory textbook would be better.
As others have mentioned, your interest in AI might lead to you questions in the philosophy of mind, for which this should be an accessible introduction:
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0415891752/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=1Z3SDFGK8PSP68WF156V