Reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations prompted the biggest viewquake I’ve ever experienced, substantially changing my conception of what a properly naturalistic worldview looks like, especially the role of normativity therein. I’m not sure I’d assign it a high probability of provoking a viewquake in others, though, given his aphoristic and often frustratingly opaque style. I think it worked for me because I already had vague misgivings about my prior worldview that I was having trouble nailing down, and the book helped bring these apprehensions into focus.
A more concrete scientific viewquake: reading Jaynes, especially his work on statistical mechanics, completely altered my approach to my Ph.D. dissertation (and also, incidentally, led me to LW).
Reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations prompted the biggest viewquake I’ve ever experienced, substantially changing my conception of what a properly naturalistic worldview looks like, especially the role of normativity therein. I’m not sure I’d assign it a high probability of provoking a viewquake in others, though, given his aphoristic and often frustratingly opaque style. I think it worked for me because I already had vague misgivings about my prior worldview that I was having trouble nailing down, and the book helped bring these apprehensions into focus.
A more concrete scientific viewquake: reading Jaynes, especially his work on statistical mechanics, completely altered my approach to my Ph.D. dissertation (and also, incidentally, led me to LW).