/lit/ - Literature

start with the greeks

start by thinking.
note down your thoughts.
see what philosophers have said on the topic via https://plato.stanford.edu/ and google books.
no point reading a whole book on a question that doesn't even interest you.

I'd recommend them a poetry anthology instead. Philosophy is just logic games.

>>20310704
Poetry stimulates thinking better too.

>>20310689

>>20310689
Albert Camus - The Stranger
Alain de Botton - The Consolations of Philosophy
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Plato - Five Dialogues (usually sold like this) Crito, Meno, Phaedro, Apology, Euthypro + Symposium
Mao Tse-Tung - Four Essays On Philosophy

This is totally babbytier but it is my unironic recommendation. All of these are short and fairly simple, will give you some decent maps of the general territory, and will give you a basis for asking "do I enjoy this?" and "what am I interested in thinking and reading more of?"

>>20310689
I don't know why no one has given a good answer yet so I'll try. I'd reccomend books like Crime and Punishment, platos republic, Kafka, Moby dick, HS stuff like that. They introduce philosophical concepts without requiring much background to understand, and theyll get you thinking.
THEN you begin with the Greeks, once you've read above and want to delve deeper.

>>20310689
Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
<any decent philosophy anthology>
A New History of Philosophy by Anthony Kenny
The Republic by Plato
The Dao De Jing

Then start digesting the Bible in full. That's a 6th book, but it's not philosophy. Rather, it's the epilogue.

>>20310813
thread/

>>20310701
REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>20310689
What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel

>>20310801
This except maybe not Nietzsche
>>20310689
I'd also say don't start by reading philosophy. Better you start with some modern essays instead.

>>20310689
Plato
Nietzsche
Kierkgaard
Dhammapada
Tao Te Ching

All more interesting and entertaining than slogging through some German idealist

>>20310689
>If someone (a total non-reader, in this case me) asked you for a recommendation for 5 philosophy books from any living or dead philosophers as a starter pack, what 5 books would you recommend?
okay, non-reader, you say?

1) WHAT HAPPENED by Hilary Clinton
2) RANDOM STEPHEN KING
3) RANDOM STEPHEN KING
4) KAMALA HARRIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
5) RANDOM STEPHEN KING

>>20310817
DON'T LISTEN OP this is a DIRECT ROUTE to brainwashing you into catholicism

>>20310689
Look kid. Don't listen to these fags. Listen to me.
1. Any shorter Plato (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo is a common collection).
2. The Communist Manifesto by Marx/Engels (that's right kid, I'm serious, even if you hate Marxism)
3. The Stranger by Camus
4. Anthony Kenny History of Philosophy

The problem with every other poster itt is that they're fucking autistic and they don't realize a non-reader isn't going to be able to pick up and easily digest a long philosophical treatise. The Anthony Kenny is indispensable as an overview and the one I'd recommend the most, though Plato is very fun to read and can easily get you into reading.

>>20311302
>3. The Stranger by Camus
>4. Anthony Kenny History of Philosophy
i've never heard of these two - why did you pick them? give me the run down. pretend i'm OP who is going to have life-changed depending on what you say.

>The problem with every other poster itt is that they're fucking autistic and they don't realize a non-reader isn't going to be able to pick up and easily digest a long philosophical treatise.
communist manifesto tho lol

>>20310689
alright, serious suggestions:

TERRY PRATCHETTs discworld and amazing maurice AND diggers books are what I grew up on. Guy was amazingly good at detailing human qualities in an easy way.

>>20311302
>though Plato is very fun to read and can easily get you into reading.
Plato is dull as fuck.

You want to read Aristophanes py The Clouds to understand why people like Socrates and Plato were low-tier for their day; mystical guru-types pretending to know about unverifiable non-existent non-reality based sssssstuff.

Aristotle is better by comparison to that, but he had some dummy notions.

Stick to Chrysippus.

>>20310689
Anabasis, Xenophon
>Not really philosophy so much as the epic tale of 500 Greek mercenaries marching into the heart of Persia and back again, enslaving barbarians and murdering their enemies the entire way. It's not really a philosophy book, but most philosophy is gay and boring anyways.

Conversations of Socrates, Xenophon
>Thousands of years ago there lived a pimp named Socrates. Sometimes Socrates would hang out with his friends to drink wine and talk about important topics of the day like getting ahead in the pimp game, how to be a good friend, and which boys were the cutest. Xenophon wrote down some of these conversations and they have since gone on to become the bedrock of western philosophy.

The Prince, Machiavelli
>Written in a response to some of Xenophon's Socratic dialogues, Machiavelli looks at world history since the times of Socrates to make the convincing argument that, despite Xenophon's claims about friendship and charity, you can't have a heart in the pimp game.

The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi
>Sometimes the best way to get ahead in life is to take a deep breath, smile, and stab your enemy in the face. This, along with many other pearls of wisdom (hold your head up and look straight, two swords are better than one, etc.) are all contained in this short work which comprises the life philosophy of a great samurai.

Studies in Pessimism, Arthur Schopenhauer
>As concisely stated in a review on Goodreads, this books contents can be described as: Pointlessness of existence, The meaning and value of suicide, The negative value of pleasure, The influence of education on our way to perceive the world, The inferiority of women, Rambling thoughts about noise, and so on. In other words, it's based.

Bonus round:
The Ego and Its Own, Max Stirner
> “The true human being doesn't lie in the future, an object of longing, but rather it lies in the present, existing and actual. However and whoever I may be, joyful and sorrowful, a child or an old man, in confidence or doubt, asleep or awake, I am it. I am the true human being.”

>>20310689
there is literally no reason to read a whole as philosophy book. every argument can be condensed into, at most, a page. there is no reason to read anything other than secondary literature and reference books.

>>20311276
Only answer itt

>>20310801
Replace Beyond Good and Evil with the Mark Twain essay on determinism. Much more approachable.

>>20311384
>recommendation for someone who's never read a book before?
>yeah bro, Schopenhauer and Stirner

>>20311314
>has never heard of Camus
WOW

>>20311422
Yeah some people are out to lunch. I wonder how many of these “entry level” books the recommender read

>>20311422
Studies in Pessimism is a collection of easily accessible essays, whereas Stirner is immediately enjoyable and appreciable to even the most novice reader.

It's far far better than reading a book like Plato's Republic, which can take multiple lifetimes to fully understand or appreciate.

>>20311384
utterly based

>>20311432
All of them. All books recommended are more accessible than Plato, and less BS than Camus. I mean hell, >>20310801 recommended Nietzsche who himself was writing in direct response to Schopenhauer, so it makes no sense to read Nietzsche first.
Besides, if you aren't reading philosophy to cultivate yourself then you aren't really reading philosophy. Every book suggested is, at it's core, the work of a moral philosopher written in a purely conversational tone without assuming any literary or philosophical background. At worst you might need to crack open an Attic-Greek-to-English dictionary for some passages of Schopenhauer, and perhaps a few of Stirner's inside jokes will fly over OP's head. It's not like I'm asking him to learn Confucian philosophy and classical Chinese then dive straight into the nomos of reality like all these posters recommending the Tao Te Ching.

>>20310708
is this true? i feel like understanding poetry has helped me enjoy and comprehend other forms of art better

>>20311384
>Anabasis, Xenophon
Anabasis of Alexander is better.

>The Prince, Machiavelli
dull and pleading.

>The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi
never heard of but sounds interesting

>Studies in Pessimism, Arthur Schopenhauer
never heard of but sounds interesting
IF A LITTLE PESSIMISTIC HA HA HA HA HA

>>20311475
>utterly based
that's a bit harsh, anon, some of the suggestions weren't dogshit.

>>20311413
someone got the joke eh ha

>>20311426
YOU REPLY YET YOU DON'T REPLY AT ALL!! WHY!!

>dull and pleading.
ed. i mean, inferior and obvious sucking-up to patron; i.e. 'pleading (for Likes)'

>>20310689
honestly just pick a book

>>20311384
Goes from ultramasc chadcommendations to ultra-virgin Schopenhauer.

>>20310689
Depends, I started with Georges Politzer's book, but I'd suggest you not to, unless you already feel you're marxist. I think you don't really need to be interested in any specific topic before approaching philosophy, but you rather are to specify the way you feel you think, or the way you prefer to put things, to make you feel closer to that thunder some philosophers may evoke.
That being said, the greeks are not really needed for anything unless you're interested in a philosophy career. I really suggest you to see where memes take you to, as it's the easiest way to get the standarized vibes of the authors and then choose if they suit you or not. My general recomendation is to read at least a book from the Age of Reason/Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries), and a current author.
These are my five:
Us, by Tristán García
Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, by Pierre Klossowski
Ethics, by Baruch Spinoza
The Order of Things, by Michel Foucault
The Concept of Nature, by Alfred North Whitehead

Let me list a couple of books that I enjoyed as a kid:

>The Republic by Plato
This book is considered the foundation of western philosophy, and basically discusses what the ideal state should look like. It's a simple book that shows the first steps of primitive man towards rational thought through debate and discussion.

>The Enneads by Plotonius
Building on the work of Plato, these writings discuss things such as the nature of Virtue, Beauty, Fate, and so on.

>The Incoherence of the Philosophers by Al-Ghazali
This book is really an anti-philosophical book, which argues for faith and revelation as more important to life than philosophical reasoning.

>Greek Into Arabic, Richard Walzer
This easy to read and accessible book gives an overview of what might be called 'classical' philosophy, that is, philosophy as experienced by the Greeks and Arabs.

>The Ruin of Kasch, Roberto Calasso
This book by a renowned Italian publisher and philologist gives an overview of what might be called 'modern philosophy', or 'modern thought'. Modernity, if you will. It's kind of like the previous book only it concerns everything that's happened since the French Revolution.

Happy reading OP. Just remember, all philosophy is really about having fun and not taking yourself too seriously. Sometimes these books can seem hard, but just put it down, go for a walk, and come back fifteen minutes later.

>>20311576
>Dissing Schopenhauer, the biggest Chad of the so called moderns, the man who once pushed a woman down a flight of stairs, the man who lent out his opera glasses to aid in the slaughter of student protestors, the man who btfo his own mother
>Implying being a virgin, aka belong to the ranks of the morally pure of heart, an unsullied soul who is still capable of love and romance without the weight of years of fornication and cynicism having destroyed their ability forge a meaningful sexual relationship within the bounds of marriage is a bad thing
That's gonna be a cringe from me chief

>>20312090
Pessimists and virgins are losers

>>20312105
Define loser

>>20312143
t.

>>20310801
I would also recommend mill on liberty

>>20312950
>it took him three hours to come up with a response that is essentially 'no u'
It's clear who 'won' this argument friend.