/lit/ - Literature

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading#Philosophy

>>3537181
I've never fully understood all that. Is the idea to start with this? (Part one) and work your way through everything?

>>3537181

Yea, this isn't helpful for people who are just getting into philosophy.

I tried to get /lit/ to help put together an introductory guide awhile ago but it went to shit.

Anyway after this I would recommend either some more very short introductions - whatever takes your fancy - or the Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. If your feeling like a little more of a challenge you could also try The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.

>>3537192
>recommending Parmenides to new philosophers.
Op read Plato s dialogue called parmenides its easy

>>3537209
Ok thanks, I will.

>>3537209
You are implying that it's not for beginners, but you are recommending it to beginners?

>>3537247
Parmenides himself also wrote a book, you know

>>3537267
I did not know, now I understand. Do you recommend anything else after Plato's Parmenides?

>>3537272
not same guy but..
all platos dialogues i guess.

are very fun to read.

Just read all the Germans, fuck the Greeks

>>3537282
Thanks.

>>3537283
Best German to start with?

I am taking all of these suggestions and noting them. I have a lot of time to read currently.

The only philosophers you need:

-John Stuart Mill
-Jeremy Bentham
-David Hume
-John Locke
-and to a lesser extent, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

>>3537292
Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Liebnitz, Heidegger, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Marx

>>3537293
>utilitarianism
>empiricism

LEL

>>3537293
Get rid of the x2 Utilitarians. Get rid of Locke. Wittgenstein is unnecessary. Add in Kant, and you are done for 18th c. European phil

>>3537299
>Wittgenstein is unnecessary

get a hold of this nigga

>>3537293
>The only philosophers you need:
-Confucius
-Siddhartha Gautama
-Nagarjuna.
-Bhavaviveka

There were Greek philosophers before Socrates and his promulgator Plato, but you're better off to start with him, then go to Descartes, then to the Enlightenment and Romantic-era philosophers. Nietzsche is very relevant but, as he said himself, he'll spoil you for other philosophers. George Berkeley and Max Stirner are interesting outliers. If you want to whet your interest without investing in a bunch of obscure and intimidating books, try Schopenhauer's Essays on archive.org. There should be decent translations of the other major philosophers on there too.

>>3537329
That's very helpful. Thank you

>>3537334
>Plato
>Aristotle
>Descartes
>Spinoza
>Hume
>Kant
>Hegel
>Nietzsche
>Marx
>Heidegger

>>3537341
Brilliant. Saved. Thanks

>>3537345
I forgot Wittgenstein.

>>3537349
He's after Marx?

>>3537341
>Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger
>relevant

>>3537368
Marx is the most relevant of all

Relevant for what though?

>>3537329
>but you're better off to start with [Plato], then go to Descartes

Awful. Just awful.

>>3537383
Why?

Get David Papineau's book 'Philosphy', it summarizes most of the major concepts and provides a short biography/summary of the major philosophers

>>3537373
Sociology

Don't waste too much time trying to decipher or understand the natural philosophers (pre-Socratics) fully if you're interested in Philosophy as conceived from the 16th century onwards.

You can start somewhere in the middle and after a while, when you start getting comfortable in your new shoes, you might want to traverse backwards through the ages. Ancient civilization and medieval might not be the optimal starting-point to pique your interest.

>>3537368
>Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger
>relevant

Do you even literature, bro?
Nietzsche adumbrated the post-modern and post-structuralist attacks on absolute truth values, perspectivism, ressentiment etc etc

Marx. Really?

Heidegger - What is existentialism?

All of them are immensely relevant in 21st century literature

>>3537383
They're not supposed to be compatible. They're just part of the basic context of ancient and modern philosophy.

>>3537403
Who, in the middle, is good to start with? I apologize for being so naive.

>>3537403
That books looks great. Thanks

Marx is mostly relevant because of his influence.

>>3537314
This.

These 4 cover everything European philosophers plagiarised 1000 years later.

>>3537410
I'd start with Descartes if I intended to progress into the kind of philosophy that is taught at universities. Galileo or Newton if I wanted to get a hunch of the development of natural philosophy. See if you can find this anywhere in your country: http://www.amazon.com/A-New-History-Western-Philosophy/dp/0199656495/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362680423&sr=8-1&keywords=anthony+kenny

>>3537410
Well, If I might chip in here, the case for starting with the ancients is that you can see who influenced who as you read later and later works. Philosophy mostly died with the Roman Empire, with the exception of a few monk philosophers, and was revived when people started learning greek and reading the greeks again in the Renaissance. The few sparks of philosophy in the middle ages were due to new circulations of Aristotle's texts, and on at least one occasion, Plato's. So in a sense, the same handful of greeks started inspired three different epochs of philosophy - the ancient, the medieval, the renaissance, and they still manage to be read with interest today.

>>3537425
That book looks really good. I'll see if I can get a copy.

>>3537173
For western philosophy, you should start from the beginning and working your way through till the XXth century.

Recommended path:

-Greek philosophy:
Pitaghoras, Democrit, Parmenides

The sofists (Correct me if you find some spelling errors, english is not my native language)

Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles (The necessary trio)

Epicur (This motherfucker got it right)

The stoicists

Christian philosophy (You can skip this step, during the middle ages they only recycled Aristoteles vision of the universe, until Copernicus and Galilei screwed things up )

St. Augustine
St. Thomas d'aquino

Renaissance/Enlightment

The rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz

The empirists: Locke, Hobbes, Hume

Kant (You'll find this fucker everywhere, either you hate him or love him, but he's essential for sure)

XIX century

The positivists: Comte, Mill (science,science,science)

The idealists: Hegel (another heavyweight)

Marx, Feuerbach

Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud

The existencialists: Kierkegaard, Sartre

The spiritualists: Bergson, Proust

Wittgenstein, Popper

Husserl, Stein

Before you start your philosophical journey, you should familiarize with the glossary, for example, you should know what ontology, epistemology, gnoseology, metaphisic etc means
Sorry for the long post, hope it helps

>>3537423
Oh wow

>>3537440
Wonderful post, this is exactly what I'm looking for. Saved for future reference. Thanks for this, I'll be sure to spread it to other Phil beginners in the future.

>>3537433
It by no means died. Depending on how you look at it, it either moved to the Arab world or it continued in Europe but in a guise that is difficult to identify with Greek thought.

>>3537446
Please don't tell me that you're ignorant of Eastern philosophy?

>>3537467
>dat uncertain question mark

>>3537440
The main issue I'm getting is you're recommending a lot of people who either did not write down their ideas or have no surviving works.

The Great Philosophers by Brian Magee is pretty nice concise introduction to the essential philosophers.

>>3537173
http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/

>>3537314
>doesn't even mention glorious Taoism

I have some questions, all of which are essential asking the same thing:

Does asking about a good introduction to Philosophy *only* mean to ask for a list of philosophical works? Are other things entailed by the word 'introduction'? Are we really asking for a list of books to start become familiar with philosophy or are we asking how to get started in understanding philosophy?

If all we're doing is suggesting philosophers, how exactly are compensating for the lack of being elevated to understanding those philosophers? Is this the good ol' tradition of 'sink or swim'?

What's the goal here?

These are just some questions I'm having. Thanks for reading.

most of this history is strewn with mistakes. if you get into it and drop out halfway, it'd be unfortunate if you got yourself trapped in a hegel or something.

>>3537489
Agreed. Most people mean to ask "What is philosophy?" but they just say something ambiguous like "how to into philosophy?"

You'll get a grasp on philosophical ideas by "starting with the Greeks," but you still won't get a grasp on what philosophy IS.

>>3537489
If you read too much secondary literature, you're doomed to repeat the events of the Harvard Bar Scene in Good Will Hunting, as Schopenhauer prophesied with his warnings about reading too many books and not thinking for yourself enough. The best way to introduce yourself to philosophy is to do philosophy, and that involves some reading of some old dead dudes from Greece.

>>3537501
shut the fuck up with your recurrent tendentious horseshit

>>3537509
Wannabe young Hegelian detected.

>>3537489
In my opinion, OP, I am asking for philosophers and their works to understand what they were thinking.
>>3537505
That's the reason I want to read, so I can understand/find some of the problems I should be thinking about.

>>3537504
>>3537505

Is it reasonable to suggest that by asking how to be introduced to philosophy also entails: 'How do I start philosophizing?'

I think it's correct to suggest historic works. After all philosophy is basically the history of ideas, so it would be natural and right to look at the historicity as well as the works themselves. This approach

But, I can't help but feel that will only bring us to giving a general map of Philosophy; and leaving out the questions of how to navigate Philosophy.

How to do that? How do we learn to thread the water?

>>3537577
Read the old Greek dudes, especially Plato. A philosopher does not and can not beam his beliefs and ideas into your brain. They can show you a way of going about something, that is give directions (how to get from a point a to a point b), but your understanding of that isn't there until you yourself travel from a point a to a point b. This is part of the philosopher as a midwife. Fundamentally, philosophy is love of wisdom, that is it is an action which is done, not something which you learn by rote.

>>3537480
This is great, but I actually want to read their works, not have someone tell me about them. Or both really.

>>3537642
You probably want to do both, because you'll probably be reading the work in translation and even if not, you're removed from the Ancient Greeks by a few thousand years. I heavily recommend Allan Bloom's translation of Plato's Republic for the introduction to give yourself some perspective on issues of interpretation related to culture.

>>3537648
Great, I already own that (found it at Goodwill a couple months ago, never read much of it)

The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell is available for free on Project Gutenberg. It is a very good philosophy introduction book.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827