/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15828882]

How do I get into philosophy as an absolute beginner? Are there any charts for must-read philosophy books? Thanks.

[Anonymous No.15828885]

>>15828882
Most charts are meme-tier. Don't ask for personal advice from /lit/, just search up introductory philosophy reading lists, courses, etc.

[Anonymous No.15828891]

I started with Russell's History of Western Philosophy and I think worked quite well, I'm now somewhat able to follow basic discussions and I can namedrop some stuff among laymen to look smart. To be fair, I read Hume before it, but I could hardly appreciate it without the context around it.

[Anonymous No.15828914]

>>15828891
>Russell's History of Western Philosophy
This + Sapiens and you've basically catched up with the western canon

[Anonymous No.15828917]

There is no "philosophy" for beginners. Philosophy is a method. Start with hegel. His method is the most comprehensive.

[Anonymous No.15828921]

There's a /lit/ philosophy PDF I think I found on the site linked in the sticky. Right now I'm reading through A New History of Western Philosophy and then there's a book for people before Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle. I didn't bother paying too much attention to the order it says after that because I know those are already going to take me forever to read.

I don't care if people say starting with the Greeks is a meme

[Anonymous No.15828947]

>>15828885
>>15828891
>>15828914
>>15828917
>>15828921
Thanks for all the responses. I think I'll start with Russell

[Anonymous No.15828957]

>>15828921
That pdf is autistic as fuck

[Anonymous No.15828965]

>>15828957
Are you saying it's bad, or just autistic? Because I thought how it was arranged was weird and sometimes hard to follow. But it seems to be decent to rely on.

[Anonymous No.15828986]

>>15828965
It's not bad but it's not practical. If you follow it exactly then it'll take you a very long while to work your way through everything. It's better to just read the key books/whatever interests you and then look to secondary sources to fill in the gaps imo.

[Anonymous No.15829001]

>>15828921
This, don't forget you found it cause ur friendly neighborhood sjruru https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM

[Anonymous No.15829067]

>>15828947
>when you unironically fell for the memes

[Anonymous No.15829095]

>>15828882
If you had made this thread last year you would've gotten a bunch of people screaming at you about the greeks until the thread 404'd. I'm glad we're getting actually helpful answers that don't involve wading through a bunch of dusty old tomes whose content is hardly relevant to modern philosophy anymore.

[Anonymous No.15830021]

>>15828882
Academy of Ideas is the best way to introduce yourself if you are ok with that kind of thing

[Anonymous No.15830055]

>>15828947
Don't do that, retard. Russell is biased.

[Anonymous No.15830632]

>>15828882
Unironically Greek myths-Illiad-Odessey-Plato.
Come back when you're done.

[Anonymous No.15830656]

https://historyofphilosophy.net/all-episodes
this might help

[Anonymous No.15830733]

>>15828882
Dude. Why are you interested in philosophy? Like if you had a question that needs answering you'd have an easier time picking out reading material. I am trying to figure out what the best constitutional design is for example so I mostly read the classics of political philsophy. You can't go wrong learning logic so you can evaluate the arguments of philosophers.
A concise introduction to logic is a good textbook for this.

[Anonymous No.15830744]

bertrand russell problems of philosophy

[Anonymous No.15830936]

Look up philosophers. Learn what they were about. Pick one that seems interesting to you. Thats it.

[Anonymous No.15831850]

>>15828882
There are some good responses in this thread, but I’d caution you against starting with Bertrand Russell. People often point out that the problem with his History is that it’s heavily biased towards philosophers he agrees with. While that’s definitely a flaw, it doesn’t change the fact that the book is overall a good intro. The reason I’d caution you against is that it’s very long, and it’ll take you a long time to get through the sections on ancient and medieval philosophy to the more famous and foundational stuff that might interest you.

I’d say you’d be better off picking a shorter history of philosophy, Roger Scruton’s ‘Short History of Western Philosophy’ is a good example. But if you get a really basic grounding in the central problems and concerns of philosophy, you can actually dive into some primary texts. If you want to start with the Ancient Greeks, there’s a penguin volume called ‘the Last Days of Socrates’ that’s got some of Plato’s more readable and introductory dialogues.

If you’re interested in modern philosophy, I’d recommend reading Descartes’ Meditations, and following it up with Hume’s ‘Enquiry concerning Human Understanding’. In ethics and political philosophy, John Stuart Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’ and ‘On Liberty’ are good starting points. Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes’ key political works can also be read without much background.

Wherever you get stuck, just google it. Most of these key works have lots of supporting material online. I think you’d do a disservice to yourself by postponing reading some actual philosophy texts for too long. Read a history alongside, but don’t feel like you need a whole lot of prior knowledge to get stuck into some of those fundamental texts.

[Anonymous No.15831887]

>>15828921
This one is very good as a general introduction.

The Russell book is littered with his biases.

[Anonymous No.15831894]

>>15830055
everyone is biased. start (and end) with Nietzsche OP :)

[Anonymous No.15831905]

its about thinking for yourself btw

[Anonymous No.15831914]

>>15828882
anywhere, fren. philosophy is a long road. where you start on it barely matters, just keep moving.

[Anonymous No.15832394]

Instead of reading the meme that is Russell read Copleston