/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2862977]

Hello /lit/. I am interested in philosophy but have no idea where to begin. I was looking through the recommended reading list but there are too many to chose from for a complete beginner like me. Thanks for the help

[Anonymous No.2862982]

Read a comprehensive introduction to philosophy and from there, either read based on what interests you, or go the historical route.

[Anonymous No.2862989]

>>2862982
That sounds perfect. I'm assuming the exact title is "Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction". Thanks

[Anonymous No.2862990]

>>2862982
>Modern Science
>not in any way dependent on the Scholastics

[Anonymous No.2862996]

>>2862989

That's actually a book about a specific field within philosophy. When I said 'comprehensive introduction', I didn't mean any specific test, just a good, thorough introductory book.

[Anonymous No.2863002]

>>2862996
Oh, I see. Thanks for clarifying, I'm basically trying to find something specific.

[Franz !!8ZELb56UWUx No.2862999]

I started with Plato's dialogues.

Although not a book, I recommend downloading (for free on iTunes U) the series of pretty short lectures collectively called General Philosophy from Oxford University. [Peter Millican is the name of the speaker.]

I haven't read it, but Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is mentioned a lot as a good read that apparently fails to cover a lot of modern stuff very well - indeed, completely leaving out - if I recall correctly - Kierkegaard (of whom I'm sure even you've heard).

Other common early philosophy reads include The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and the works fo Nietzsche [I recommend picking up the volume of his works published by Modern Library.]

It might be helpful if you mentioned a specific area you're interested in.

If you care at all for logic, I highly recommend the textbook by Harry J. Gensler. It's not cheap, but it's quite cheap for a textbook - and it's extremely good for self-study. It's also a very comprehensive introduction - in that it doesn't only do the mathy stuff or only do the non-mathy stuff, as many textbooks and introductory logic courses tend to.

[Anonymous No.2863022]

>>2862999
Thanks for this post and suggestions, very helpful. I don't really have a specific area that I am interested in yet. I know this makes it more difficult for recommendations.

[Anonymous No.2863029]

>>2862999
Hardly enough philosophy in any of Bertrand Russell's work to consider him a serious philosopher, or to quote Allan Bloom, hardly enough philosophy in a Russell book to fill a birthday balloon. Like someone earlier mentioned, he excludes Kierkegaard but includes Byron (lol) I'd suggest starting with this: www.amazon.com/History-Political-Philosophy-Leo-Strauss/dp/0226777103/

[Anonymous No.2863030]

>>2862990
>Modern Science
>just appearing out of nowhere

[Anonymous No.2863109]

Seconding Plato. Read them in Early-Middle-Late order. Don't be confused if the Early dialogues don't seem to have a "point" - he's usually criticizing Sophistic logic, which was a lot bigger deal than it is now. For that reason, do a little reading on the Sophists before you start.

Recommended reading, though you don't have to memorize names or ideas by any means, just get basically familiar with it:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics/

Plato really picks up in the later Middle dialogues, if you can hang in there. Don't expect to get everything the first time around, in the sense of being ~enlightened~ on the spot, but try to understand what he's saying and not to gloss over things. Don't be afraid to use a secondary source like Wikipedia, but try not to rely on it as a matter of course.

Aristotle is easier if only because he's more focused and less allegorical, but he's also really prolific.

From there the best possible thing you can do is understand the basic outline of philosophy's development. Read up a bit on Stoicism, which was very popular, and understand how early Christianity coopted Neoplatonism, who St. Augustine was, who he feuded with, how he became a father of the church, and also what Constantine's councils had to deal with in terms of philosophy/theology. Some good guys to Wiki would be Origen, Pelagius, Boethius, just to get an idea of how diverse early Christian Europe was, philosophically. From there, Wiki the Islamic Golden Age, Thomas Aquinas, and the Scholastics, and you're basically ready to decide where you want to go next with >>2862982 (which is great and much posted).

Seriously, having a base of context is the best head start, and all of this aside from the Plato and Aristotle is just "read the Wiki for 15 minutes."

[Anonymous No.2864727]

>>2863109
Great post, thank you.

[Anonymous No.2864734]

Is there any field, problem, movement or philosopher you're kind of interested in?

This would help, since I don't think there's a definite starting point with philosophy.

[Anonymous No.2864751]

>>2864734
That's kind of what I'm trying to find out, currently nothing specific. I think I might start by listening to the short lectures called General Philosophy from Oxford University, as suggested by >>2862999 among other things suggested

[Anonymous No.2864804]

>>2864734
I'll jump in for a second.
What do you recommend as introduction to Heidegger?
I read a bit about his work and became quite interested in the whole Being thing. Which philosophers must I read before starting him?

[Anonymous No.2864811]

>>2864804
Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Augustine, Husserl, Kierkegaard.

[Anonymous No.2864826]

>>2864811
Thanks, good thing that I've already read some of those(including Nietzsche like every other edgy kid around here).

[Anonymous No.2864835]

>>2864826
Nietzsche's such a pain to read properly. For Heidegger, luckily, you bare minimum only need to be familiar with the Greeks to get a decent understanding of most of his work. But the more you read of these, the more perspective you'll get on what he's talking about and the easier he'll be to read.

[Anonymous No.2864847]

>>2864835
>For Heidegger, luckily, you bare minimum only need to be familiar with the Greeks

No. You have to be very well acquainted with the western tradition in order to understand the importance of his inversion of traditional western philosophy.

[Anonymous No.2864853]

>>2864847
If you desperately want to appreciate how he "inverted Western philosophy", then yes, it might be useful to engage several philosophers. If you want to engage his philosophy, you only need the Greeks, since his "inversion" goes back to them. In fact, to before Plato, but Plato has an important treatments of Parmenides' philosophy.

[Anonymous No.2864857]

>>2864853

If you were to engage his philosophy without understanding western philosophy one would invariably mistake it for a work of psychology or anthropology.

[Anonymous No.2864860]

Is Western philosophy going anywhere since Heidegger? These days, it seems philosophers have some importance only at universities.

[Anonymous No.2864866]

>>2864860
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaGk6S1qhz0
This is from the seventies, but if you consider how many Derridians there are...

[Anonymous No.2864881]

>>2864860

Well how much "importance" did Heidegger really have outside of universities and well-read members of the upper-class?

People like Habermas or Chomsky came after him and made a pretty big impact over the years.

[Anonymous No.2864890]

>>2864881

That being said, Foucault, Derrida and the likes had and have massive influence on the way culture, media, arts etc. are perceived.

[Anonymous No.2864902]

>>2864890
And Arendt, Lacan, the French Existentialists...

Judith Butler is a current philosopher who has been, one way or another, very influenced by the thought of Heidegger.

[Anonymous No.2865366]

I'm curious why is Western philosophy going in the direction of Eastern or specifically Buddhist line of thought? Is it genuine original creation or influences both/strong/weak/direct/indirect?

[Anonymous No.2865372]

>>2865366
Why do you think it's specifically Buddhist?

[Anonymous No.2865392]

Plato's Republic will make you love philosophy, use philosophy, become addicted to that from of thinking and clever and straightforward rhetoric, and eventually will make you grow tired of reading it. You will be changed. You'll simply be more logical, I would guess, because it's hard to not get used to the patterns of impressive thought that are constantly being presented by this god-like man.

[Anonymous No.2865404]

>>2865372
Ive found too many comparisons on the internet dealing with many different buddhist philosophers and connecting them with many different western ideas/philosophers. Its kinda hard to ignore google search when you do "east vs west"

[Anonymous No.2865435]

>>2865404
You should really start engaging with some of the source material. To some degree it's parallelism (so they just happen to have superficially similar conclusions or opinions), and to some degree it's direct influence (particularly through the Arabs/Ottomans). The thing about direct influence is that often the eastern thought is misrepresented, like how Nietzsche criticises Buddhism for the wrong reasons for being life denying. I would guess that most of the connections made on whatever websites you've looked at are equally applicable to Taoism as to Buddhism, simply because they'll all share certain superficial similarities.

[OP No.2865579]

>>2865392
I've seen this book before, I'll go back and pick it up if it's still there. Thank you for the suggestion