I picked up a few books from the library about philosophy. The one I am reading now is called The Dream Of Reason, which covers ancient through rennisance philosophers. I just got done with the Mileans and Pythagoreans.
I love it! I have dabbled in philosophy before, but this is really whetting my appetite! It’s giving me a new way of thinking about things and I am really enjoying it. I even found this site with lecture notes that pretty much follow the book. I also picked up stuff in Kant and Nietzche. Anyone else in the playground of philosophy? Who is your favorite ancient, what is your favorite idea?
I’ll leave you with a philosopher joke. A guy walks into a tailor’s shop with a pair of torn jeans. The tailor says “Euripades?” “Yeah, Eumenidies?”
I was required to take a philosophy class in high school. I enjoyed the discussions we had in class, but I confess that the names of the philosophers escape me.
Can you narrow your question down? Into a specific philosophical issue, perhaps? Justifying your presence in reality? How do you really KNOW what you know? How can you prove to me that you aren’t just a figment of my imagination?
Don’t take Kant and Nietszche without an antidote. Kant’s digressions into pure abstract reason and Nietszche’s hyper-romantic proto-fascism are both toxic to the mind. I blame those two for the state of philosophy today.
Suggested reading? John Ralston Saul – especially Voltaire’s Bastards. His newest book On Equilibrium was mediocre. Saul’s my great hope for the restoration of philosophy.
Also, Kierkegaard and some of the other existentialist philosophers (although Sartre is sort of hit-and-miss).
Read Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder to find particular philosophers you want to read more on. Seriously. It’s a novel, but when I was studying philosophy I loved the succinct summaries of major philosophical positions. A friend, now with a master’s degree in philosophy, thought it astoundingly good considering it’s aimed for a wider public audience.
I quite enjoyed just war theory (Michael Walzer being a good readable example).
I have found that when I read philosphy things it really helps to focus on things in which you are interested. I for one hate all the theories of the mind philosophy reasoning but really enjoy the philosophy of love, aesthetics, and good/evil.
All the big name philosophers covered at least one of those topics if not all of them. The origins of good and evil are really convoluted once the philosophers started coming from a Christian background.
I picked up a book recently and I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me, nor the author, about the origins of lying and how lying is an integral part of our culture. Even though it was an interesting concept the author couldn’t make his point and spent nearly the first half of the book talking about evolution. Still it made me think about how lies are a defensive mechanism.
I really liked Schoeppenhaur’s (sp?) theories on aesthetics and the sublime but it has been so long since I have read through them that I couldn’t enumerate them as I once could in college.
The biggest suggestion I can give you when reading is to take your time. Even though many of them are startlingly thin the concepts they have are more complex. It also helps to try to diagram out what they are saying to make it significantly more easy to understand. Starting from the Greek philosophers and working your way up into modern day Philosophers is also a good bet since many of the writings out there build on the earlier ground work that Plato, Aristotle, Aristophenes, etc.
Thanks everyone for the advice! Hamish, I have to admit that I really picked those two because I recognized the names. I will definitely look into your reccommendations. I am gonna be looking at contemporary philosophy soon. I already have The Medium Is The Message by Marshall Somethingorother. Should be fun summer reading! Dairy, I know what you mean! I try and read just a chapter a day and read over all of it that I didn’t completely understand.
Barrett’s Irrational Man, Rorty’s–can’t remember title–it has his picture on the front of the paperback edition–and H Stuart Hughes Consciousness and Society if you like intellectual history, 19th and 20th centuries. And for entertaining AND educational reading, don’t forget Marx!