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I was a philosophy major at a good (but not top) department. You are getting a lot of advice from autodidacts here that is well-intentioned but, in my view, unp
by spekcular 6y ago
I was a philosophy major at a good (but not top) department. You are getting a lot of advice from autodidacts here that is well-intentioned but, in my view, unproductive.
First, as a general heuristic, if there's some topic (in philosophy or otherwise) you want to learn, find syllabuses of courses in that subject at good universities and figure out what books they use.
If you do this for philosophy courses, you will find either anthologies of (contemporary) articles, or modern textbooks like Jaegwon Kim's Philosophy of Mind. At a high level, these more or less follow the same format (after perhaps some historical prologue). A reasonable view is presented, then in the next chapter (or essay) an important objection is discussed. This goes on for a while until you understand the strengths and weaknesses of various positions. At the end, you may favor one or another, but rarely is there is a clear winner.
Note that philosophy is distinct from the history of philosophy. If you care about what is true, and not the historical development of ideas, there's not much point in reading things written before, say, 1900, or even 1950. So no Hume or Hegel or whatever. In general these texts are poorly written and unclear compared to modern ones. And of course, they can't treat the developments that have taken place in the intervening years. Consider an analogy: you would not read Newton's original manuscripts to learn calculus.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good reference work, but it presents mainly literature overviews, not pedagogical essays. Again, you wouldn't read an encyclopedia to learn math; it is similarly unwise here.
You write about developing models that address "the bigger questions of life," and "a personal philosophy." This is not something that contemporary academic philosophy talks much about, at least in the broad sense. But, in this direction, you might enjoy "Six Myths About the Good Life: Thinking About What Has Value" by Joel Kupperman. There's a good review of the book here: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/six-myths-about-the-good-life-thinking-about-what-has-value/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/six-myths-about-the-good-life-think....
- miloshadzic 6y ago> Note that philosophy is distinct from the history of philosophy. If you care about what is true, and not the historical development of ideas, there's not much point in reading things written before, say, 1900, or even 1950. So no Hume or Hegel or whatever. In general these texts are poorly written and unclear compared to modern ones. And of course, they can't treat the developments that have taken place in the intervening years. Consider an analogy: you would not read Newton's original manuscripts to learn calculus. This type of view is extremely common amongst students of analytic philosophy. The "problem" approach to philosophy. IMO Reading Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, etc. and other thinkers deemed outdated and unworthy is absolutely a good use of time for anyone interested in Philosophy. This post is actually the first time I've ever heard anybody suggest not reading Hume.
- colinmhayes 6y agoI can't possibly see reading Hegel being a good idea for a beginner. It'll just lead to thinking philosophy is intentionally obtuse. He's basically impossible to parse without taking a philosophy course. http://existentialcomics.com/comic/281 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/281
- gault8121 6y agoYes, as a philosophy major, I also agree that anything that is not 20th century philosophy is not really that helpful. It can be interesting academically, to trace the evolution of philosophy, but it won't really scratch that itch of engaging in the big questions. The biggest value I got out of being a philosophy major was building reading concentration skills - being able to read dense passages takes a lot of commitment and practice, and that can build thinking skills. The internet teaches us to skim and do fast/shallow reading, which doesn't lead to deep thinking. Reading older philosophy is a great way of building those deep reading skills, even if the actual content of those texts is not applicable to modern life. To the OP, if you see this, I would suggest looking into Experimental Philosophy. It's a branch of philosophy that focuses on using neuroscience to understand how we think about the world. Books like Thinking Fast and Slow may be much more interesting to you.
- spekcular 6y agoWell, yeah, it was an analytic department. I also happen to think that's the "right" view. To clarify, I don't think reading the original texts is a bad use of time if you're already in deep, just that it's not good for a first introduction (for the reasons I mentioned). Plato was simply confused about a ton of things and makes egregious errors while reasoning through ideas. We don't read him because he was right, we read him for other reasons. For a more detailed treatment of this issue, see this blog post: http://fakenous.net/?p=1168 http://fakenous.net/?p=1168.
- vehemenz 6y agoI too have a philosophy degree from a good department. Your comments are basically dead on, but I would add a slight caveat regarding pre-contemporary philosophy. I do think there is some pedagogical value in reading some canonical works of modern philosophy, just for context about what Frege and later analytical philosophers are reacting to. I wouldn't completely write off Kant and Hume, for instance. Hegel, yes, but that doesn't mean it's completely not worth reading.
- randomNumber7 6y ago> If you care about what is true, What is truth? I go with Nietzsche and think that philosophers seeking the absolute truth are actually influenced by Christianity.
- vehemenz 6y agoBy adding "absolute" to "truth," you seem to be alluding to (but not stating) a non-deflationary account of truth that OP almost certainly does not believe. Second, what does Christianity have to do with anything? Was Aristotle influenced by Christianity?
- randomNumber7 6y agoIt might be poorly worded but OP's comment sounds very absolute about this to me. > Second, what does Christianity have to do with anything? The way Kant tries to base his theories on axioms is similar to what some theologians did.
- Koshkin 6y agoYes, there is something deeply common between theology and philosophy: the former studies that which does not exist, while the latter is seeking the answers to questions to which there are none.