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File: 1415849453556.jpg (84.58 KB, 416x500, 104:125, 61XMPyQOYuL.jpg)

 No.399

I've just recently got interested in the whole philosophy thing. Pic related has been my introduction into the entire thing.

>Is this book a good introduction, or does it misrepresent/skew ideas?

Philosophy is fucking difficult to get into. It's use of language is different, and many of the books not targeted at laymen are quite difficult to get into. Where do I go from here. Books similar to pic related are nice.

>Where can I fin books that are about existentialism, pragmatism, stoicism, and utilitarianism that I'll be able to understand

>What is the best way to condition oneself to be able to get into philosophies that are difficult to get thorough.

I apologize in advance for the faggotry my ignorance will spread.

 No.400

File: 1415859916250.jpg (15.01 KB, 230x346, 115:173, histofphil.jpg)

>>399
>>Is this book a good introduction, or does it misrepresent/skew ideas?

There isn't a single history of philosophy book that doesn't misrepresent and misinterpret. By the title of the book in your pic, I can guarantee you it will misrepresent worse than any academic history of philosophy book, of which there are many to choose from.

>Where can I fin books that are about existentialism, pragmatism, stoicism, and utilitarianism that I'll be able to understand

If you want summaries, just go read through the Stanford Encyclopedia. They're for the most part ok, many of them are awful if you actually know more about the subjects, but it's a good place to start.

Utilitarianism: read pretty much anything by Peter Singer

>Existentialism: Read the existentialists. They're not hard to understand, for me anyways. They deal with what the name implies, the issues humans deal with by existing, from angst and the weight of choice, to the despair due to the search for meaning. I'm reading Kierkeegard right now. I honestly don't understand what anyone would find difficult in existentialism.

>Stoicism

I hear Epictetus is a good place.

This is probably just me, but I advise you to just go to the sources and take them on directly instead of as summaries. All summaries of philosophy are inherently misleading, not by intention, but because most philosophies can't really be reduced to a few pages. I know this from personal experience reading summaries and short commentaries, and then reading things myself.

If you really are interested in getting into philosophy, get a general history of philosophy text. Pic related, it's the one I started to read. I learned quite a bit from it. It's very dry, and contains random important concepts in greek text, but it's usually explained by the context and google is useful. One thing, don't Read Bertrand Russell's history of philosophy. He didn't understand even half of what he criticized because he had a major bias against prior philosophy.

I honestly don't understand where people get the impression that philosophy is difficult or even 2deep4u. Since I took my first philosophy class I found no problem really coming to grips with what I read, from Plato to Marx to the modern analytics I can understand much of the stuff so long as I have some way of figuring things out through context or commentaries. I'm not a normal person in that regard though, since most people seem to seriously not get stuff that to me is obvious. It's not that I read things and just get it. Some philosophers are that way, and then you have fuckers like Hegel that require you to know quite a bit of context in order to make sense, and even more help with regards to the meaning of the language used because 1) it's translated from German and shit is changed by that without intention, and 2) Hegel talks about things trying to explain it all on the backbone of one single thing, so it's like a noodle noodling itself into itself to overcome itself for itself in order to be for other. Yes.

^Hegel aside, most philosophers are nowhere near as hard to comprehend. Up to German Idealism philosophy is pretty straightforward if a little vague. With GI is when "continental" philosophy happens to come onto the scene, and that is indeed the stuff most people think of when they think of philosophy.

>What is the best way to condition oneself to be able to get into philosophies that are difficult to get thorough.

You don't.

Philosophy is something you do. You have to be obsessive compulsive with regards to truth and attaining wisdom already. A philosopher naturally questions. Now, you seem interested, so I assume somewhere you must have come into contact with something that peaked your interest. Just follow the trails that splinter from the original road you embark. Sooner than later you'll find yourself in a muddle of all the branches in philosophy having something for you to follow on related to your original inquiry.

 No.405

>Is this book a good introduction etc.
It most certainly will give a shallow presentation of whatever ideas it is dealing with.

>Existentialism, Pragmatism, Stoicism, Utilitarianism, etc.
If you can understand a book on philosophy at your current reading level, you won't be reading anything useful and will come out of it with a poor knowledge of the ideas therein.

If you're really serious about philosophy, you need to do the following:

First, I would suggest you read Richard Rorty's essay "Philosopher as Expert"; it's an easy to read piece of metaphilosophy, on philosophy's relation to people who don't engage professionally with philosophy, and Rorty puts it very clearly how it is that one can be said to be engaging adequately with philosophy. I wish I had known about it when I first started studying philosophy. Rorty is also a "neo-pragmatist", so it will be in the tradition of pragmatism you're interested in.

If you've read that introduction and you're still interested in going deeper down the rabbit hole of philosophy, you'll need to read all of this if you want to get a thorough understanding of the long dialogue that is philosophy (I'm entirely serious):

Parmenides, "On Nature"

Zeno's Paradoxes

Plato: "The Trial of Socrates", "Crito", "Meno", "Euthyphro", Book One of the Republic

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, The Categories, The Metaphysics (these two are extremely important for understanding all metaphysics after Aristotle)

The Hellenistics: The Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics, and Skeptics are all good fun but were schools with a lot of scattered texts, so it's hard for me to point out just one to read. Epictetus is a good place to start with the Stoics (http://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Epictetus-Handbook-Fragments-Everymans/dp/0460873121/) and this is a good collection of Cynic works (www.amazon.com/Cynic-Philosophers-Diogenes-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141192224/). You'll need to look into the Epicureans and Skeptics further if you're interested in them; personally, I think you could skip the Epicureans and just read the Skeptics.

Medievals/Aristotelians: Their stuff on substance and accident is sufficient for understanding the Rationalists.

Rationalists: Descartes, Meditations (very, very important book; Descartes is the fucking father of modern philosophy)(www.amazon.com/Discourse-Method-Meditations-First-Philosophy/dp/0872204200/), Spinoza, Ethics(www.amazon.com/Ethics-Treatise-Emendation-Intellect-Selected/dp/0872201309/), Leibniz, (his essays should be fine) (www.amazon.com/Leibniz-Philosophical-Essays-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872200620/)

Empiricists: Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (www.amazon.com/Essay-Concerning-Understanding-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140434828/), Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge(www.amazon.com/Treatise-Concerning-Principles-Knowledge-Classics/dp/0915145391/), Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (www.amazon.com/Enquiry-Concerning-Human-Understanding-Gentleman/dp/0872202291/), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals(www.amazon.com/Enquiry-Concerning-Principles-Hackett-Classics/dp/0915145456/)

Utilitarianism: It's related to Empiricism, but I'm not all that familiar with the Utilitarians. Read Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill.

Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason(www.amazon.com/Critique-Pure-Reason-Second-Immanuel/dp/0230013384/), The Critique of Practical Reason(www.amazon.com/Critique-Practical-Reason-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872206173/)

 No.406

>>405

This ought to be enough to keep you busy for awhile. Past Kant, the beginnings of a split in philosophy begin to take place between what we call Analytic and Continental thought. It's kind of up to you to decide which to pursue, but I'd suggest either way at least reading the…

German Idealists (following Kant): Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic (Hegel is very difficult; you'll probably want to supplement your reading here)(www.amazon.com/Encyclopaedia-Logic-Philosophical-Sciences-Classics/dp/0872200701/), Marx - I'm not familiar with Marx currently, but if you're interested in him and where his thought leads, Capital is considered his most important work by many, Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (I don't know of any particularly good translation to recommend), Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morality (Nietzsche is great fun to read and is hugely important to Existentialism)(Read Kauffman's translations of him)

After the German Idealists is where the split come to the fore. Briefly, for the Analytic and Continental traditions, here's what I'd recommend to start with:

Analytics: Frege, "The Thought", Russell, "On Denoting"

Continentals: Continental philosophy was never a unified movement so much as a category of non-English speaking philosophers whose philosophies weren't Analytic. Phenomenology is a good place to start for understanding the Continentals, and for that I'd recommend starting with Brentano and Husserl (I'm not familiar with either of them so I can't tell you what to start with from them). You could also start with Heidegger for Phenomenology, who also is related to Existentialism and is, in my opinion, the best Existentialist after Nietzsche. For Heidegger, "What is Metaphysics" and Being and Time (www.amazon.com/Being-Time-Martin-Heidegger/dp/0061575593/)

Unless otherwise noted, it is absolutely necessary that you read all of these works in this order in order to have a serious understanding of philosophy and the questions still being dealt with in the discipline today

You're at a great disadvantage not doing this professionally, because you lack both a lecturer and a group to discuss the readings with. If you know anyone who has studied philosophy, tell them you're interested in setting up a reading of these texts; they may be willing to participate for some of them, but likely not everything on the list. If you know of a university nearby, check their course catalog and attend some lectures on what you're reading if possible.

I'd also recommend you get some supplemental material for helping you understand the texts (especially with regards to things like terminology, which are hugely important for Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger), but that's up to you and I don't know anything to recommend.

I'm currently uploading to my MediaFire account some of the stuff I've listed, among which is everything you'll need for the Greeks and the Medievals/Aristotelians, Rorty's essay, Frege's "The Thought", and some Heidegger stuff.

I'll post a link here when it finishes uploading.

 No.407

>>406
Here's the link: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/8bljpkcgvulxl/Philosophy

Logic - this is important

I forgot to mention: You need to know classical logic (at the least). Learning logic is difficult, even more so on your own probably, but it's also very rewarding.

This book is what I used for intro. logic. It's actually a very good textbook: www.amazon.com/Logic-Philosophy-Introduction-Alan-Hausman/dp/113305000X/

If you want to get further into logic, you'll need to learn non-classical logics; this is what I'm using right now and it's a good broad introduction, although it doesn't hold your hand as much as the other logic textbook: www.amazon.com/Introduction-Non-Classical-Logic-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/0521670268/

Good luck. You're at the start of an amazing, confusing journey - one that, if you really get far into philosophy and stick with reading it, will never end (in our lifetimes, at least).

 No.409

>>399
I found that book in July and picked up a copy. It's definitely a great intro to the subject and presents the ideas in concise, bite-sized pieces. One of the best things about it though are the lists of key works at the end of each chapter. Using those will really enhance your knowledge.

 No.412

File: 1415941550798.gif (457.87 KB, 500x279, 500:279, 1402990438589.gif)

>>400
Thank you, the reading list is really useful.
>>405
This is more than enough to keep me busy for a long time, thank you.
>>407
Yeah. That's something I've never really got. Logic seamed like some relatively complex topic but it's generally presented to be the same as common sense. This is useful.
>>409
I thought it was a decent introduction, but I don't exactly have enough knowledge to know if I'm getting anywhere by reading it.

 No.413

>>412
>I thought it was a decent introduction, but I don't exactly have enough knowledge to know if I'm getting anywhere by reading it.

You're getting somewhere if it changed how you think. If something doesn't give you pause for thought, it's not worth reading. Most of philosophy is this way. A lot of people don't find anything interesting, let alone useful, in quite a few philosophers.

 No.415

>>413
Yeah that's sonethibg I noticed. I prefer things that are applicable vs things that are purly metaphysical.

 No.416

File: 1416016750674.jpg (15.54 KB, 225x300, 3:4, 35.JPG)

Different Anon here. Is the pictured book an adequate introduction? It's a textbook for intro to philosophy class that I picked up second-hand.

 No.419

>>416
I would hope that this book is a compendium of different essays on ethics. If that isn't the case, it probably isn't very good.

Ethics is probably the easiest field of philosophy for a beginner to get started in, because it's the most immediately "practical" area of philosophy and the one with the most stereotypical 'philosophical' 2deep9you questions.

Personally, I'd recommend to start with the Platonic dialogues on ethics (the early Platonic dialogues which represent Socrates most fairly, such as "The Trial of Socrates" and "Crito") and Nicomachean Ethics; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were both virtue ethicists; virtue ethics is, essentially, the ethical view that there are a set of virtues that moral agents should strive to emulate. It's not the only ethical view, but it's a good place to start; the Utilitarians (Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill) are also pretty good for starting in ethics, as they aren't too difficult to understand. Kant's deontological ethics is another important one, but personally I don't feel like anyone can get a good understanding of Kant's ethics unless they've read his metaphysics.

 No.421

>>400
>One thing, don't Read Bertrand Russell's history of philosophy. He didn't understand even half of what he criticized because he had a major bias against prior philosophy.

He needed money and he banged it out quick. And hes pretty contemptuous of continental philosophy.

 No.580

>http://newadvent.org/summa/

 No.823

I'd recommend Anthony Kenny's Brief History for a one volume intro. For more, rear Copleston and books based on specific philosophers.
You should engage with traditional metaphysics, too many people ignore this and jump straight into moderns which is very shortsighted. Aristotle is admitedly hard to grasp, so I'd recommend secondary literature to grasp his ideas. Get a book on the Presocratics and you'll get a good idea on how philosophy started and its main fields emerged, focus on Parmenides. Read Plato's dialogues, they are well written and suitable for a beginner since they are not technical.

 No.828

I have the same book and am currently up to page 204. So far the information presented seems impartial yet engaging. The language used is a little advanced for me at times but keep a dictionary handy and after a while it's easy. You should download the pdf "Stoics' Bible" (http://www.stoicscollege.com/PDF/TheStoicsBible.pdf) It contains a lot of snippets of stoic philosophy from a variety of sources.


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