James Maffie's "Aztec Philosophy" is pretty great, as is "Filosofia Náhuatl" by Miguel Leon Portilla. (If you are interested in process metaphysics) Oh and the latter seems to be available online: http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/publicadigital/l...
Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
151–160 of 293 posts
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#152If you want to learn about philosophy, I highly recommend Russel's History of Western Philosophy. It's usually frowned upon and recommended to avoid for Philosophy students exactly for the same reasons I think it's one of the best books ever written: It doesn't shy away of critique and dispute, as it was written by a practicing philosopher (who still values objectivity and holds to high standards of reasoning). The l…
I've done a lot of learning about philosophy and the book that keeps coming up, from people that I highly respect, is Russell's book, check out the wiki on it [1].
Regardless, based on summaries that I've read, I wish I started with this book since it gives a solid understanding of western philosophy.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
By 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?
It 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.
Yes, 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.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#154An interesting introduction may be through studying the history of the development of Philosophy. I think Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is an interesting book to get started with it.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#155If you want to learn about philosophy, I highly recommend Russel's History of Western Philosophy. It's usually frowned upon and recommended to avoid for Philosophy students exactly for the same reasons I think it's one of the best books ever written: It doesn't shy away of critique and dispute, as it was written by a practicing philosopher (who still values objectivity and holds to high standards of reasoning). The l…
> It's usually frowned upon and recommended to avoid for Philosophy students exactly for the same reasons I think it's one of the best books ever written: > It doesn't shy away of critique and dispute This is nonsense. wittgenstein and nietzsche are highly regarded within philosophy departments, and they both criticize philosophy to the point of turning their backs on philosophy. russell is just not a very careful sc…
This is nonsense. Wittgenstein and Nietzsche didn't write anything that could be mistaken for a textbook you could learn your HoP 101 with.
What you say about factual shortcoming is just one of the reasons, not the main one by any means, at least from my experience.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#156So a lot of philosophical writing references a sort of general canon, at least as far as western thinking is concerned. Other traditions I'm sure have their own details but I can't speak intelligently to them. The field is enormous, and without more specific information regarding your goals it is difficult to pinpoint the classics in subfields that may interest you. That said, there are a few highlights I think you'r…
Perhaps Montaigne's Complete Essays as well (In the translation of M A Screech), since he lucidly summarizes most of what developed till his time, and also analysed and explained in very clear and understandable manner how it all affected his manner of living his own life.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#157If you want to learn about philosophy, I highly recommend Russel's History of Western Philosophy. It's usually frowned upon and recommended to avoid for Philosophy students exactly for the same reasons I think it's one of the best books ever written: It doesn't shy away of critique and dispute, as it was written by a practicing philosopher (who still values objectivity and holds to high standards of reasoning). The l…
I'm going to be the lone naysayer here, and recommend against Russell's book.
Russell is an eloquent, entertaining, and engaging writer. I used to be a huge Russell fan myself when I was young, and back then I would have recommended his book too.
But then I actually studied philosophy and realized how myopic, limited, and biased Russell was outside his areas of specialty (Analytic philosophy, math, and logic).
Yes, you'd get an overview of (some of) Western philosophy from his book, but it'd be really biased, and that's the wrong foot to start you learning of philosophy from.
Much better, in my view, to just start reading the Socratic dialogues yourself, as part of an intro to philosophy class, instead of being fed regurgitated, abridged, predigested knowledge by someone with an agenda.
My view on Russell extends to many of the other recommendations elsewhere in this thread of books by other authors who've written overviews of philosophy from an Analytic perspective. They might have more up-to-date views than Russell did (who was born in 1872 and wrote his book in 1946), but they tend to share his limitations.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's usually frowned upon and recommended to avoid for Philosophy students exactly for the same reasons I think it's one of the best books ever written: > It doesn't shy away of critique and dispute This is nonsense. wittgenstein and nietzsche are highly regarded within philosophy departments, and they both criticize philosophy to the point of turning their backs on philosophy. russell is just not a very careful sc…
This is nonsense. Wittgenstein and Nietzsche didn't write anything that could be mistaken for a textbook you could learn your HoP 101 with. What you say about factual shortcoming is just one of the reasons, not the main one by any means, at least from my experience.
Then what's your point? actual undergrad philosophy textbooks don't "shy away of critique and dispute" either. is your complaint that russell's idiosyncratic views are not foregrounded enough to your liking?
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#159As a philosophy major, I would advise you to pay attention to the order in which you expose yourself to materials. The earlier stronger impressions in your journey will naturally have a weight on your opinions of later materials. In addition, academic departments usually have an -ism bias so that will also influence their content recommendations.
A neutral starter would be: Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking
Once you have some formal thinking tools, I would approach philosophy building organically by writing down your beliefs and identifying questions and gaps, and then researching those ad-hoc. You may also discover that your current existing informal / intuitive model is mostly sufficient for a 21st century life.
Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy
#160The best book for this is “How To Think About The Great Ideas” by Mortimer Adler. I studied philosophy undergrad and ran the philosophy club. We used a lot of material from this book to structure our meetings.
Many people have mentioned taking a class (I agree too) where you can engage in a conversation. This book’s content is transcribed from a series of TV shows with Adler, the host having a back and forth dialog with questions coming from audience. Adler speaks in a way that makes complicated ideas in a way a child could grasp. This book accomplishments the classroom setting.
The second reason is that the content is structured about ideas. Chapters are broken down into “How to think about law”, “How to think about freedom”, “How to think about love”, “How to think about philosophy”, etc. I find survey books with this organization much better say diving into a book by a major philosopher. This way you can jump around and read the chapters that interest you first, coming back to the others later.
I’ll close with two quotes from my favorite philosophy professor.
“I know how much you know not by the answers you give but by the questions you ask.”
“Philosophy is the subject that when ALL thinking is done, there’s still more thinking.”