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Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

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Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#161

Post by Terrario »

pmoriarty wrote: post #77
bryan0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. I never understood why philosophy is always structured as a history of the subject. It would be like learning math from a history of math class. I would like to see a philosophy course which starts from a modern perspective and references the history as secondary.

"I never understood why philosophy is always structured as a history of the subject" Because primary sources are highly valued in philosophy, and unlike math or science, those sources never become obsolete. Also, contemporary philosophers trying to restate the ancients often distort the originals, or do so in an inferior way. Philosophy is not a mathematical or experimental result you could just summarize or restate…

This is perhaps the best comment in this thread so far. I’m shocked by the number of anglo graduates in HN that seem so convinced that the current academic trends in their school’s department is “the most correct” or “clearest”, or how “Plato got so many things wrong”. With all the many great readings and interpretations available, I think one has to be extremely misleading or narrow-minded to believe in any kind of linear progress in philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#162

Post by sonabinu »

qntty wrote: post #39

The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant is a good if slightly outdated intro. I also read Sophie's World and would recommend reading that first, but you can skip it if you don't want to read fiction. If you want something that talks purely about ideas without reference to the famous names, Bertrand Russell's book The Problems of Philosophy is also good. It give a very good overview of the major questions that philosop…

I would also recommend the 'Story of Philosophy' for an introduction to western philosophical thought.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#163

Post by pmoriarty »

kpsychwave wrote: post #159

As 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…

"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"

There are probably many HN readers who would find this a congenial approach, since there are so many programmers here, and logic is so close to math and programming.

I also can't deny that studying it does make one's thinking more rigorous, and it's useful for working with other philosophy (and with math and programming).

However, I am concerned that someone who starts off with logic might get the impression that that's what all philosophy is about, or that's what it builds on, and just stop there. While that's true for some types of philosophy, it's not true for the majority of philosophy.

Also, for those people who aren't in to math, logic, puzzles, or programming, I'm not sure this approach would be particularly engaging for them.

When starting from the Socratic dialogues, I think pretty much everyone gets engaged, since they deal with questions which are of universal concern. They are also questions and themes that run throughout the whole course of Western philosophy (and many in Eastern philosophy too, though from a different direction).

People who start with Socrates instead of logic might not have the tools to analyze his arguments rigorously (though if that's even possible is debatable), but they'd get a much better feel for what philosophy was about.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#164

Post by bordercases »

ebullientocelot wrote: post #8

So 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…

Overall these are good recommendations. For instance Sellars is hard but extremely important. His disciple Brandom is comparatively more readable and worth investigating as well.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#165

Post by neom »

As others have mentioned, that's a very difficult question to answer. Philosophy is huge and incredibly subjective, often based on what each persons perspective considers a certain context of reality to be worth philosophizing. Personally I enjoy Bertrand Russell and Terence McKenna very very much, I've invested a lot of time in both of them. .

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#166

Post by ethn »

It's best to start with epistemology, epistemology is the foundation for all works in philosophy, which an understanding of is necessary for not only a good rigor but to know what is possible to know, so you don't your waste time.

Like others I recommend going through Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates--they are valuable in themselves but it will further allow you to see the motivation for the later works I'm going to recommend.

In the same way, Descartes is necessary, at least a general idea of his works. Read a bit about the exchanges between Hume and Berkeley to finally reach Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Not only is the Critique a cornerstone of all philosophy but it shows you how philosophy should be conducted--carefully, rigorously, and by finding the limits of the scope of a subject so it may be necessarily true knowledge; this is what 'Critique' traditionally means, the limit of the scope.

That being said my interest in formal philosophy (I've always been interested in epistemology) at all came from "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer. I ended up disagreeing with the argument Singer advocates for but he provides both the argument and the counter-argument. With the fairness being so remarkable, the book remains invaluable in one's philosophical journey, and at the very least a great introduction to the philosophy of morals/ethics

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#167

Post by adjkant »

As many mentioned, getting into philosophy tends to be best done as an active activity with others due to the value of discussion.

Your specific question, as also mentioned by others, seems to be more about psychology than philosophy. I think in order to really advise further, you need to answer for everyone in this thread what you mean by "philosophy" here :)

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#168

Post by istjohn »

pmoriarty wrote: post #23

The best way to learn about philosophy is to take a good introductory course. Books aren't nearly as good because you won't get to discuss the ideas with other students who are also learning the subject, which is half the fun and half the point of philosophy. You'll also miss out on the insights and explanations of the professor, which will be very valuable, if the professor is any good. As for books, the Socratic di…

I strongly disagree with the recommendation to start with the Socratic dialogues.

OP wants to "develop a personal philosophy." So they will want to learn the state of the art of philosophy. Starting with Plato to learn philosophy is like starting with Archimedes to learn physics. They would be much better off getting a lay of the land from a modern writer. In fact, just as you don't read original research papers to learn physics, I wouldn't recommend OP even read the primary works of any influential philosophers until they've gotten an overview of philosophical thought writ large, a general outline of the specific philosopher's thinking and how it changed over time, and how the philosopher's thinking influenced others. Wikipedia would be a great place to start.

There is simply too much philosophy for any lay person to read thoughtfully in their spare time. And philosophy isn't like math or science, where a small kernel of knowledge and consensus among scholars slowly grew over time. It's more like sculptors shaping clay into pots. Subsequent sculptors may immitate past artists in certain ways, and certain long term trends may emerge, but there is a distinct lack of consensus on almost everything in philosophy.

In my opinion, the reason for this is that philosophy as a means of understanding ourselves and our world beyond what science can tell us is essentially futile. In Plato's time, there was no delineation between science, philosophy and mathematics. The word "philosophy" meant "love of wisdom" in Greek. A philosopher was just someone who wanted to discover knowledge of any kind. Over time, philosophers systematized certain areas of knowledge, giving us math, logic, and science. The areas of knowledge that we were able to systematize are no longer considered to be philosophy. Philosophy today, almost by definition, is the study of problems that have resisted all attempts at systematic understanding for two thousand years. It has no wisdom for us. If you want wisdom, look to math and science.

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