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Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

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Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#251

Post by sheenarustomjji »

Forgot the books. You're in era of Digital Learning and suggestion is to learn online as per your time from anywhere, anytime.

Here you will find online courses (which can be free) on the topic of philosophy.

https://www.mooc-course.com/subject/philosophy/

MOOC is platform to learn almost anything and you'll find many courses from prestigious university like,

- Harvard University - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Microsoft - Google - Amazon - London Business of School - University of California, Berkeley - Imperial College London

Learning from these university surely will help you to gain critical components of particular subjects and will also help to boost your resume.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#252

Post by ozim »

temporalparts wrote: post #245

I majored in philosophy and I think one of the biggest missteps in how I approached my degree was what I thought I would get out of learning philosophy. I thought I'd learn about "truth" from my degree, and I was initially very disgruntled when learning about very incomplete philosophies. I learned eventually that the goal of a philosophy degree was not to find "truth", but to learn about the myriad arguments and mod…

That is a funny thing about young people. A lot of the time they want to find a silver bullet in area that they are interested in. It is not bad of course because maybe they can.

People would like to have nice simple answer for life, universe and everything. This seems like a likely trap for "developing personal philosophy". Where one is building up his perfect system and then things happen in life and it falls apart.

In my opinion best what one can take out of learning philosophy is understanding of other non philosophic works. Reading author that has nothing to do with pure philosophy and finding out patterns and themes that were already worked out by philosophers but have slightly different sprint.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#253

Post by threatofrain »

coldtea wrote: post #209
istjohn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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. I'd suggest the opposite, do start from the Socratic dialogues if you are really interested in philosophy. On the other hand, if you want to be a tech guy with the common tech preconceptions about philosophy, feel free…

But there is a state of the art to music, and it’s fair to say that classical music is dead as it’s basically a fossil now. Hence Lady Gaga.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#254

Post by mikojan »

Bertrand Russel's "A History of Western Philosophy" is both a comprehensive, insightful introduction into the topic as well as incredibly funny and entertaining. It's also fairly opinionated but openly so, which is refreshing. He was one of the founders of Analytical Philosophy and an old school classical liberal/libertarian socialist. Naturally, the chapter on Hegel is beyond hilarious.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#255

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

beachwood23 wrote: post #47

The History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell, is a great starting point. It reviews probably 30 prominent philosophers from the Western world, starting with the ancient Greeks and coming to modern day. It's not comprehensive, and Russell isn't focused on staying completely objective on each subject. But it's a great overview, and in my opinion the subjectivity from Russell adds a bit of personality that mak…

Its also outdated and Russel is sometimes plain wrong in how he represents some philosophers. That book should no longer be recommended as there are plain better books available.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#256

Post by volongoto »

ozim wrote: post #252
temporalparts wrote: post #245

I majored in philosophy and I think one of the biggest missteps in how I approached my degree was what I thought I would get out of learning philosophy. I thought I'd learn about "truth" from my degree, and I was initially very disgruntled when learning about very incomplete philosophies. I learned eventually that the goal of a philosophy degree was not to find "truth", but to learn about the myriad arguments and mod…

That is a funny thing about young people. A lot of the time they want to find a silver bullet in area that they are interested in. It is not bad of course because maybe they can. People would like to have nice simple answer for life, universe and everything. This seems like a likely trap for "developing personal philosophy". Where one is building up his perfect system and then things happen in life and it falls apart…

> That is a funny thing about young people. A lot of the time they want to find a silver bullet in area that they are interested in. It is not bad of course because maybe they can.

I agree with this; once upon a time, I used to be one of those young people. And I think, this unsubstantiated confidence is a good thing for young people. That was an important source of motivation for me when I was jumping into waters that were way deeper than I envisioned. If I knew "better" I would never do that. But I'm glad I did it. I did not discover a new continent, no, but if I did not have that courage (the courage coming from "ignorance", if you will) I would not have learned what I have learned along the way. I am no longer that courageous young man, but I'm mostly happy he did what he did.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#257

Post by polytely »

ian0 wrote: post #7

A long time ago someone recommended to me a small Norwegian book called Sophies World [0] as a very basic introduction to the history of philosophy and its served well. It was written by a teacher and geared at young adults. So its not a rigorous introduction. But its a short read and by the end you'll have enough leads to follow. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World

Got this as a gift from my teacher at the end of my last year in primary school, still one of the greatest gifts I've ever received

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#258

Post by pmoriarty »

istjohn wrote: post #227
pmoriarty wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"those questions have proven intractable to philosophy" There are plenty of philosophers (and non-philosophers) who've thought they did in fact answer such questions, so they would not agree with you that these questions have been intractable. What philosophy lacks is the broad consensus that science has, there's also arguably no way to "objectively" tell who is right in philosophy, as what that even means or what st…

> But is philosophy's function to find answers? You're moving the goal posts. Why did you just say that philosophy can help us address a long list of questions if you're willing to concede that maybe philosophy isn't for answering questions at all. OP wants answers. They want to develop a personal philosophy. They are not looking to "expand their horizons" or "question everything." > there's also arguably no way to "…

"You're moving the goal posts. Why did you just say that philosophy can help us address a long list of questions if you're willing to concede that maybe philosophy isn't for answering questions at all."

Because I was answering people who insisted that philosophy was has to be useful. I'm not moving the goal posts so much as questioning their assumption that philosophy must have a use to be of value.

"OP wants answers"

But this sub-thread is not about the OP's wants. It's a reply to people challenging the value of philosophy.

"Then it's not going to be very useful to OP, is it?"

Again, you're assuming that philosophy has to be useful to be of value. And, again, it can be, for the reasons I stated before, but it can still be valuable even if it isn't.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#259

Post by jasonv »

threatofrain wrote: post #253
coldtea wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'd suggest the opposite, do start from the Socratic dialogues if you are really interested in philosophy. On the other hand, if you want to be a tech guy with the common tech preconceptions about philosophy, feel free…

But there is a state of the art to music, and it’s fair to say that classical music is dead as it’s basically a fossil now. Hence Lady Gaga.

Dead?

Have a look at Adam Neely on Youtube.

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