Reddit mentions: The best philosophy history books

I wouldn't worry too much right now about knowing everything perfectly; you're still finding your foundations and areas of interests. Sophie's World is sorta where I started too, and I'd recommend maybe going back and seeing if there are any philosophers that you found particularly interesting. That would be one way to start.

If you want to go deeper into general philosophy, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is like a much (much much much) denser and more intense version of Sophie's World. If you're not sure where to go next, this will give you a much more in-depth view of even more philosophers (although he skips Kierkegaard, which is my main gripe with the book, but oh well, still would recommend it). One thing I personally loves about this book though was how he connected philosophy to history, art, science, poetry, and so many other fields. It's really made me want to switch my major to...Everything! Philosophy's still at my core, but this book really got me interested in other fields as well.

To go further in recommendation, Plato's dialogues are generally considered to be pretty important to a foundation of philosophical understanding. The Apology is a pretty easy one; it's less of a philosophical text in the traditional sense and more a sort of kick-off for the field, where Socrates explains why philosophy is important, and why he pursues it. The Republic is also pretty important for understanding Plato's political ideas. All his dialogues, though, are generally pretty good reading, and I'd recommend reading some.

To go past that, Aristotle's often a good read, primarily his Nichomachean Ethics is a pretty good introduction to his philosophy, much of which is a response to Plato.

To move onto modern philosophy, it tends to get a bit more technical and tricky, but a great and very easy-to-read modern philosopher is Descartes. I'd recommend Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method in Discerning Truth in the Sciences as good introductions to modern philosophy, which tends to focus on slightly more technical forms of logic, rather than conclusions drawn from more vague observations.

(NOTE: found a book that combines both the Descartes writing mentions into one here).

Another important thinker who might not be hard to understand but who will definitely shake you is Nietzsche. This documentary is a pretty good introduction to him, but if you want more, I'd recommend this collection as a good overview of his philosophy. His works are quick reads, but they will stick with you, and I consider him to be one of the most important thinkers to understand the modern age.

Eventually though, you'll need to start taking on more challenging texts. Hopefully though, you'll be well informed enough by that time to have found a niche that you personally are interested in, which will make it much more interesting and fun! Never hesitate to come here with questions. Good luck!

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I got hit with a pretty nasty respiratory bug which put me down for awhile.

Anyway, on to talking about a general plan for this project. I think that the best thing to do would be to start with a light touch, and see how well she takes to it.

With that in mind, I might recommend starting with 'Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar'. Plato and a Platypus is a cheap, and reasonably instructive (though superficial) introduction to a range of philosophical questions through jokes. It is a strange approach, but one I think works quite well as a something like a philosophical appetizer that introduces lots of interesting topics. It has a sequel focused on politics ("Aristotle and an Aardvark") which is also quite good. I will warn that not all of the jokes are appropriate for all audiences, so whether you like this book might depend on how liberal you feel like being regarding jokes featuring explicit language, adult themes, etc.

I also definitely recommend anything from the Oxford Very Short Introduction series, particularly (given your interests) the Very Short Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics. In my experience, the entire VSI series is excellent, and I've used some of them to teach philosophy at the community college level. They are extremely brief (they can fit into my pockets) and accessible, and also quite cheap (usually about 10 bucks a piece). They are written by leading experts on each given topic, and there is an enormous selection if you decide that you want to explore particular topics (Ancient Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Theology, etc). They will be a bit tougher than Plato and a Platypus in that they don't typically have much fluff, but should still be generally relatively accessible. The Ethics volume is pretty solid, built around a series of major questions that ethics needs to respond to. I will offer two warnings about the VSI series:
(1) VSI formatting is largely left up to the author, so the approach varies considerably from text to text. This allows authors to structure the material however they feel is best, which usually turns out great. Just be ready for some jumps in how they deal with things (e.g., the Ethics volume is divided into sections which each review some set of related questions and possible answers, while the Logic volume is problem centered and features new tools of formal logic to address various problems presented in each chapter)
(2) Authors of VSI are almost always working scholars with particular philosophical viewpoints - and this will come across in their texts. Expect some axes to be ground, and presuppositions assumed. That said, of the one's I've read (maybe 5 or so at this point), they still presented a rather fair overview of the field.

I think for books, you will be hard pressed to do better than Plato and a Platypus/Aristotle and an Aardvark to provoke the feeling that philosophy is worthwhile, and the Very Short Introduction series to provide an actual introduction into the field.

There are also some great philosophy podcasts. The best for a non-philosopher is likely "Philosophize This", which is a largely chronological review of a fair chunk of the most significant philosophers in history (even including some non-Western thinkers). Again, the material isn't explicitly aimed at younger folk, so there may be some touchy content, but it is generally an exceptional program. They have quite a backlog now (something like 90 episodes), so there is plenty of material there.

Also, I've found a couple of course plans for philosophy in middle school. The strongest looking one to me is this one from UNC. Definitely worth looking at as a way to structure your thoughts, but I would augment it with some of the resources covered above.

I think this would yield a pretty low cost way to test if this approach will work. Assuming you were to buy all four books I've mentioned, I think it would run a total of about $40 per person, which should make this a pretty light investment in terms of money. Likewise, the books are all relatively short, so you might make it through them in as little as a month (if you were really motivated).

I think the real trick will be in deciding where to go after the initial introduction has been made and more serious texts are being considered, but this will depend a lot on how this project develops. I think the best thing to do with that is to wait and see how things turn out, then plan the next leg of the introduction. I'll be around for the foreseeable future, and would be happy to help you figure that out when the time comes.

Let me know what you think, and keep me in the loop as the project unfolds. I am very interested in this project and would be happy to lend a hand when possible.

I don't study philosophy academically at the moment although I did take a course in A-level philosophy which I have just finished. I currently and previously only studied out of interest (I'm also 19). And I haven't been doing so "properly" for that long but perhaps that will help my answer a little bit.

Argumentation

As for the first question, it is fairly important to understand the basics of argumentation. In reading philosophical texts you want to be able to "extract" an argument because most don't provide or describe arguments in simple syllogistic form (that is, with premises and conclusions clearly laid out in a list). Most arguments are 'within' the text, often mixed in with lengthy defences of certain premises or elaboration on the meanings of key words used in the argument itself. Learning a little bit of propositional logic might be helpful. It's fairly straight forward and intuitive to learn about the different kind of argument structures you'll be encountering. Being able to look at a text and then reconstruct the text as a kind of structured argument is a learning technique I've seen used a lot.

Reading Recommendations

As for reading, it really depends on what you're interested in. I can't really give you recommendations based on the information you've given because philosophy is a gigantic field. Like, gigantic. If you can think of a thing, there is probably a "philosophy of" that thing. Case in point. But that's not particularly a problem. What you should probably do if you're not so sure of what areas of philosophy you're interested in is read some introductory texts that take you through many areas and see which catch your attention. These texts will often point you towards the key ideas in those areas of philosophy and recommend further reading of the big players in those areas.

Frequently I've seen recommended, Think by Simon Blackburn. You may also consider An Introduction to Philosophy by Paul Nuttall or Philosophy: The Basics by Nigel Warburton. The first real read I had in philosophy when I was younger was A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton also. None of these texts are exhaustive, of course. They simply open doors.

I might be able to recommend other reading if you say you have some particular interest in philosophy. Otherwise, those are good introductory texts to philosophy as a whole.

What do I wish I was told when starting to read about philosophy?

To be honest, I wish that it was made clear how important our intuitions are in philosophy. I came from a 'background' in enjoying sciences. (Background maybe isn't the right word since I was fairly young but I liked science). My interest in philosophy was perhaps mostly spurred on by my growing interest in the sciences. They grew up together, lets say. I liked science because I liked having good reasons for beliefs about profound things. Since I didn't see the use of intuitions in the sciences, I believed out-right that intuition should be avoided as a basis for reasoning. Now I see how absurd this is. Philosophers spend a lot of time considering what makes something rational or what kind of justification for our beliefs are good and which are bad. Intuition is something we come equipped to these discussions with and is something we are forced to work with and you should make friends with it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the processes of science should be heavily relying on intuitions. But intuitions are very much required to 'kick-start' philosophical inquiry. And it took a while for me to really deal with this.

Maybe there's other stuff I would say too, but that's the big one. I have unambiguously thought to myself before that I wish I was told this and forced to deal with it earlier on in the process.

Edit: Added in the advice section.

For Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Kemp Smith and Guyer/Wood are both good options, but I would recommend the Pluhar translation.

If you want to try to read the Critique, you should first read Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. He wrote it to introduce the project of the Critique, and it does an excellent job at this. It's available in the Cambridge collection edition as part of Theoretical Philosophy After 1781 or on its own.

Secondary literature would also be a good idea. The best reference is Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism. Allison interprets Kant a very specific way on a number of contentious issues. For excellent references which adopt some alternate views, see Guyer's Kant and Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. All of these would be excellent secondary references and of great help in approaching the Critique. Guyer's Kant is probably the easiest read, so might be a good place to start.

For Descartes, you should get the first two volumes of the Cottingham edition called The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. The Discourse is an excellent place to start. With it you should also read The World and at least some of the Rules for the Direction of the Mind; perhaps the first six or so, or more if you find them interesting. These are all in the first volume. After these, you should read his Meditations, which are in volume two.

German Idealism, particularly Hegel and Schelling, touches on this. Schelling's later works become too mythological and "out there", even for absolute idealism, but his early works present some amazing ideas on nature being mind and us a part of God realizing itself. These ideas also stem from Spinoza's Ethics in that Spinoza presented the idea that we are finite forms of infinite nature and that nature = God, thus we are all a part of God realizing itself, or natural consciousness gaining knowledge about nature.

In terms of recommended readings, I would mostly recommend secondary literature, German Idealism is exceedingly difficult to jump into. Therefore, I recommend the following:
http://www.amazon.com/German-Idealism-Struggle-Subjectivism-1781-1801/dp/0674027175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404678870&sr=8-1&keywords=beiser+german+idealism

http://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Charles-Taylor/dp/0521291992/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404678915&sr=1-1&keywords=taylor+hegel

Also, Pinkard has a book on German Philosophy but it is more general (1760 - 1860) which is still a good read but is unable to go into any great depth.
There is also the Routledge guide to Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit which gives an alright surface reading of the book (explains the historical examples used by Hegel and the basic ideas) but I found that it did not go into the metaphysical arguments as in depth as I would have liked.


This is all off the top of my head so I'll return with more reading options if they come to mind.

I mean, it sounds like you are asking for a book about the relationship between continental philosophy and the views of analytic philosophers.

You might try Lee Braver's book, A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism.

https://www.amazon.com/Thing-This-World-Continental-Anti-Realism/dp/0810123800

Braver treats the thinkers you have mentioned while comparing them to some of the analytic ideas about epistemology you have mentioned. I haven't read all of it yet, but I think you might dig it.

It's also a lot better, I think, than some of the more "pragmatic" attempts to appropriate continental philosophy, at least in terms of actually trying to understand these thinkers on their own terms and then compare them to analytic points of view. At least, that's my impression from the sections I have read.

Edit:

There are also tons of books dealing with Heidegger's definitions of truth, and I would imagine some of them take into account analytic terminology. Heidegger, for one thing, opposes the correspondence theory of truth. I don't know, however, whether his theory of truth fits those theories of truth, or really any theories of truth.

I don't know of any serious analytic treatments of Derrida. Braver's book might be your best bet here, although I haven't yet read his section on Derrida.

As for Hegel, look at Robert Brandom's work. It's not the most orthodox reading of Hegel, but it uses analytic terminology and is definitely interesting.

For Nietzsche, there's actually a ton of analytic work on Nietzsche that might be able to help you figure out which of the "isms" he fits into. Unfortunately, I haven't read any of it, but it definitely exists.

This post on my blog (sorry for self-promotion) has links to three of Brandom's YouTube lectures on Hegel, his website, and his book on Hegel (which he has made available for free on his website. It also has links to three lectures by Zizek critiquing Brandom's reading: http://cmbodayle.tumblr.com/post/161443561639/slavoj-zizek-hegelian-battles-3-lectures

I haven't read them myself but I have it on very good authority that the best two intro texts to Levinas' thought are two books by Adriaan Peperzak: Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and To The Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

A background in phenomenology and continental thought is also very helpful. For phenomenology if you need it Introduction to Phenomenology by Dermot Moran is pretty good. One thing to keep in mind while you read is that Levinas, rather than invent new terms, uses very familiar ones in very distinct ways. He is supposedly trying to radically depart from the general trajectory of western thought, or possibly even articulate something different altogether (partially as a result of his 'phenomenological reduction'). He does often define what he means by things like "religion", "metaphysics" and "ontology", for example, so be sure to flag any 'definitions' when you come across them. If possible it might be good to try to put together a reading group as it is the type of work that everyone will latch onto something different, so brining those points of contact together can be very fruitful.

I've seen Levinas come up on this sub a few times in the past little while so it might be worth it to even see if people around here want to read through with you, though face-to-face conversation might be better (that was a lame 'Levinas joke'!)

I recommend the Wadsworth website. This link is to their timeline series:
http://www.wadsworth.com/philosophy_d/special_features/timeline/timeline.html
They also have by topic and by philosopher.
Another good website, mentioned by others, is Squashed Philosophers, but it has a different purpose (to skim original works).

If you prefer audiobooks, there's a good lecture series, Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition:
http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=470
You probably don't need the whole 84 lectures, just a few of the bigger names like Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein will give you a solid foundation.

For books, Philosophy Made Simple is a solid entry level intro,
http://www.amazon.ca/Philosophy-Made-Simple-Richard-Popkin/dp/0385425333

I also like from Socrates to Satre
http://www.amazon.com/Socrates-Sartre-Philosophic-Quest/dp/0553251619
Which goes in for just a few big names, and has a companion tv show.

There's no definitive anything, and probably better than these that I'm not aware of, but a good approach is to graze a little from a few different introductory books, aiming to familiarise yourself with terms and names - and then graze again to get a slightly deeper insight into how they connect etc.

I haven't read it, but I can tell you that the consensus about it in the History of Philosophy community is that it's pretty bad. I've only seen it cited in history of philosophy journals as a foil. For a broad introduction, I've heard Kenny's new work is pretty good. And I rather like Copleston's History, though it's nine ~500 page volumes. I think your best bet, though, is just to read some philosophical classics. Perhaps Plato's Five Dialogues (https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Dialogues-Euthyphro-Apology-Classics/dp/0872206335/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069583&sr=8-1&keywords=five+dialogues), Descartes' Meditations (https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-First-Philosophy-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872201929/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069631&sr=8-1&keywords=meditations+descartes), Russel's Problems of Philosophy (https://www.amazon.com/Problems-Philosophy-Bertrand-Russell/dp/1613821875/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069667&sr=8-7&keywords=problems+of+philosophy), and maybe Searle's Brief Introduction to Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brief-Introduction-Fundamentals-Philosophy/dp/0195157346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069693&sr=8-1&keywords=searle+mind).

There are better, more important, and more recent works than these, but I think these are good intros to philosophy as a whole for two reasons: 1) these are very representative of Ancient, Modern, Early Analytic, and contemporary philosophy of mind. And 2) these are all pretty easy. Philosophy's batshit complicated, at times; but none of these are more difficult than they have to be (and yet, they're not Idiot's Guides … )

>And I don't pretend that I have anything more than a populist's understanding of these topics. I'm surely just scraping the surface of most topics, misunderstanding things, and I would never think I can be part of an academic conversation because I listen to a couple podcasts.

And I respect you understanding your own ignorance in a topic, because that shows intelligence. Philosophy, interestingly, is the subject that most makes me feel more stupid the more I've studied it, so you're definitely not alone! That being said, many people from the new atheist / "skeptic" community act like this gem

>Yeah, I just say "this is interesting, I'd even like to talk about it with strangers", but I acknowledge the second part of your sentence and am OK realizing my understanding is often limited and quite possibly wrong.


And I think you should use that understanding as motivation to maybe go directly to the sources that these podcasts engage with :) Philosophy is a subject with so many fantastic, but extremely accurate introductory books and I go back to them every now and then to refresh myself on the basics. My favorite example is Prof Simon Blackburn's - Think and another really good piece which goes into a lot of informal logic as well as the jargon: The Philosopher's Toolkit

I find both of those to give an excellent simplification of some of the bigger elements of philosophy without overstretching and misrepresenting their subject matter! :)

If you are interested in learning philosophy then, ostensibly, you already have some big questions floating around up there. Ask yourself what interests you. Language? Ethics? Epistemology? I would first familiarize myself with some basics here and here but then from there, you should just start digging in.

Now, some authors will be inaccessible if you don't have a firm grasp of the historical tradition of philosophy cough Heidegger cough but you can do just fine with others.

Plato is fine to start with but if you really want to be captivated and excited, you have to start with Nietzsche. He is implicitly answering philosophers like Plato and Descartes but again, as long as you have a rudimentary understanding of them, it's doable. You can do more detailed analysis later.

Nietzsche's writing is full of passion and sets out to undermine every assumption behind Western philosophy. He tackles morality, epistemology, language, aesthetics, and just about everything else. He'll motivate you to get into the rest of tradition so that you have a more contextual understanding of where is he writing from.

I recommend:

Kaufman's Nietzsche

and

Beyond Good and Evil

I don't where you can find it, but his essay, On Truth and Lies in a Non-moral Sense is fantastic, if not just for the first few paragraphs.

Its been some years since I studied Nietzsche with any real application, so I should be clear that I'm really just giving a quick summary of Kaufmann's work on Nietzsche, primarily from his annotations in the aforementioned volumes, as well as Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Kaufmann was a very key part in rescuing Nietzsche's legacy from the Nazis, which was first tarnished by his sister, and then my editors like Alfred Bäumler, whose annotated edition was one of the most widely read in the interwar years, and also was an avowed Nazi. At Nuremberg, it was noted:

>[Nietzsche's] vision of the masses being governed without constraints by rules presaged the Nazi regime. Nietzsche believed in the supreme race and the primacy of Germany in which he saw a young soul and inexhaustible reserves.

And that was certainly the image cultivated about Nietzsche, which the Nazi party latched onto, but I would also point back to the unpublished line above, which is only one of many you can find where he has quite the opposite to say in regards to the German spirit.

Take what he had to say on the Slavs compared to the Germans:

>The Poles I consider the most gifted and gallant among the Slavic peoples; and the giftedness of the Slavs seems greater to me than that of the Germans.

Much of the discussion that Kaufmann covers in Nietzsche about this (the entire 10th chapter, "The Master Race", is devoted mostly to race and Nazism) comes down to perception of race in Nietzsche's writings, and specifically the concept of 'master race', which of course tied in well with the Nazi's own philosophical underpinnings (although it should be noted Nietzsche [seemed to] fit their philosophy, and was not the source of it). But, as Kaufmann points out, Nietzsche writes against nationalism, advocates the 'mixed race' marriages, and is generally quite praiseful of the Jews in this regards, "just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant". He certainly had views on race that we would find troubling, but far from being the hateful, racial supremacy of Nazism, it was really more an advocacy of many different races, each with their various characteristics, coming together, intermingling, and leading to his hope of the "European Man" (So... yeah, he wasn't exactly not racist either, just not in anywhere near the same context as Nazism).

To quote Kaufmann, "It would be cumbersome and pointless to adduce endless examples from Nazi works on Nietzsche to refute them each time by referring to the context of Nietzsche's remarks", but nevertheless, Nazi scholars of Nietzsche, such as Max Oehler or Bäumler, often had to do some serious mental gymnastics to excuse or rationalize the anti-German, pro-Jewish, anti-Nationalist, anti-anti-Semitism (an 'obscenity' in Nietzsche's words), which were numerous, and generally done through taking them out of context, or else subtle editing.

So I hope that gives you a little glimpse, but if this is a topic that interests you, I really would recommend you track down a copy of Kaufmann's book, as just reading it will be much better than me trying to make out my indecipherable margin notes that are nearly a decade old! (Amazon has a "look inside", so see if you can get some samples of Chapter 10) The sum of it is that Nietzsche's philosophy often can be troubling, and there is plenty to his that simply can't be excused. He is controversial in his own right, even without the association with Nazism, but that association is very much an unfortunate one that shouldn't be taken as representative of his works, and post-WWII scholars have really worked hard to destroy.

Edit: Minor clean up

I'd actually recommend watching through the documentary in the link above as a halfway decent introduction to the main themes relevant to studying Nietzsche in an easily digestible format.

As far as books go, afaik most philosophy courses on Nietzsche start out with Beyond Good and Evil. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is his self-designated magnum opus, though I recommend having some background knowledge of its context before attempting to scale it. My personal favorite, Gay Science, is a wonderfully thought-provoking and entertaining read.

There are also plenty of good commentaries and biographies around. A classic would be Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. It's a bit old, but I wouldn't hold that against it. Kaufmann can of course be accused of revisionism, but his influence in presenting some of the first analyses encompassing Nietzsche's entire work as well as rehabilitating his academic respectability post-WW2 is seminal. Some others over here might have hints on more current biographies worth checking out. Also, most translations of Nietzsche's original works have decent commentaries with them, I'd look out for RJ Hollingdale's and Kaufmann's versions in particular.

Good luck with your pursuit of philosophy :)

Edit: typo (or two)

What is it that you don't feel like you understand? It would be helpful if you could ask a more specific question. Hegel uses "consciousness" in the Phenomenology both in the more typical sense (meaning something like "an individual's awareness of the external world and of his/her own thoughts") and as a name for the "protagonist" of the Phenomenology, who progresses from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness to […] to Absolute Knowing. As we read the Phenomenology, we are watching as consciousness (in the second sense) makes a series of attempts to understand itself and its world, and we are watching as each of these attempts fails. Or do you specifically mean the "Consciousness" chapter (i.e., the chapter including the sections on "sense-certainty," "perception," and "force and the understanding")?

I'm not sure what else to add without knowing what, specifically, you're struggling with. As a general rule when you're talking about Hegel's philosophy of mind, it would certainly be helpful to know some Kant--particularly (and kind of unfortunately since it's probably the hardest part of Kant) the "Transcendental Deduction." Kant's ideas regarding the transcendental unity of apperception were hugely important to the post-Kantian idealists, including Hegel.

It would also help to know a little bit about K.L. Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie, and his analysis of representation as consisting in three parts: (roughly) 1) the representation, 2) a relating of the representation to a subject, and 3) a relating of the representation to an object. I think you can detect the Reinhold picture when Hegel says things like, "consciousness distinguishes something from itself and at the same time it relates itself to it. Or, as this should be expressed: There is something for consciousness; and the determinate aspect of this relating, that is, of the being of something for a consciousness, is knowledge. However, we distinguish being-in-itself from this being for an other; what is related to knowledge is likewise distinguished from it and is also posited as existing external to this relation; the aspect of this in-itself is called truth" (¶82).

Knowing some Fichte would be good too; ditto Schelling. Honestly, though, I'm afraid that I might be making reading the Phenomenology seem like an extraordinarily daunting task for which you need to spend years preparing yourself, but that's because your request for help is so broad that I don't really know where to focus my recommendations. The Phenomenology is definitely super hard, but you don't need to have memorized the whole history of philosophy to make any sense of it or something.

As I always do when people ask about the Phenomenology, I'll also recommend that you check out from your library or buy Michael Forster's Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit and Jean Hyppolite's Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The Forster is a great overview of what the Phenomenology as a whole is trying to do, though it won't help much with specific sections. The Hyppolite is a straight-up chapter-by-chapter commentary which you can read as you read the Phenomenology: read a chapter, then read the Hyppolite, then go back and read the chapter again--it's a bit time consuming, but you'll get a lot out of doing that. If you can't get the Hyppolite for some reason, go for either the Stern or the Kalkavage texts that do roughly the same thing.

If you want to respond or edit the OP with a more specific question, then I can try to address that more directly.

It is quite likely I will regret biting, but you have made some points worth responding to.

>I could easily post a good half a dozen or more serious problems with materialism.

Do it, it will be appreciated I think (that is if they are not just already dealt with smoke screens). The SEP article on Physicalism has a good summary of some standard objections.

>This objection seems to rest on the idea that we've figured out everything that's happening in the brain.

Someone making the argument might assume that, but I and many other physicalists don't assume this. We update our probability estimate on propositions such as "the mind is physical" when we examine the evidence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence when your prediction expects there to be evidence. If for example some form of dualism predicts that we should see physical effects in the brain with no antecedent physical cause, then not finding effects in the brain with antecedent physical cause should (if you are behaving rationally) cause you to lower your confidence in the proposition that predicts the effects.

"There is a dragon in my garage" me "Looks for dragon in garage… Hmm doesn't look like it"

It is good for you that I have high confidence that "the mind is physical" because any evidence to the contrary will cause a change in belief proportional to the high expectation from my hypothesis. My hypothesis predicts that there will be no effects in brain that when fully investigated have no physical causes (aside from what you have in the situation of quantum decoherence). And when we find evidence that contradicts this prediction I will update my beliefs, both on the truth of physicalism and also one the propositions that predict the evidence.

I understand that this might be a tangent, because you may not think dualism makes such predictions but maybe you could let me know some of the predictions that your form of dualism makes?

>I wouldn't be surprised if, in a few decades, it's found that much less is happening in the brain than there should be... juuust at the moment when our way of life, with its huge scientific foundation and influence, has fallen apart. It'd make for a great conclusion to the story of the Western world!

I would, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if our understanding of the brain and consciousness has changed significantly by then. Of course I will update my beliefs either way it goes. I am not attached to physicalism.

>Regardless, the only options aren't materialism and the idea that there is "something more" than the physical brain that completes the mind. I think that everything is mind and that, for example, our planet is merely a more solid type of imagination.

Maybe you will be interested in this video.

>What does it even mean to be "material?" At first we conceived of fundamental matter as being basically very tiny billiard balls. Then quantum physics and a host of other advances blew up that idea, but it seems that "materialism" hasn't changed.

Come on. No modern treatment of physicalism/materialism espouses such a view. Many physicalists freely admit that we don't yet have (and may never have) a complete view of the physical laws, but they still believe that despite this physicalism is the most probable hypothesis. If you haven't already read it I recommend reading Andrew Melnyk - A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism.

> I just see it as a distraction instead of addressing the specific points being made.

There are very real differences between the analytic and continental approaches to philosophy, as well as which thinkers are most seriously and most often discussed in their respective traditions. These trends are not accidental.

>so I'm suspicious that the author Rosen is using that "continental" label to obfuscate a text to lend itself to his own beliefs and principles.

The Mask of Enlightenment is not primarily political.

>so already I'm beginning to feel suspect on how honest the author is with his interpretation of the text.

There's really no better way to judge a text by singling out one Amazon reader review.

>I first recommend people to read any material for themselves and try to convey their own understanding as best they can.

This isn't good advice. Nietzsche is easy to read but it's tremendously difficult to get a holistic grasp on his ideas and their significance and implications. Once you read the primary material, you'll need a guiding hand to help make sense of the text -- trying to "convey your own understanding as best you can" isn't going to cut it.

Bias is ever present, but if one wants a good introductory text of Nietzsche that's admirably neutral, Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist would make a fair compromise.

Alain Badiou recently wrote this article on Hegel's master/slave dialectic, but did so asking the question as to it's relation to real slavery. It answers the question quite nicely while also providing an extremely clear reading of Hegel's argument.

Frederick Beiser also wrote a book on Hegel (there are ways to get the PDF version of this if you look in the right places) that is clear and does a good job dispelling the common misreadings of Hegel.

Peter Singer's Very Short Introduction to Hegel (again, available as a PDF in the right places) is also extremely clear and well written.

If you're serious about reading Hegel, pick yourself up a copy of Phenomenology of Spirit and read through it with Gregory Sadler's Lecture series. He goes through paragraph by paragraph explaining the whole text. He's extremely engaging and extremely insightful.

If you can't get enough Hegel and you want to go all in, I'd recommend The Hegel Variations by Fredric Jameson, Hegel: Three Studies by Theodore Adorno, and Less Than Nothing by some Slovenian guy.

Sorry if that's overkill, hope it helps!

Mike Rugnetta made a few stretches or mistakes in explaining Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" yet the corrections still could have been used to explain the misuse of quotes or the way meaning is lost through translation both literally and through people and time.

The first is error Rugnetta mentions 'I think, therefore I am' doesn't mean I think therefore I have a body, it means I think and therefore there must be stuff, stuff which I'm comfortable labeling me thinking all them thoughts." It would have been better to quote Descartes himself (Yes, I will get to how Descartes is speaking as the I next) explicitly stating, "this 'I,' that is to say, the soul through which I am what I am." (Does Popeye owes Descartes royalties?) Thus the I is the soul and in a secular way a "placeholder". This may seem minimal but would a placeholder continue to exist if the body were removed? Descartes say this is separate from the body and thus continues despite a body being( if the body never was because "Descartes” says I is a soul not a physical thing.) The use of the word “soul” is perfect as today it connotates a religious, in but outer body thing and that is what Descartes is writing about in that Part IV of Discourse on Method.

Say Whaaaa?

Yes. Not only is this a portion of Descartes’ search for the truth (knowledge) but Part IV is about proving “the existence of God and of the human soul, which are the foundations of his metaphysics.” (This quote is from the beginning of the discourse and in in italics. I don’t know if this was from an early editor or friend or pompous Rene Descartes himself). He is constantly drowning the reader with I because he is expelling to the reader how and why he arrived at writing the Discourse. When you learn a little about Descartes’, you suddenly see how parallel the Discourse is to his early life. Thus to say the cogito’s I isn’t really a person speaking” is to ignore Descarte’s definition of I as the soul and thus a person with or without a body.

This leads me to correct Rugnetta’s claim that the Discourse’s avoidance of “you, us or we” was an omittance of the other yet applicable to the other. Descartes is completely redefining philosophy and thus the pre-science days of science. At this time, you were taught to listen, read, memorize and repeat. Scholarship was not thinking critically as we view it today (or some of us) but of absorbing the scholastics. Descartes found much of this during his youth most unsettling when he attended a Jesuit high school which taught the opposite: independent thought. There he began to seek the new topics that were banging on the gates to Universities such as mathematics and later on would conclude he needed to start anew and wipe all predisposed through teaching and get at the essential building blocks: I think, therefore I am.

Why did I tell you all that? To go to the next misused quote, I’m sure there’s something in all of Descartes’ life you could have connected the two (I don’t know much of Sartre so good luck). With No exit, I think there might have been a way to tie it in.

Anyway… Thanks Mike. Thanks for making me pull out Descartes’ Discourse on Method (Hackett, 3rd Ed), The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin (Uni. Chicago), and my notes from “The Age of the Scientific Revolution”, a course studying the 1500s and up. Today we call it the Scientific Revolution but to those living at the time they called it philosophy, natural philosophy, and mathematics. Wait, I take back that sarcastic thanks and replace it with a sincere thank you. It was enjoyable to reread sections of the old course material. Made me miss that course actually. Now why the hell did I spend an hour writing this crap?!! WHo'll read it?! Psh!

This is a good start

and so is this!

This is, possibly surprisingly, good too.

If you're looking to jump right into a text and think you have a grip on the language, try Foucault's Madness and Civilization It's great and pretty easy to read.

Another good introduction (or at least, MY introduction to philosophy is Slavoj Zizek. He's pretty easy to read and understand, but makes ties to Lacan, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc in a cohesive manner that makes you want to learn more. Of his work, I'd check out The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View or watch his movie! (Which is extraordinarily entertaining for how dense it is. He's also kind of amazing in a philosophical rock star kind of way.)

Hope that gets you started!

It depends on what you mean. In one sense, you don't really need a book to be able to have discussions about philosophical issues - just someone willing to engage in good faith discussion. But there are some resources that could help you express yourself more effectively.

Philosophers argue using the rules of logic, so one way to learn how to argue effectively is to learn about logic. There are a lot of great internet resources out there that help you learn to discern good reasoning from bad reasoning. But if you do want a book, I like this Critical Thinking textbook. Very readable and very funny.

For something that applies to philosophy more directly, there's the Philosopher's Toolkit. It explains a bunch of concepts and argument forms you're likely to see when doing philosophy.

Beyond that, there are all kinds of primers on the main branches of philosophy and on specific philosophical questions. You can get a feel for the territory by reading introductory texts or Stanford Encyclopedia articles.

Hope this was helpful.

Honestly, the hardest part of him is where to start. Ask five people and you'll get six answers.

But as a general recommendation, stick primarily to Walter Kaufmann's books, and you can't go wrong. He was one of the leading scholars on the school of his thought, and I find his translations of Nietzsche to capture the dramatic emphasis of his prose the best.

For a brief introduction I'd start with his Biography by Kaufmann, this is useful for understanding the time in which he lived, the philosophical climate, and debunking myths about him, followed by Basic Writings, and then The Portable Nietzsche which contains his more complex works, Twilight and Zarathustra. Each of these contain complete texts, as well as discussion and expositions to give them more context, and are extremely helpful in understanding the work.

Also, If you're a materialist already, an Atheist or an agnostic, start with The Antichrist and you'll fall in love with him in the first pages. Its a summary of his view on Christian morality, and it doesn't hold back at all, a quick read at about a hundred or so pages. If you want an appetizer, peruse The Will To Power, his book of aphorisms, to whet your palate (this is also where most of the romance quotes live). These were my introductions, and I never looked back.

I am currently an MA candidate in philosophy. I love the story of philosophy by Byan Magee I bought it on a whim but it is one of the best books I have ever purchased. It gives a great timeline to philosophy, explain why the different thinkers are categorized the way that they are, and then gives an introduction to each of the major thinkers in that area of philosophy. I would say that for someone who likes philosophy and is interested in digging into it but needs a "reference guide" this book could not be more perfect.

The hard problem of consciousness alludes to the fact that we don't know how the brain produces consciousness, but we already know that it does. Physical and material aren't vacuous terms at all. Somebodies' say so doesn't make it so. You should check out the argument from authority fallacy in good times, since your pretentious and pompous drivel is always chock full of it. I could also cite tons of philosophers who subscribe to physicalism, many of whom have actually done real work in that regard instead of scholastic mental masturbation. For example. And you'd run out of fringe cranks to cite much quicker than I'd run out of good philosophers to cite, because the majority of professional philosophers subscribes to naturalism. Also: material is usually understood to be space, time, fundamental particles, fields, energy, laws of nature.

>> There has never been a counterexample to the fundamental pillar of mind physicalism: a change in mental states cannot occur without a change in physical brain states.

> Are you kidding me? There's so many theories of mind out there

A theory is not an example. Can you actually provide a counterexample? Because nobody can.

> what you call 'mind' in these experiments also causally effect brain structures

What the hell. Prove that and collect your Nobel Prize.

> David Chalmers, the guy noted for detailing the hard problem of consciousness is an atheist.

More argument from authority. Chalmers' arguments are so dumb that they actually lead even more philosophers towards mind physicalism. Pigliucci calls his views The Chalmers Delusion.

> But if physicalism is true then mind doesn't even exist or at best is just an effect or byproduct of the brain so it would have no causal powers, yet the mind does have causal powers.

The mind doesn't have causal powers. The only causal effects so far discovered are force interactions in physics. The list of causal forces goes gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force. It does not go gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, minds. If you could demonstrate any causal power besides the four known, again multiple Nobel Prizes would be yours.

You've also just unintentionally revealed a trick. You (non physicalists) love to define minds and consciousness as something which doesn't actually exist, and then ask the question how the physical brain can produce that. Well it couldn't and it doesn't. What you imagine as minds or consciousness simply doesn't exist and has nothing to do with real minds and real consciousness, which is just what brains do.

> To identify God's essence with anything at all is nonsensical

Of course. Exactly like in the case of all other fictional characters.

If you mean the original Hegelian idea, not Marxism, then good luck; it's bizarre and baffling. The clearest book I ever read on it was Peter Singer's Hegel, A Very Short Introduction. Singer does as good a job as anyone could. For Marx's version, Singer's Marx, A Very Short Introduction is the best introduction too.

Before diving in, Scott does a very good job of explaining why its worth paying at least a bit of attention to Hegel even given his horrible reputation among analytic philosophers

I'm amazed at how little philosophy the ""philosophers"" that write for these magazines seem to know. I've read just two books on Hegel and the very first thing that pops out is how utterly divergent he is from the enlightenment ideal of progress through incremental problem-solving. Hegel's version of progress is Mind/Spirit resolving contradictions through a dialectical struggle, then reaching a new understanding of itself, as part of a historical process with the goal of obtaining absolute knowledge. That's not a kind of progress that Kant or Mill or the American founding fathers would recognize.

The Member States of the United Nations - an international organization - recognize borders by recognizing States. Hence, why I said:

> the international community does in fact determine borders.

Here is how that happens.

The UN as an organization enforces and protects those borders. This takes place in a variety of ways.

If you want to understand more about how States became the primary political actor that make rules vis-a-vis each other, this book will help you learn more about that.

If you'd like to learn more about how States use and delegate power to International Organizations in order to solve international problems, this book will help you do that.

If you'd like to learn more about how the UN System works to enforce borders, this book will help you do that.

Someone posted a website where you can find free books on the non-politics thread. You can probably find pdf copies of each of these books (though personally I just keep them on my shelf to read in a more tangible form and for quick reference).

my phone auto put the umlauts...
firstly, i am interpreting the words ubermensch & untermensch in the nietzsche- en ideal, so i if am off then my bad.
anyway, i describe Bean as an untermensch because, like you said, he was not a leader. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra specifically states "I love the untermensch who built the home of the ubermensch.. etc" (something like that, i do not have the book in front of me) implying that the untermensch is the follower of the uber, even if he has a larger intellectual faculty.
furthermore, in walter Kaufman's Portrait of Nietzsche, he elaborates that the niezsche- en ubermensche is one who is completely in control of his emotions (Julius Caesar was listed as an example)

basically, i am insinuating that Bean is not an ubermensch because he is distincly not in control of his passions (which NIetzsche lists as a chief quality of the over human) and is under ender, primarily because ender

> combined humanities desire for power (Peter) and empathy (Valentine) together, and therefore represented all of us



Also, you Bean doesnt have followers because he is too ubermenschen, its because he is not in control of he passions and emotion, and has too much to weigh in.



(If i am totally off then feel free to point it out, i am but a high schooler)

feel free to point out any of my mistakes or any misinterpretations

Walter Kaufman was renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet.


Thanks

For Nietzsche, or for life in general?

I'll assume the first one. Read these in the order given:

Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Walter Kaufman.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good & Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

I would highly recommend getting the Kaufman translations. Thus Spake Zarathustra is collected in The Portable Nietzsche and Genealogy of Morals is collected together with Ecce Homo. Once you've read the ones I've listed, you'll already have his other important books if you want to read them. I'd read the Kaufman book first for two reasons: Understanding Nietzsche life and times helps to contextualize his philosophy, and Kaufman is terrific biographer, plus Kaufman gives a thorough overview of Nietzsche's ideas. And sometime it really helps to have a map of the territory before you plunge into the abyss. Nietzsche can be very challenging, especially to the 21st century reader.

Wittgenstein by William Child is really good. It covers all the major topics and is written in a very clear and easy to follow prose. A more advanced book is Marie McGinn's Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

But reading Wittgenstein himself is indispensable. I would recommend starting with the Blue and Brown books (it's a single book actually), and then reading his magnum opus Philosophical Investigations. You should keep in mind that there is no scholarly consensus even on the basics of W's philosophy and you should therefore be very cautious with any secondary literature that you read. It is better to make up your own mind based on Wittgenstein's own texts rather than what commentators say about them. Wittgenstein's later philosophy is non-technical and pretty much self-contained in that it doesn't presuppose much prior philosophical knowledge to understand (or at least to be able to follow it) so there's really no good reason why you shouldn't just start with the primary texts.

It's good talking with you, and I'll reply to this with meatier content a little later since I'm busy, but in the meantime I'd like to add that the #1 very short, sharp, starter-book that I'd recommend to you to understand where I'm coming from is actually written by an apolitical (as far as I know) Christian philosophy professor and Dietrich Bonhoeffer Society member named Jens Zimmermann who wrote Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction. This goes a long way towards explaining why I can't just dismiss Christianity or the Jesus message, and also the methodology of how to approach texts and ideas historically situated in a tradition.

This will be controversial, but I also recommend Peter Singer's Very Short Introductions to Marx and Hegel for a critical reading (and in the case of the famously obsucrantist Hegel, comprehensible). Charles Taylor's as supernaturalist introduction to Hegel is also extremely worthwhile. Don't simply dive into Hegel's primary material -start with secondary sources.

. Since you are an anarchist, I suppose you might not have much trouble finding the free PDF of the Marx: A Very Short Introduction floating on Google.

Think about it this way: Reading primary sources that require previous knowledge to understand before you have that knowledge removes an entire level of appreciation you could be having for the work. Almost to the point to where reading it now would likely be just as valuable as not reading it at all. You're effectively paying your respect to their work by learning it properly.

I think it's important to distinguish your reasons on why you want to learn philosophy. If your main goal is to learn as quickly as possible, then contemporary books are the best. In anime/VNs/storytelling, it sounds cool to say "I've read the entire works of Plato, Descartes, and Kant," but in real life it's usually the single worst way to learn philosophy, and definitely won't do their knowledge justice.

Aristotle's teachings are over 2300 years old. We've had a lot of time to think about what he's said (much of it incorrect). On top of this, different philosophers have studied different fields. Just jumping from philosopher to philosopher won't do you any good, since each are likely going to be talking about very different topics. For the record, it takes about 4-8 years of university study to really digest everything that's happening in a single field, and there are over a dozen of them.

That being said, "The Problems of Philosophy" is a good general introduction to the concept of philosophy. A Little History of Philosophy is a personal choice of mine. Just remember, there are no shortcuts.

William Lycan's Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction is very helpful and comprehensive as an overview.

As for really famous primary works in the field, you might want to check these out:


Truth and Meaning

Tarski's The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics

Quine's Two Dogma's of Empiricism

Davidson's Truth and Meaning

Pragmatics

Austin's How to Do Things with Words

Grice's Logic and Conversation


Reference

Donellen's Reference and Definite Descriptions

Kripke's Naming and Necessity

Wittgenstein

Primary Lit:

Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Tractatus (obviously)

Secondary Lit (I'm only well versed on the secondary lit for the later Wittgenstein, so I'll give you that):

Marie McGinn's Routledge Guide

John McDowell's Wittgenstein on Following a Rule

Meredith Williams' Wittgenstein, Mind, and Meaning

----

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Added a lot

That is a good list. I am mostly familiar with German Idealism, and I think wrestling with the Hegelian project is a good place to start. Charles Taylor wrote an exposition on Hegel which emphasizes fragmentation that occurred in modernity and Hegel's attempt to overcome this fragmentation.

https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Charles-Taylor/dp/0521291992

To wrestle with this topic directly there is Hegel's Critique of Modernity: Reconciling Individual Freedom and the Community by Tim Luther.

Most of the works on that reading list are a reaction to Hegel, so it is a good idea to be familiar with him, especially the Phenomenology.

Honestly, I think the "Very Short Introduction" series by the Oxford Press is the best way to go. There are literally dozens and dozens of short, easy-to-read books that break down different concepts objectively and succinctly. The Very Short Introduction to Philosophy will probably be good for him, and then he can always jump off into others [Existentialism, Epistemology, et cetera) as he'd like. Hope this helps!

I would really really REALLY like to have them!! In exchange, I have

1. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Penguin Classics paperback.
   
2. Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture, edited by Stephen Segal. Hard cover.
   
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Paperback.
   
4. Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz. Hard cover.
   
5. Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons. Paperback.
   
6. Crownless: Tales of the Banished by Katie Appenheimer.
   
7. Wild Animus by Rich Shapero. This is an advance copy. It includes several CDs (music, not the a recording of the book) as well as the book. I can post pictures if asked.
   
8. Pragmatism: The Classic Writings edited by H.S. Thayer. It includes Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Clarence Irving Lewis, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead.
   
9. Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes, translated by Donald Cress. Third Edition. It's this one.
   
10. Custom edition version of The West: Encounters and Transformations by Brian Levack, Edward Muir, and Meredith Veldman. I took a class that used this textbook, and my professor special ordered copies that are only Chapters 9 - 19 of the original text. It covers European history from High Medieval - mid-18th Century. If you want more information, I can write out the chapter titles or whatever you need.

If you're looking for a broad overview or a history of western philosophy, I wholeheartedly recommend Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee. Magee's ability to extract the diamond heart of a philosophical work and explain it clearly (many times even clearer than the original writer) is unmatched by anyone, in my opinion. His books Confessions of a Philosopher and The Great Philosophers are also brilliant overview-type books, but Story of Philosophy is the most recent, the most comprehensive (although not the deepest), and it's full of images, so I would recommend that you start there.

Start with this and this. However, the two best books on the phenomenology are this and this. Personally, Quentin Lauer's commentary really helped me get a handle on Hegel and I think it is the best that is published. However, this will be the best commentary when it gets published (in full disclosure I was a student of Houlgate when doing my MA and learned Hegel from him and had access to the manuscript of this text learning a lot from it).

No really, it's a great book. Only about 200 pages, and explains how to think phenomenologically in a very simple and accessible way. Towards the end, it shows how Continental phenomenology as a tradition compares to modernist philosophy, postmodernism, and pre-modern Western philosophies like Thomism.

It also goes over all the broad sub-movements within it, like existential phenomenology, Heidegger's philosophy of Being, poststructuralism, etc, but for a longer (400 something pgs.) overview of Continental philosophy from a historic perspective a better book might be Intro to Phenomenology by Moran.

Also, another book recommended to me (currently on my reading list) by Kaufer and Cheremo goes over the contemporary project to combine phenomenological insights with cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and psychology.

Hegel's really a fan of protestantism....which will shortly become apparent to you. He's also really interested in the french revolution...so that might give you some ideas. If you have any specific questions I can probably help. I found Peter Singer's introduction to Hegel pretty helpful and concise. You can probably find a pdf floating around somewhere on the internet.

The Phantom Tollbooth isn't philosophy but it's a great book when it comes to critical thinking and insight.

For philosophy in particular, getting a philosophy textbook is the best way to go, imo. Especially one that presents views in unbiased format. Philosophy, a very short introduction, while not perfect, presents ideas in the proposition/critique format that encourages thinkers to always be concerned with defending their ideas, not just presenting them.

If you could provide us with a bit more information about the course, it might be easier for us to make recommendations. For example, is the course you're planning on taking an intro course or an upper level course?

Regardless of the content of the course, however, I think that something like The Philosopher's Toolkit would be a great pickup. Probably much more useful than any single historical work that you might think to pick up. You can also readily find PDF versions of it online, if you know where to look.

Wow frankly you're really making me mull over helping you as I'm sincerely questioning your priorities and how justified your opinion of yourself is. You may have great critical reasoning abilities but that makes up for nothing in life by itself. In any case Leo Strauss's work the History of Political Philosophy is an exhaustive chronological account of the most significant political thinkers in Western history from Thucydides to Heidegger. I read it as a senior in high school and it's in large part due to this book I ended up in the field I did (intellectual history). A truly invaluable resource.

I have a few suggestions.

The Philosophy Gym has 25 short philosophy things, with pictures and dialogues. Stephen Law also has a lot of other books of similar style that might be worth looking into.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a philosophy joke book, which might be a fun coffee table book.

The Philosophy Bites book has 25 interviews with leading contemporary philosophers.

The Stone Reader has articles by leading contemporary philosophers that were published in the New York Times philosophy column, The Stone.

Hope that helps!

Eh, Marx was inevitable. He took the ideas of a genius, Hegel, and the idea of the historical dialectic and inverted it.

Marx made a good observation about a way of interpreting the driving forces behind human history. He was ultimately wrong (historical materialism is too simplistic), but that idea was going to happen one way or the other.

We ought to blame Marx as much as Stalin and Mao as well as everyone else who behaved like a total fuckwad when it wasn’t necessary to behave like a total fuckwad.

I recommend everyone to listen to Peter Singer summarize Hegel

https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/019280197X

And Marx

https://www.amazon.com/Marx-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/0192854054

Edit: Lots of overlap between Peterson and Hegel btw. Though Hagel was highly critical of the Classical Liberal notion of freedom.

Edit: Fixed spelling for all anal retentives

You might enjoy The Stone Reader, which is an anthology of essays based on the New York Time's op/ed series written by professional philosophers ("The Stone"). The essays are pretty variable in terms of quality, but they're all aimed at popular audiences, and some of them are really quite good.

It depends on if you want to learn about "philosophy" as in the ideas that philosophers have put down and discussed, or if you want "philosophy" as a method of working with those (or any) ideas. Personally, I've always been more interested in philosophy as a method, so if you'd like to eventually be able to have meaningful discourse on philosophical subjects, something like The Philosopher's Toolkit would be a worthwhile read.

Buy this book and [this book]9http://www.amazon.com/Informal-Logic-Pragmatic-Douglas-Walton/dp/0521713803/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343375779&sr=1-2&keywords=informal+logic) and this book and this book.

I know that's a lot to read but you asked a question that has a really big answer to it. If you attempt to rush through a subject like "how to argue well" you'll just end up not achieving what you wanted to be able to do in the first place. I would start with Philosophy made simple first. It has summaries of major philosophical ideas and at the end introduces logic. Taht's where you'll get your feet with modus tolens, modus ponens, affirming the consequent, necessity, sufficiency and all that jazz. Good luck!

I'd recommend reading a book on the history of philosophy. That way, you'll have a working understanding of all the major philosophers, and you will probably find someone's philosophy interesting enough to pursue them further. A classic is Samuel Enoch Stumpf's Socrates to Sarte. A friend of mine also recommended a more contemporary book that he said is becoming more standard today. A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny.

Other standards works many students start with include Rene Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy. Also, Plato is a good starting point. The Five Dialogues are some of his earlier works. These include the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo. I personally started with Plato's Republic, which a former professor informed me that you must read in order to consider yourself educated in today's world (Interestingly enough, he's only ever said that about books he's read).

You're welcome! I think one of the best resources out there for these distinctions and other important preliminaries to philosophy is The Philosopher's Toolkit. Chapter 4 does a good job on many of the distinctions.

Logic will help a lot, but as a math major it will probably come quite easily for you.

What are your texts for intro?

I think one of the best ways to start is to read the Hackett edition of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. Go slowly. Write out questions and comments. Re-read. Come back here and post your questions.

Finding a book that provides a comprehensive overview that everyone agrees on is going to be tricky because the interpretations in question are often a live scholarly issue. Nevertheless, I thought Lee Braver's [A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism] (http://www.amazon.com/Thing-This-World-Continental-Anti-Realism/dp/0810123800) did an admirable job in situating major continental figures in relation to each other on the question of realism and to who Braver argues are their analytic counterparts. Even if you ultimately reject his thesis, it should help clarify their respective positions.

Here's a reading group discussion on the book that the author participated in, which will hopefully give you a sense of what the book is about.

no, it's not necessary. To some extend, you can read the "Critique of Aesthetic Judgement" without reference to the first critique.

However, it's good to be familiar with what Kant has to say about judgments of perceptions. This topic is dealt (shortly, in one or two paragraphs) in Prolegomena, and I would recommend looking into that. You can find a translation of the work in this volume: https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Philosophy-after-Cambridge-Immanuel/dp/0521147646/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540814124&sr=8-1&keywords=kant+theoretical+philosophy

The "Introduction" to CJ won't make MUCH sense without some knowledge of both the first and the second Critique, however.

Also, Kant had a particular way of organizing Critiques (into analytic and dialectics) that won't make much sense without prior knowledge of CPR. This may pose some problems for your reading, but it won't hinder it completely.

All and all, reading CJ without the first Critique can make you familiar with what Kant thinks about beautiful. What you will miss, however, is the broader impact Kant saw in the possibility of beautiful for his system in general. If you're not interested in Kantianism in general, this is not too much of a problem.

​

EDIT: Compared to Kant's treatment of beautiful, part about the sublime can be really difficult.

Also, this book can be a solid guide to some particular points in CJ: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/796040.Kant_s_Critique_of_the_Power_of_Judgment

I think there's at least several series out there. But for one really good book in the same comic-book vein that's NOT a series, check out "Looking At Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter" by Donald Palmer. Awesome book. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Looking-At-Philosophy-Unbearable-Heaviness/dp/0073407488/

There is a book that I recently bought.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Philosophers-Toolkit-Compendium-Philosophical/dp/1405190183

It is the best resource I could find on philosophical arguments and terms for a beginner.

I started reading philosophy 2 months back and have made some progress thanks to this book. So I wanted to share and hear your views on it if anyone else has given the book a shot.

The best place to start I found was with an introductory guide. As a dyslexic this one was always a favourite. Still refer back to it too. It has useful reading guides, shows interrelationships between schools of thought and is, to boot, amusing. It will also be a damn sight more accurate/informative that whatever Buzzfeed author wrote that visual guide.

https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Philosophy-Graphic-Dave-Robinson/dp/184046853X/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1540218763

Aside from this try Bertrand Russel's Introduction to Philosophy. Its a bit dated now but Russel writes beautifully, always a plus for the newcomer.

The "A Very Short Introduction" series has pretty killer philosophy entries, based on time periods and world regions.

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Short-Introduction-Edward-Craig/dp/0192854216

This is the more basic of them. 200-level instructors might use these, but I was surprised to find that they contain a lot of information that was useful even for a 400-level Aristotelian metaphysics class. Also, Sue Hamilton is a distinguished Indian philosophy expert and wrote a VSI on it which is probably better and more accessible than just about anything.

If you're interested in political philosophy at all, this is an excellent book that ranges from Thucydides to Heidegger. Also, some of the contributors to that book are worth reading separately as well.

On Hegel in particular, I would recommend Hegel: A Very Short Introduction or the more scholarly An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History.

/u/ksan recently wrote a good piece that lists a number of introductory texts for Hegel here. I'm currently in the middle of reading Beiser's Hegel and it's very manageable. If you want something lighter, I'd recommend starting with this first but it is a very short introduction. Whilst it's a hundred pages or so you'll be left feeling like you just read an abstract. You should be able to find a copy of both texts online in PDF form without any trouble.

At the very least, you'll probably want to get a grasp of what the structure of Phenomenology PoR is and what Hegel is trying to convey before Marx's Contribution will make any sense.

I think S. Blackburn's Think is an excellent introduction to some of the major areas in philosophy. You might also what to look at some of the philosophical books in the "Very Short Introduction" series, for example the Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Philosophy of Science and Free Will ones, which as you can guess are good places to start.

A book I quite enjoyed as an introduction to the great philosophers was The Philosophy Book, which not only gave clear descriptions of each of the philosophers' views, but also often gave a clear flowchart summary of their arguments.

History of Political Philosophy (edited by Strauss and Cropsey) contains insightful and illuminating essays for just about every major thinker in western philosophy. The essays are about the same length as the one you posted- so it's not a stretch to read one in a sitting or two. Machiavelli's entry was done by Strauss himself, who wrote prolifically on Machiavelli and in a lot of ways revitalized serious interest in his works.

It's a great essay, and the book isn't a bad resource to have.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Political-Philosophy-Leo-Strauss/dp/0226777103

Start with the Tractatus, then the Philosophical Investigations, and then On Certainty. Read the source material at the same time as reading commentaries. Having read a large chunk of the many commentaries on Wittgenstein, the best on PI is Marie McGinn's. With Wittgenstein the style and the content of his work are two sides to the same coin, and McGinn understands that well.

It seems to me that Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist is the English work most likely to have been translated into Greek. It's worth reading though a little dated, and is pretty easy to understand in English.

The Philosopher's Toolkit and The Story of Philosophy both seem like great places to start.

> I'm looking for some primer book that will include the basic concepts and teminology with decent explanations and examples.

Looking at Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter by Donald Palmer is exactly what you're looking for.

Very digestible 4ish page explanations of every philosopher from Thales to 20th Century. It has simple cartoons to illustrate some of the more complex ideas while still capturing the essence of each philosopher's position.

The nice part of the book is how it links each philosopher to put them in dialog. Something like Russell's shitty History of Philosophy is very staccato, with isolated chapters on each philosopher. Palmer does a good job of leading from one philosopher to the next, and touching on how, say, Descartes feeds into Leibniz into Spinoza into Kant.

If you don't want to buy the book a pdf is available here.

I make no claim as to the legality or merit of the linked pdf. You should definitely at least buy a used copy. But perusing that pdf can help you get an idea of why the book is so nifty.

Looking at Philosophy is a nice intro/overview book with silly pictures. It would give you a little bit of an idea what to expect. You get breadth rather than depth, but I think that's the best thing for an introduction. And who doesn't love silly pictures?

Sophie's World is a good recommendation. If you don't want fiction, I'd suggest (and have in other, similar threads) Simon Blackburn's Think as a good, high-level overview of Philosophy. I'd also pick up a text specifically about logic and/or critical thinking that covers basic argument structure and the common fallacies (perhaps The Philosopher's Toolkit ). After reading those, you should have a grasp on both how philosophers do their thing as well as an overview of the various topics in philosophy. From there, you can start reading more about the areas that particularly interest you.

I would highly recommend getting a few of the A Very Short Introduction series of books such as Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. These provide great overview to several topics in various fields (Science, History, Philosophy, Etc). I've yet to come across one of these books that I didn't like.

Dermot Moran's Introduction to Phenomenology is excellent, with a chapter devoted to each of the major figures.

Hopefully someone more versed in Sartre will be able to help you out. But based on my studying him at undergrad, the idea is that what's special about the for-itself is that it's able to think of things that don't exist (nothingness), and imagine possibilities for itself that aren't realised. So, I as a conscious human can imagine myself being other than I am, for example, as flying through the air even though I'm sitting. A stone, though, an in-itself, doesn't have this gap between what it is and what it can think itself as being.

So then I'd want to say 'nonself-identical' just means something like 'has consciousness and thus lacks any defined once for all essence because is able to contemplate alternate possibilities for itself' and 'internal negation' is the distance between oneself considered as in-itself and as for-itself brought about by this ability.

But I'm not a Sartre expert, and also personally I think looking too hard for precision here is a mistake. The textbook we used (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Dermot-Moran/dp/0415183731) wasn't too complimentary about Sartre's technical ontological skills, and I agreed with it, though you might check out https://www.amazon.com/Sartres-Being-Nothingness-Readers-Guides/dp/0826474691 and https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Jean-Paul-Sartres-Nothingness-Reprint/dp/0226096998/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JZ8S92AXKWP0FC21AAB7 for more sympathetic readings (I haven't read the former but guess it's good).

Get this book, it's perfect for someone like you:

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Philosophy-Bryan-Magee/dp/078947994X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317926985&sr=8-2

Also check out the "Philosophy Bites" podcast.

Richard Popkin's intro book Philosophy Made Simple is a pretty good resource I've found.

http://www.amazon.ca/Philosophy-Made-Simple-Richard-Popkin/dp/0385425333

You seem sincere so I'll try my best to not be a total dick. It's really difficult for people who come from heavy science backgrounds to read something like this and not just roll their eyes.

You are making huge sweeping conclusions from self-reports of NDE and arguing that since this phenomena exists and it is not easily explained that this substantiates dualism, a philosophical world view that was discarded long ago (for orgins of this idea read Meditations on First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated).

Absolutely. It's short, but Singer manages to make the most of it, in my opinion. I'm not sure whether it satisfies OPs demand for a book to "tackle Marx's arguments in the modern world", though. It's more of an introduction to Marx's thought.

His short introduction to Hegel is the best I've read in the series, by the way.

For those looking for a good introduction on Hegel, I recommend the Very Short Introduction title written by Peter Singer.

One book that is popular to help understand Nietzsche is Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. It usually comes up on this subreddit when people look for secondary texts on Nietzsche.

One dis-recommendation I would make is Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Tanner. The Oxford University Press "A Very Short Introduction" series is usually excellent, but I was not impressed with this particular title. It was the first book on Nietzsche that I read and frankly I found it pretty useless.

>If I’m going to want to learn philosophy, I’m going to have to open a book and do it myself.


Hey, good for you! I'm working through Philosophy Made Simple.

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Made-Simple-Complete-Important/dp/0385425333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519172180&sr=8-1&keywords=philosophy+made+simple

So far as I can tell it is doing a pretty good job of covering the basics.

Also, I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I agree a bad teacher does tend to put people off.

A few places you might think of starting with:
Gary Gutting has some fairly accessible stuff on french philosophy.

Peter Singer has written books on Hegel and Marx that might be helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/019280197X

i read this in less than a day i think. pretty informative considering how concise it is.

I bought a book almost 2 years ago called The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments, which had an article by Peter Singer, "Should This Be the Last Generation?" The piece mentioned Schopenhauer and Benatar, so I looked into both philosophers further, and I've been interested in antinatalism ever since!

Peter Singer's very short introduction on Hegel was a good starting when I had to read about Hegel.

You would definitely dig these. They might seem basic, but you'll remember it all, see how it all moves through history, and know what you want to dig into further:

Postmodernism

Critical Theory

Marxism

Philosophy in General

This might help: The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods

Peter Singer devotes a chapter to this in Hegel: A Very Short Introduction. If you don't have the book, go to the Amazon link here, open up the book by clicking on it, and go to page 32.

I started with this book. Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

The book is Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann. It basically resurrected Nietzsche in academia.

Short Intro to Hegel by Peter Singer
http://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/019280197X

this or this

Philosopher's Toolkit

https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Philosopher-Psychologist-Walter-Kaufmann/dp/0691019835

>Thank you (again!) but I probably require A Beginner's Guide to Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide. I'll see if I can source a copy though.

If that's the case, then just get this for a $1.73 in paperback. It does a decent job covering the main topics of philosophy (and, like most, it's Aquinas section is weak; but you can return to that later).

I'll make the pitch for Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. I felt totally lost trying to read Nietzsche at first. With a basis from this book on which I could THEN approach his works, I have really been able to go through all of them.

Reading back, I do not interpret my comments as you've narrated. Can you show an explicit example that shows why you do?

A second reading does not show me that I'm not telling you why I think that way. I guess I'll just try to be more explicit.

Here's how I think. I'm a person who, in their natural state, isn't very reasonable and isn't very logical, like every other human being on the planet (whether they want to admit it or not). I don't think I or anyone else has the cognizance to look at a set of beliefs as broad as Christianity or any other religion and say that it makes completely unfalsifiable claims, especially when there's things like this and this and this and this. I'm not going to go into those books individually and say why I think they're right or wrong. I'm just going to say they offer big boy arguments, believe in something falsifiable, and make arguments towards it. Saying that Descartes or C.S. Lewis had unfalsfiable beliefs is plainly and undeniably false, and worse, is unfair to the fact that they support these arguments with carefully planned logic.

Saying Fred Phelps or the average Bible Belt fundamentalist has unfalsifiable beliefs isn't. So saying the whole kitten kaboodle is unfalsifiable is a sweeping generalization of a broad range of beliefs under the term "religion."

It's just not fair to the people who wrestle with their beliefs and really try to give solid reasons for believing. It puts them in the same category as buck-tooth fundamentalists.

If you want this conversation to continue, I'm going to ask you apologize for attacking my character over something as inconsequential as an internet discussion, and I'm going to further ask you not to do shit like that again. I don't know what kind of filter makes you think any of those statements are "insulting" unless you think it's an insult for someone to say your thinking isn't fair/logical. So far the first and only insults and attacks on character have been made by you. Unless you consider "I guess you don't hear a whole lot of profound statements" a pretty big insult. I agree that it was nasty & mean to say and I've apologized to the person affected.