(Part 2) Best products from r/askphilosophy

>What are some conceptual mistakes that scientists make according to philosophers? Can you recommend me philosophical sources that kind of zoom out at what scientists are doing and what is wrong about it?

I think the most serious wide-spread conceptual problem in science right now is the fixation on "tractability" in scientific problems, and the resulting apprehension about holistic study and robust multi-scale modeling of complex systems. This is a particularly big problem with respect to climate science, and is at the root of much of the suspicion with which climate science is seen, both by some other scientists and the public at large. Fundamental physics (quantum mechanics, particle physics, general relativity, &c.) is seen--sometimes implicitly but frequently explicitly--as the paragon of good science, an ideal of success toward which other sciences strive, and a yardstick by which all other sciences are judged. A particular model, a general theory, or even an entire field of scientific inquiry is evaluated in part by how closely it mirrors the form and function of fundamental physics, and areas of science that differ significantly in appearance and practice from the physical ideal are viewed with suspicion--if not outright derision--by not only members of the general public, but sometimes by scientists themselves. This phenomenon of “physics envy” has been widely recognized inside philosophy (and some of the other humanities as well), but hasn't really been taken seriously inside most of science itself.

Fundamental physics has been extraordinarily successful in predicting and explaining the world around us, and continues to expand our understanding the universe in which we live and our place in it. Physics is, however, not the only science, nor are the formal and methodological virtues associated with successes in the history of physics appropriate models on which to judge the quality of other branches of the scientific project. Physics’ place as the universal ideal for scientific work becomes a problem when it causes us to disdain or reject the results of sciences that study very different kinds of natural systems, and which produce models and theories whose form and function reflect that difference.

Conceptually, I think this mistake can be traced to the work of early modern “natural philosophers” like Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon, who first pioneered the approach that would eventually become standard for contemporary scientific inquiry. Their work, like the work of fundamental physicists today, was designed and constructed with a set of assumptions about the nature and appearance of good science. I usually call the set of methodological assumptions underwriting the physics aesthetic “the reductive-analytic program.” The assumptions of the reductive-analytic program go something like this: the best (and indeed the only) way to understand a system is to decompose it into constituent parts, examine the behavior of those parts in isolation from one another, and draw from this examination general principles about their behavior in situ, and thus understand the system in its entirety. The right way to study anything, according to this way of thinking, is to study its parts: understand the parts, and you’ll understand the whole, synthesizing observations of isolated pieces into a single, unified, elegantly simple theory of a complicated system from a long series of small analyses.

The reductive-analytic program has worked remarkably well. Quantum field theory and particle physics represent perhaps its ultimate apotheosis, though its principles underwrite theories in biology, medicine, psychology, and many other fields. As a result, most educated adults in the Western world--scientists and non-scientists alike--have it in their heads that the reductive-analytic program just is science, and that a science is successful to the extent that it is compatible with this sort of inquiry. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have pointed to the widespread fixation on “tractability” as guiding ideal to which scientific problems are worth tackling, and which need to be reformulated, writing that “problems that [are] too large or complex to be solved in their totality [are] divided into smaller, more manageable elements.” The reductive-analytic program is markedly less helpful for understanding the behavior of systems with large numbers of diverse and strongly interacting components, systems with intricate structure at many spatiotemporal scales, or systems that exhibit extreme changes in dynamical form in response to small, seemingly inconsequential changes to either their environment or internal states. It is markedly less helpful, in other words, when attempting to understand complex systems.

Climate science is a paradigmatic “complex systems science,” and an illustrative case of how fixation on the analytic-reductive program may be hobbling progress, both in science itself and in sociopolitical applications of scientific knowledge. Complex systems like the global climate resist the methods of the analytic-reductive program; understanding the parts doesn’t always lead to understanding everything about the whole. Instead, understanding the climate system involves looking both at the behavior of small-scale components and at the behavior of the system as a whole, embedded in the sort of active, dynamic context in which we find it. The advent of the anthropocene means that the global climate can no longer be appropriately considered as a system existing separately and independently from human society and civilization. The kind of scientific methods and values necessary for this investigation are, if not outright discouraged, at least rarely taught explicitly in the course of any ordinary science education, unless one pursues a graduate degree in something like non-linear dynamics and complexity theory, something which most people (understandably) do not. This leaves ordinary citizens, political decision-makers, and even most scientists poorly equipped to think rigorously about the nature and scope of the problem we're facing.

If we're going to help people understand the reality of climate change, we'll have to begin by helping people (including scientists) understand some basic features of complexity science, and how the aesthetics of the science of complex systems differs from the aesthetics of fundamental physics and other products of the reductive-analytic program. Among other things, this means that we must help people become comfortable uncertainty, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the possibility that even the most precise scientific investigation might not yield the sort of neat answers and t-shirt ready systems of equations we’ve come to expect from reductive-analytic sciences. In some cases, our best science may not produce a single undisputed model under which all competitors are subsumed, but rather might yield a proliferation of diverse and distinctive models, some of which may appear to contradict one another, and that this model pluralism is something to be welcomed rather than eliminated. In many cases, computational models can be as reliable as real-world experiments when it comes to predicting the future of complex systems, and “science by simulation” should not be treated as a second-class citizen in the world of scientific methodology The results of climate science--like those of any complex systems science--might fall short of providing a single uncontroversial answer to the question of what we ought to do, just as they may fall short of providing a neat set of beautiful and elegant equations that explain our world. This does not mean that these sciences can be discounted, however; rather, it means that scientific investigation must be guided and supplemented by well-reasoned, mutually agreed-upon values.

The book I always recommend people start out with is Sophie's World, not because it's the most in-depth, but because it's the most accessible for a newcomer. It's also the most entertaining I've read. If you want something more in-depth, Russell's History of Western Philosophy is generally this subreddit's big recommendation, although I personally wouldn't say it's a great starting point. His reading of some thinkers is not great, and he's not quite as good at dumbing down certain ideas to an introductory level.

A good summary of philosophy will help you for a couple reasons. One, it will give you enough information to find out what thinkers and ideas interest you. If you're interested in a particular question or thinker, then that's obviously where you should go. Philosophy of religion? Logic? Aesthetics and art? Language? There's plenty written on all these topics, but it can be a bit overwhelming to try and just attack all of philosophy at once. Like any other field, there will be parts of it that click with you, and parts that don't really seem all that appealing. Find your niche, and pursue it. In addition to giving you an idea of where to go, a good overview will put ideas in context. Understanding Augustine and Aquinas will make more sense if you know that they're working with a foundation of the Greek thought of Plato and Aristotle. Descartes wrote his meditations during the enlightenment, and was a major contributor to much of the emphasis on reason that defined that era. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard's existentialist ideas become more powerful when you realize they're critiquing and challenging the technicality of Kant and Hegel. Ideas don't exist in a vacuum, and while you can't be expected to know all the details of everything, your niche area of interest will make more sense if you understand it's context.

As for easier texts that I'd recommend trying out (once you find an area of interest), here's a few that are pretty important and also fairly accessible. These are texts that are generally read by all philosophy students, due to their importance, but if you're just into this for personal interest, you can pick and choose a bit. Still, these are important works, so they'll be very good to read anyways.

Plato - Apology: not terribly dense, but an accessible text in which Socrates basically defends his pursuing philosophical thought. I'd recommend this as an accessible introduction that will get you to feel like philosophy matters; think of it as pump-up music before a big game.

Plato - The Republic: this is arguably Plato's most important work. In it, he talks about the nature of men, politics, education and art.

Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics: a text that deals with leading a life in accordance with virtue. Aristotle's style is a bit dry and technical, but he's also very important.

Augustine - On Free Choice of the Will: a dialogue similar to Plato's in which Augustine argues that the existence of God does not conflict with man having free will.

Aquinas - Selected Excerpts: he wrote a lot, so you don't wanna try reading a whole one of his works. This selects his key ideas and puts them in bite-sized chunks. He's a big Christian thinker, arguing for the existence and goodness of God and related theological concepts.

Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy: Descartes uses reason to prove he exists, along with some other things. Pretty easy to read, although it sparked a revolution in thought, making epistemology a central problem of philosophy.

Kant - Grounding for Metaphysics of Morals: one of his easier works, but it's still one of the more technical works I'm recommending, in which Kant demonstrates that morals are a priori.

Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling: one of my favorite books, Kierkegaard writes about the nature of faith using the story of Abraham and Isaac as his starting point. A huge critic of Kant's obsession with pure reason, he is generally considered to be the first existential thinker.

Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil: Nietzsche is one of the more controversial thinkers in history. Also a critic of Kant, he is one of the most profound critics of religion. This book is one of his more important, in which he talks about his problems of religion, the culture around him, and at times points us in the direction he wants us to go. Know that he doesn't write in a terribly direct manner, so if you choose to read him, come here for assistance. He's a bit different to read, and can be challenging if you're not ready.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and having a good reference to help you along will be very helpful.

You might be familiar with some of this already, but I'm going to explain it as though you have no familiarity with this subject.

Philosophy of religion explores topics such as the existence of God, concepts of God, religious language, religious belief, miracles, and so on. Philosophyofreligion.info presents a good primer for the subject.

It seems like your primary interest is in the existence of God. Natural theology, although the approach of doing theology without the assistance of special, divine revelation, in philosophical circles is basically synonymous with arguments for the existence of God. Natural atheological arguments, as some have put it (i.e. Plantinga), are arguments for atheism.

Popular arguments for the existence of God would be the various cosmological, teleological, ontological, and axiological arguments. There's almost too many of them to keep track. Popular arguments against the existence of God would be the various kinds of the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, and attacks on the coherence of theism.

"The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology" is perhaps the best single resource on arguments for and against the existence of God, although it is highly advanced. "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism" is also a very solid resource. "The Existence of God" by Swinburne is classic, as is his "Coherence of Theism." Again, all of those are fairly advanced. Swinburne has a shorter, more popular level version of "The Existence of God" titled "Is There a God?" Stephen Davis also has a similar book titled "God, Reason and Theistic Proofs." If you're going to be reading Oppy and Sobel, I recommend reading their counterparts in any of these books above (barring the "Cambridge Companion to Atheism," of course), that way you have a good balance of perspectives.

With regards to the philosophy of religion a bit more broadly, William Rowe, C. Stephen Evans, and Brian Davies each have solid, brief introduction books. Michael Murray and Eleonore Stump have a more thorough introduction; Louis Pojman and Michael Rea have a great anthology; and William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and Michael Rea have perhaps the greatest single resource on this subject.

Moreover, William Lane Craig has dozens of debates on topics concerning the existence of God (and other topics) available on YouTube. Here is a fantastic list of his debates with links available in the table. You'll see some popular figures in the list that aren't good philosophers (i.e. Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Krauss, etc.), but there are quite a few very high caliber philosophers on that list too (i.e. Michael Tooley, Quentin Smith, Peter Millican, Stephen Law, etc.).

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good luck!

I would say yes, but with a few caveats. I myself am a bit of an autodidact, and I study philosophy as a hobby in my free time. I am currently a university student who works part time, so I sympathize with your concerns about limited time and energy. Some things I think you should be aware of:

• Studying on your own will be slower and generally less efficient than getting a degree. You won’t have the same obligations or motivators that university students have.

• You will lack access to resources that university students have. This includes both academic material (journals, essays, books) but also an environment with instructors and fellow students to consult when you’re confused.

• You will not have the benefit of writing essays and having them graded by an instructor.

Despite this, I still think there is a lot to be gained from self study. You have the freedom to pursue whatever you want, and you can go at a pace that’s comfortable to you. Plus there’s something to be said about challenging yourself and doing constructive things in your free time.

It may be best to start with introductory texts like Copleston’s history to get a general idea for each philosopher and to find what interests you. If you are still interested in the thinkers you mentioned, you should move on to primary sources. I’d recommend the following reading plan which should cover some of the “essentials” and has a sort of progression from one thinker to the next:

1. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle
   
2. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings by Descartes
   
3. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by Hume
   
4. Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
   
   These four books will give you a solid foundation in western philosophy. You have the fundamental ideas and questions from the Pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle, rationalism from Descartes, empiricism from Hume, and the synthesis of the two in Kant. Moving on:
   
   
5. Logical Investigations by Husserl
   
   
6. Being and Time by Heidegger
   
   
7. Being and Nothingness by Sartre
   
   These three cover your interests in phenomenology, from its foundations in Husserl, to Heidegger’s magnum opus, to Sartre’s interpretation and his development of existentialism. Finally we have:
   
   
8. Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer & Adorno
   
   
9. Speech and Phenomenon by Derrida
   
   These two cover Horkheimer & Adorno’s critical take on enlightenment rationality and Derrida’s deconstruction of Husserlian phenomenology.
   
   None of these books are particularly easy (especially Husserl and Heidegger), but I encourage you to try! Take it one book at a time, read slow and take notes, and consult the IEP and SEP if you’re confused, watch YouTube lectures, or ask on this subreddit.
   
   Good luck!

This is a good introductory essay by Nick Bostrom from The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence. And this is a relevant survey essay by Drew McDermott from The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness.

If folks aren't taking well to the background reading, they might at least do alright jumping to Section 5 from the Descartes' Discourse (they can use this accessible translation). One little snippet:

>I worked especially hard to show that if any such machines had the organs and outward shape of a monkey or of some other animal that doesn’t have reason, we couldn’t tell that they didn’t possess entirely the same nature as these animals; whereas if any such machines bore a resemblance to our bodies and imitated as many of our actions as was practically possible, we would still have two very sure signs that they were nevertheless not real men. (1) The first is that they could never use words or other constructed signs, as we do to declare our thoughts to others. We can easily conceive of a machine so constructed that it utters words, and even utters words that correspond to bodily actions that will cause a change in its organs (touch it in one spot and it asks ‘What do you mean?’, touch it in another and it cries out ‘That hurts!’, and so on); but not that such a machine should produce different sequences of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to whatever is said in its presence—which is something that the dullest of men can do. (2) Secondly, even though such machines might do some things as well as we do them, or perhaps even better, they would be bound to fail in others; and that would show us that they weren’t acting through understanding but only from the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need some particular disposition for each particular action; hence it is practically impossible for a machine to have enough different •organs to make •it act in all the contingencies of life in the way our •reason makes •us act. These two factors also tell us how men differ from beasts [= ‘non-human animals’].

That sets the stage for historically important essay from Turing of Turing-Test-fame. And that essay sets up nicely Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment. Scientific America has two accessible articles: Searle presents his argument here, and the Churchland's respond.

As always, the SEP and IEP are good resources for students, and they have entries with bibliographies on consciousness, the hard problem of consciousness, AI, computational theories of mind, and so on.

There are countless general introductions to philosophy of mind. Heil's Philosophy of Mind is good. Seager's introduction to theories of consciousness is also quite good, but maybe more challenging than some. Susan Blackmore's book Conversations on Consciousness was a very engaging read, and beginner friendly. She also has a more textbook-style Introduction that I have not read, but feel comfortable betting that it is also quite good.

Searle's, Dennett's and Chalmer's books on consciousness are all good and influential and somewhat partisan to their own approaches. And Kim's work is a personal favorite.

(sorry for the broad answer--it's a very broad question!)

Much like you, I've also recently developed a strong interest in Levinas. I've yet to read him, though, so please take that into account when considering my recommendations.

I recently asked some of my professors and a friend of mine who wrote his master's thesis on Levinas to help me out with getting started. This is what they recommended:

• This introductory book by Colin Davis has been the most recommended to me. Davis succeeds in the difficult task of executing a clear exposition of Levinas' difficult prose without sacrificing too much of its nuance.
  
• Regarding Levinas' own writing, begin with On Escape. This work develops Levinas' fundamental ideas on Being and alterity, demonstrates how he does phenomenology, and reveals his engagement with Heidegger and Husserl
  
• The two next best works to read are Existence and Existents and Time and the Other.
  
  I'm not too knowledgeable of Husserl, so all I can really recommend from him is the Cartesian Meditations, which sort of serves as an introduction to Husserl's own method of phenomenology.
  
  For Heidegger, the most important work in this regard is certainly Being and Time. If you have the time, I recommend picking up the Basic Writings and reading through most of it.
  
  On a final note, Levinas was steeped within the Jewish intellectual tradition. Jewish philosophers often emphasize the role of community and social contextuality in general. It might serve you well to read works such as Martin Buber's I and Thou and Gabriel Marcel's Being and Having.
  
  EDIT: Another good compliment to Levinas is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.

u/LeeHyori provides a great outline of the main aspects of logical positivism, e.g. the verification principle, so I won't bother addressing the 'what is logical positivism' question in detail. (The only things I would add are things like a general tendency towards: reductionism, formalism, a Wittgensteinian metaphilosophy, support of the sciences and unifying them, etc). What I want to bring up is about the objections to LP and positivists today, like Dennett.

>From my understanding, it was because their main idea seemed contradictory ("only verifiable things can be true" is itself not verifiable).

Aside from the self-refuting nature of the verification principle that you point out here, there were other problems as well, such as the theory-ladenness of observation, consequent problems with logical positivism's reductionism and empiricism (e.g., observation/protocol statements are not purely empirical), the holistic nature of confirmation, the [difficulties defining what an analytic statement is/the circular nature of the concept] (http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html), and the apparent irreducibility of the sciences. So you're right that LP suffered tremendously by relying on a self-undermining theory of meaning, but there were other serious problems, which gave rise to a ton of awesome new literature on the subject.

>However, has there been any prominent philosophy that has grown out of logical positivism that is in itself a stronger version of the positivist's philosophy?

I don't think anyone that famous became more positivist, in the sense of embracing a more extreme verification principle, but Dennett has said publicly he is kind of a closet verificationist - examples of which are in [Consciousness Explained] (http://www.amazon.ca/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661). He talks for instance about how his analysis of the inverted qualia argument supports "the shockingly "verifications" or "positivist" view that the very idea of inverted qualia is nonsense--and hence that the very idea of qualia is nonsense" (p.390 in my edition). He also mentioned we're all verificationists in some sense, using the example of impossible-to-detect gremlins in the engine of your car - but here he seems to be more saying the obvious claim that we need evidence to verify hypotheses, not that unverifiable = nonsense.

In any case, Dennett's definitely one of the biggest philosophers still writing today who inherited the positivist tradition, and if we can still use the term I'd say he's one of the most positivist philosophers alive.

There's probably a few ways you could go about expanding your knowledge base. The two that seem most fruitful are

1. Reading for a deeper understanding of the topics that you're already familiar with.
   
   
2. Ranging more broadly into other areas that may interest you.
   
   If (1), then I'd probably suggest one of two courses. Either, (a) read the stuff that influenced the existential thinkers that you've listed, or (b) read some literature dealing with issues related to the thinkers you've listed.
   
   For (a) I'd suggest the following:
   
   

• Anything by Kant
  
• (In the case of Kierkegaard) Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or his Aesthetics
  
• (For Nietzsche) Emerson's essays, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, or Spinoza's Ethics
  
• Maybe some Freud for the later thinkers? Civilization and its Discontents is really good.
  
  For (b) it's really a mixed bag. I'd suggest going through the SEP articles on the thinkers you've listed and looking into some good secondary literature on them. If you're super interested in Nietzsche, I'd definitely suggest reading Leiter's Nietzsche on Morality. I really couldn't tell you more unless you told me something more specific about your interests.
  
  If (2), then I suppose I'd suggest one of the following:
  
  
• Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy for a good, broad introduction to Chinese Thought
  
• The Analects of Confucius. This translation is excellent
  
• A Short History of Chinese Philosophy
  
• Heidegger's Being and Time
  
• Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception
  
• Some of Rilke's work
  
• Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life
  
  Again, it's hard to give you better directions without more information on what you're actually interested in. I've just thrown a bunch of stuff at you, and you couldn't possibly be expected to read, say, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation over break and be expected to really understand it.

I think it's not the best for this particular goal. The section "general introductions" contains a lot of books that are mostly appetizers. If you have already decided to study systematically to build a solid foundation you can downright skip these.

All the books of the other sections are either classics in their own right (therefore, you will study the meat of them in your study of the history of philosophy, and you will do so in the context of what they were replying to, what kind of assumptions they made etc.) or famous but not essential books that have been chosen according to the tastes of the author of the list (therefore you don't need them for foundations; you can always choose to include them in your list if you decide they are valuable in their own right).

So I say skip all the list for now. A much better and much faster way would be to read Anthony Kenny's history of philosophy. If you work through it making sure you understand all the arguments, your focus, thinking, and comprehension skills will already be at another level.

After that, you can start grappling with the Critique of pure reason. Be warned that most of the "introductions", "guides", "explanations" and "companions" to the CPR are actually investigations of obscure points that manage to be harder to read than the actual CPR. The best two books that I found that are actually introductory guides to CPR are this and this.

Despite the titles, they are not "Kant for dummies". They are actually dense expositions which require concentration, familiarity with terms used in philosophy, and knowledge of what came before Kant (both offer a quick overview, but if you don't already know what it's talking about it will just leave you dizzy). Of course, if you have already done step 1, this will be a breeze for you.

I suggest you read both before opening the real CPR, but if you only have patience/time for one: Rosenberg is more one-sided, more focused on certain aspects, and somewhat less clear on some points, but he will really get you excited on what the CPR can mean - it will become a great adventure that could possibly transform your whole understanding of yourself and the universe. Gardner is less exciting, but he is so clear, so exhaustive in predicting what kind of doubt can arise for the reader and in presenting the different interpretations, that it is scary.

Well, if you want a concentrated course of study you might consider looking for secondary sources that focus on particular areas of research in philosophy rather than trying to read very few (5-10) authors in real depth. I see Kant has been suggested, for example, and while I would never doubt his importance as a philosopher, if you set out with the intention of reading the bulk of his works as you say you might you would have to tackle a great deal of dry, technical material which I think would prove to be a lot more work than you could expect. Same could be said for Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Descartes, nearly anyone you really might care to list. I don't know if you've read much philosophy, but you might instead look at something like an introduction to philosophy, an intro to ethics, or an intro to the philosophy of mind. These are only some examples, there are books like this for pretty much any area of study that attracts your interest. I'm sure others could provide suggestions as well.

Woooooo!

So, Merleau-Ponty is basically merging Husserl, Heidegger, and psychology. Reading a bit of Husserl or Heidegger helps get a picture of his project on a whole. The PoP is also MP's critique of both rationalism (idealism/dualism a la Kant) and empiricism/naturalism (materialism/dualism a la Russell).

Don't worry about struggling, one MP scholar noted that his works "fall somewhere in the range between formidable and impossible." That is, without a good background.

For the 'minimal work' to get at the primary text, I'd suggest

• Lawrence Hass's Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy
  
• Shaun Gallagher's Phenomenology
  
• His SEP page or IEP page
  
  The Hass book is a great secondary source that covers more than the PoP and traces the growth of MP's thought. The Gallagher book is a pretty good introduction to the vocabulary and dialogue that the PoP was written in. While his moves won't come easy unless you are familiar with Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre (maybe some Scheler or Stein) [oh, and psychoanalysis!] - the Gallagher book should get your feet wet enough to feel more comfortable diving in, though.
  
  Edit/PS; MP just tosses out (as in citing and using) famous psych and neurology studies from his time, it isn't terribly important to look them up, though it is fun to see what the running french theories were.

I think Oxford's Very Short Introduction series is a pretty good place to start as far as books go. You can pick a part of philosophy you are interested in and find the introduction to that, or just read the general Philosophy intro. My personal favourite is the VSI to Philosophy of Science by Samir Okasha.

Another good introductory book is Think by Simon Blackburn.

I have found these good introductions, they are written by experts, and directed to the general reader, but without dumbing it down.

As far as the classics of philosophy go, someone else suggested Plato's dialogues and I would add Descartes' Meditations to that. It is short and a pretty good example of how modern philosophy operates. In it Descartes tries to find out what we can know for sure. It is reasonably easy to read too.

Of course, books can be quite expensive (if you torrent you can usually find downloads of many VSIs, and Meditations is out of copyright), and you shouldn't feel you have to have read any of these if you can find cheap copies.

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.

If you're getting started in epistemology, I recommend Roderick Chisholm's Theory of Knowledge. This one is a little older, but in my opinion it's still one of the best. Another decent introduction is Robert Audi's Epistemology. Another good introduction is by Goldman and McGrath, but in my opinion it tries to do too much for an introduction.

As far as ethics is concerned, depending on your level, a good place to start is Gensler's Ethics. This is a decent survey of a number of ethical 'schools', although the downside is that it is too clear that Gensler is heavily biased towards the Golden Rule, and the tone of the book is a little on the sophomoric side. Another decent introduction is this book, which selects some writings from major philosophers and gets your feet wet at least. Of course there are many more books, but I am assuming you're at an introductory level, so there you go.

It depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a clear, intro-level overview of the subject, check out Shafer-Landau's Fundamental's of Ethics. It's a fantastic place to start, and it is the book I recommend if you really want to understand the subject and plan to read outside the context of a class.

If you want primary texts, I suggest that you get the book's companion, The Ethical Life.

If you want a textbook that is a little shorter and more engaging, check out Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy.

If you want an introduction that's informative and fun to read but less informative than the Rachels or the Shafer-Landau, check out Sandel's Justice. You can also watch his Justice lectures online. This book, as opposed to the other two, is written for a popular audience.

It sounds like you are getting some good advice in here. I'd also suggest the Prolegomena - It's essentially the Cliff's Notes.

I'll suggest The Routledge Companion: Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason

This book is great. It walks you through the CPR in a nice step-by-step way. It also has a great primer on the history of philosophy that motivated Kant's project in the CPR.

Unsolicited Advice: Just take your time. Be patient. You can do it.

I'm going to recommend something perhaps lighter and easier than the other posters so far (who have recommended great stuff): Sophie's World. It's a fiction novel that will also give you a crash course in the history of Western philosophy. I always recommend it to people who are just getting into philosophy but don't want to read the dense stuff. It's a wonderful book and it's fast and easy to read.

I'd say avoid Jowett--it's freely available, sure, but the translations are old and tricky to read.
/u/wokeupabug recommends an excellent book (I got it myself recently--I'm loving it).
Amazon link here.

Don't think that logic is the be all and end all of ideas! After all, what is the foundation of logic except assumed axioms? I'd see logic more as a tool than as a justification in itself! Depending on how far you want to go, there are two types to choose from as a beginner. Either you can start at informal logic, which goes more into reasoning / debate skills in an informal way; or you can go into formal logic which is the more difficult (but more rewarding) study of argument structure and the more mathematical way of evaluating arguments. My favorite books for these two types, in order, are:

The Philosopher's Toolkit - Got this one recommended to me relatively recently and it's now my go to recommendation for people starting out in philosophy and informal logic. The book not only covers informal logic, but also debate method and terms/jargon! Very handy.

For formal:

Patrick J Hurley's concise introduction to logic - I read an earlier edition of this and Hurley's book is great. It takes you through various formal systems in order (categorical logic, propositional logic and first order logic). Each section also has plenty of questions and exercises, so you aren't at a loss for practice! The only gripe I have with this book is that I don't like the symbols he uses (dots for conjunction, eurgh!).

If you just want to learn reasoning skills and debate strategy, I'd say read the toolkit! If, however, you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole after (or straight away) then read into formal logic. I personally did the latter :)

As /u/as-well notes, there are a number of possible interpretations of your question.

There's a bunch of work on whether philosophical methods can get you closer to the truth in the way that science does. This section from the SEP article on Naturalism will be helpful for you in that regard.

You might also be wondering about philosophers who attempt to use "scientific" methodologies in pursuing philosophical questions. There's a whole boatload of that sort of work, from Bayesians in epistemology to certain philosophers who work on semantics to "experimental philosophy" (which is, so far as I can tell, psychology done by philosophers). I'm not sure what a good introduction to this sort of work would be, but perhaps someone else can suggest some.

It seems like a number of other commentators have read you to be looking for "philosophy of science" broadly construed. That's a giant discipline, but it mostly deals with the nature of science and various issues surrounding it. If you're interested in that, I'd suggest starting out with a textbook like those by Peter Godfrey-Smith or Alan Chalmers. Under no circumstances would I recommend beginning with famous past philosophers of science like Kuhn, Popper, Carnap, or Lakatos: their discussions are both subtle and extremely opinionated, and are therefore likely to give you a really misleading picture of the discipline.

You should just read this book. It's extremely easy and still very useful, and written by the best philosopher of maths currently alive.

>What is this and how does it work?

The phenomenological reduction is the turning of our attention to how we are experiencing, and to how things appear in experience. Once one has turned their attention to the how of their experiencing, they can start to do phenomenology, and describe their experience.

In order to get to this stage where one can be in a position to adequately describe their experience one has to put aside, suspend, or bracket what is referred to as the natural attitude. The natural attitude refers to any beliefs, judgements, opinions, or theories, that we have which go beyond what is immediately given to us in experience - and thus aren't useful for us in describing experience. The central attitude we take which goes beyond direct lived experience is that we live in a real world. That the objects that we perceive exist out there in the world, and continue to exist when we aren't perceiving them. When one returns to their rice boiling on the stove for example, it isn't a surprise that the rice has now cooked, because it is assumed that when we weren't perceiving the rice, it continued to exist and cook. Likewise if one comes across a bear in the wild one does not start to ponder whether or not the bear is something that actually exists, rather we act as if it does exist, and run the hell away from it. So we bring many beliefs, judgements, opinions, or theories about how things work, to our experience, whether they are based on science or common sense, and these are all collectively referred to as the natural attitude. Importantly this natural attitude goes beyond what is directly given in experience. Whether or not the rice continues to exist or not when we don't perceive it, or whether or not the rice we experience on the stove is real or a hallucination, are questions that go beyond what is immediately given in experience. But since the aim here is to describe experience itself, we must put aside the natural attitude and any assumptions it brings to the table. This process of bracketing the natural attitude is called the epoché (a Greek word for suspension of belief - pronounced ep-okay).

>Why does Husserl think it is the necessary first step in the practice of phenomenology?

It is a necessary first step because to engage in phenomenology is to describe experience as experienced, and in order to do that we have to put aside things that don't aid us in our descriptions, such as metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. This putting aside of things that go beyond what is immediately given in experience is the phenomenological reduction.

At this point it might help to say something about why one might want to do phenomenology in the first place. Why might one want to describe experience as it is experienced. I think this quote from Shaun Gallagher's book Phenomenology will help to answer to this question:

>Consciousness is like our window onto the world. Of course we are usually interested in the things we perceive through that window; maybe we are fascinated with the stuff that we find around us. But how do we know that we are getting a good view through our window? For example, what if the window is dirty, or colored, or distorted. What if the way the window is designed, or the window frame, keeps us from seeing everything we want to see. The phenomenologist suggests that before we study the things that we see when we look outside the window, we should first be concerned about the condition of the window – whether it’s dirty, colored, distorted, or structured in such a way that it gives us only poor access to the objects on the other side of it. Returning from the metaphor, the phenomenologist thinks that the first step in understanding the basis for knowledge is to study the conditions imposed by consciousness – and specifically the structural features of consciousness, the way it works, and perhaps the systematic distortions that might bias it.



>What are some reasons why one might disagree with Husserl, even while remaining sympathetic to the general idea of phenomenology?

One way that someone might disagree with Husserl, in terms of the general approach of phenomenology is to claim that phenomenology is a form of introspectionist psychology and is thus subject to the same criticisms of introspectionism. This is an approach Daniel Dennett seems to take. Husserl was also an anti-naturalist, that is he didn't think science was the only valid form of knowledge. In this line he didn't think (phenomenal) consciousness could naturalised, briefly because consciousness, specifically the transcendental ego, is not something that is part of the world but is taken for granted by it. So one might want to disagree with this view, be a naturalist but also use some of the techniques that phenomenology has developed, such as the phenomenological reduction. This would allow one to bring a methodology to the description of experience in for example neuroscientific experiments whilst also being a naturalist, and something like this is held by neurophenomenology. Whether or not phenomenology can be naturalised is still a subject of debate. Here's a talk from the phenomenologist Dan Zahavi who goes into this issue.

For further reading i'd check out the SEP article on Husserl, there is a section on the epoché and the phenomenological reduction. There is also an [IEP article on the phenomenological reduction](https://www.iep.utm.edu/phen-red/. And for a short introduction to phenomenology Gallagher's Phenomenology and Zahavi and Gallagher's The Phenomenological Mind and Gallagher's Phenomenology are quite good.

I really enjoyed Dennett's Consciousness Explained. Chalmers' The Conscious Mind presents another popular view which, if I recall correctly, opposes Dennett's views. I'm slowly getting into work's by Steven Pinker.

Probably a general Philosophy of Mind reader would also benefit you just to get a good idea of the different views and topics out there within the discipline. I cannot remember which one I read years ago, although if I read one today I'd pick Chalmers' Philosophy of Mind or Kim's Philosophy of Mind.

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.

I already have Penguin classics' version of The Republic and Wordsworth Edition's version of The Symposium and the Death of Socrates. However, I haven't read them yet. Also I know it's quite a hefty investment, but do you reckon it would be good a idea to just get Plato's complete works? (http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405360481&sr=8-1&keywords=plato+complete) I've also heard that John Cooper's translations and notes are good for a beginner (according to A LOT of Amazon reviews). Thanks a lot.

I would caution you about Dennett because, while he is a well-respected and important philosopher, he also write books for a popular audience that are less philosophical in nature.

So I would stay clear of his new atheism stuff, stay away from his beef with Sam Harris (who isn't a philosopher), and try to find lectures where he talks about consciousness (which is his main topic in philosophy).

So I would recommend starting with Daniel Dennett's TED talks, which are much easier and accessible. Here's a good introductory lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYh0lAWCnpI

https://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_dennett


Next, I would try to watch this lecture and see if you can follow it (it's a bit more complicated, but it outlines the debates around consciousness in a similar way to what you might find on the SEP):

https://youtu.be/JoZsAsgOSes

Finally, his book Consciousness Explained outlines his basic approach to consciousness. While not for a general audience, he does clarify and explain his positions well, so it might be worth looking into:

https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518209721&sr=8-1&keywords=consciousness+explained

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.

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

I really enjoy Justice by Michale Sandel. It's a series of riveting lectures that serve as a great entry into philosophy through ethics and justice.

You can also read his book.

Popper's ideas are of the practical kind, regarding scientific inquiry. It is not epistemology in the traditional sense. For example, would you say that your empirically based idea X is knowledge? If you say yes, how do you know that tomorrow you won't discard it for an idea that fits the criteria even better, even if today you don't think anything could possibly fit the criteria better than your current idea? Many ideas that fit the criteria are eventually discarded not because a detail or a few in them can be improved, but because they turn out to be completely false (look at the history of physics, for example). Such epistemology is practically useful, however, it says nothing about epistemic justification.

There are a lot of theories in epistemology. Read the 'epistemology' entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Find a book about epistemology, such as this

Do you have a specific interest? Otherwise a general introduction like Think, Problems of Philosophy, or Justice are all well regarded. Though, all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are tons of accessible introductions though and depending on your interests it might be better to use one rather than another. All of those are fairly general

If you want a more general introduction into philosophy there's a Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn and the older What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel. A more academic introduction (the last two books are more aimed at a general audience) is Fundamentals of Philosophy edited by John Shand. If you're willing to sit through it there also Russel's classic A History of Western Philosophy, which is a sort of introduction to philosophy through the history of the field (the audiobook is on youtube btw), and there also his Problems of Philosophy

I'm not that familiar with eastern philosophy, but a classic introduction to Existentialism is Walter Kaufmann's Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre and it should go nicely with Existentialism is a Humanism.

Hope this helps :)

Have you read Confucius and confucianism? That's really where this stuff gets treated philosophically.

If you want a philosophical idea of childhood and consent rooted in Western philosophy, then you've got to read diverse thinkers of the past three centuries. John Locke has a lot to say about children, so maybe start there.

Also, I might be presumptuous, in which case I apologize--but are you a teenager? If so, you might benefit from reading a good introduction to philosophy. You can find several if you use the search bar, but I always recommend the novel Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. It is a story designed to introduce philosophy to teenagers.

You're right, I'm not a physicist, but I'm well educated in physics. On the other hand, it seems that you didn't read my post, and that you are not well acquainted with either the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, nor with the rich literature in philosophy of science with respect to the MWI and it's implications. I suggest you take a look at David Albert's Quantum Mechanics and Experience, David Wallace's The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory according to the Everett Interpretation and the anthology Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality.

FYI, I was specifically told not to use the Stambaugh English translation of Being and Time, the one you linked to.

Anyways, in my edition the chapter is "How the worldly character of the environment announces itself in entities within-the-world."

The sentence you pick out is in bold, here's the surrounding paragraph for context, as I think it will help you see what Heidegger is saying: "To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world there belong certain modes of concern. These permit the entities with which we concern ourselves to be encountered in such a way that the worldly character of what is within-the-world comes to the the fore. When we concern ourselves with something, the entities which are most closely ready-to-hand may be met as something unusuable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided upon."

This comes from the the Macquarrie and Robinson edition which was recently reprinted.

Here's a link for an authoritative translation: https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492.

We used this during my undergrad studies. Hackett is a solid publisher for anything philosophical, FYI. As far as commentary goes, this text has intros to each work and annotations throughout. SEP will be a good second hand resource outside of that.

No. Just use r/askphilosophy if you have any questions.

Or, if you're really interested, get an introduction to philosophy book. As introductions, I think the The Philosophy Gym by Stephen Law and Think by Simon Blackburn are quite good. For a bit of a more in-depth introduction, The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy is very good.

You are probably beyond this stage, but I would generally suggest Shapiro, https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-about-Mathematics-Philosophy/dp/0192893068, to a student interested in that topic as a good starting point.

>If 99% of all possible observers are in worlds without property X, then being in a world with property X is fairly strong evidence that modal realism is false.

Yes, assuming omniscience, but this presumption cannot ever be justified. Setting aside the objection that 1% is not altogether unlikely on the scale of cosmological fine tunings, the modal realist can always say:

"Though you may think that property X should only appear in the universe to 10^-10^10 % of conscious observers, much more likely is that you are simply mistaken as to what demands must be met in order for physical laws to be compatible with conscious observers in any particular universe."

>So either there's something special about consciousness that only allows it to arise in universes which have lots of structure everywhere, we need some less naive way to quantify over possible worlds that massively increases the density of worlds with sensible physical laws, or modal realism is almost certainly false.

It seems like you've slipped in a commitment to non-haeccitism about personal identity. If you are capable of experiencing multiple worlds at once, the existence of Boltzmann brains should pose no problem for you. While the majority of "worlds" containing mathematical substructures isomorphic to particular brain states corresponding to the course of your own life will not be stable, what you experience must be (says the modal realist) an emergent quasi-classical universe, for whatever reason to do with how the large scale structure of the mathematical universe tracks personal identity over isomorphic substructures.

This is a greatly underserved area of philosophy, but there is some work broaching the edge. Here are some good resources.

This is a really good book that I had to use in my philosophy of mathematics course. It's very accessible, and gives you a great introduction to philosophy of mathematics. It keeps things in perspective and reminds you what's at stake, the main questions, all in historical context: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-about-Mathematics-The-Philosophy/dp/0192893068

Here's a professional review of the book attesting to its awesomeness: http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/mbalagu/papers/Review%20of%20Stewart%20Shapiro%27s%20Thinking%20About%20Mathematics.pdf

It seems to me that your comments encompass wide range of topics but i think the problem of truth and meaning is at the center. Of course there is a huge literature about these topics but for a start Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in An Extra Moral Sense can work as a thought provoking piece.

If you are into more scientific type of literature Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowledge offers a theory of cognition which basically argues that all experience and knowledge are self-referential and constructed relative to the organisation and history of living systems.

In English speaking philosophy William James and Whitehead's different versions of empiricism are good places to look. In continental philosophy Foucault's writings on truth/knowledge can be helpful to put the concept in context of a more sociological perspective.

Edit note: The philosophical field which focus on these issues is called epistemology, some secondary and introductory type of books can work. For example Robert Audi's [Epistemology] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373061172&sr=1-2&keywords=epistemology).

John Rawls may be a good place for you to start for a "modern" perspective (look here first: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ )

Michael Sandel wrote a pretty readable book based off his popular harvard course on the topic. You can find the book here ( https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 ) or even just check out the course itself here ( http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ )

​

Hope this helps! This isn't my area of interest but I have come across them along the way.

I took a Philosophy of Physics course as an undergraduate and we focused on thermodynamics and the arrow of time. I'd recommend the two books we read:

Physics and Chance, by Sklar:
It looks at the philosophical issues associated with the statistical mechanics approach to thermodynamics.
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Chance-Philosophical-Foundations-Statistical/dp/0521558816

Time and Chance, by Albert:
A little more accessible than Sklar.
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Chance-David-Z-Albert/dp/0674011325

why not? because he discusses miracles?

makie's the miracle of theism is a response to that book.

blackwell's companion to natural theology might be something.

Heidegger wrote an eighty-eight page first draft to Being and Time. Unless you have a crazy amount of time on your hands, I'd recommend going after the first draft. Whichever version of the book you read, it will most likely be one of the most difficult philosophy books you will come across. I don't mean that demeaningly. Heidegger's writing is almost indecipherable. There are a few threads made here in /r/askphilosophy that have better recommendations as to where to begin with Heidegger. Hopefully someone will respond to this post with more and better info!

Not a paper but a short-ish book: For my graduate philosophy of quantum mechanics course we used David Z. Albert's 'Quantum Mechanics and Experience' book. It was great.

(Amazon link: http://amzn.com/0674741137 )

A tour guide may not be a bad idea depending on familiarity with the subject of the House of Kant.

I found Gardner and [Pinkard](German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521663814/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_jKZMyb84C98MF) particularly useful.

The standard around these parts is the John M. Cooper. The Complete Works is a handsome volume.

Here

edit: "These parts" refers to where I went to school... several good sized Canadian departments.

The Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers. Reading everything would be good - if you want to read less than everything we'll probably have to know what sorts of stuff you're looking for. Just saying "I want to go back to the basics" doesn't tell us whether we should recommend metaphysics or ethics or what.

As others have said, it might be of help to you to start with secondary sources.

One of my professors recommended
Phenomenology by Shaun Gallagher and I found it really well written and accessible.

Agree with Plato’s Republic as a good book to start with real philosophers. For an even more beginner kind of approach though, you can try Sophie’s World.

The method used by Plato is called elenctic -- asking and answering questions, setting up an idea only to refute it. You see it throughout Plato's works. The best examples are in the Socratic dialogues -- Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo.

See https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Plato-Students-Socratic-Dialogues-ebook/dp/B01I5GAIJI

​

Hmm .. try Shapiro's Thinking about Mathematics. It's very good and accessible, and Shapiro is quite eminent.

That one is also contained in the Hackett edition of Plato's complete works edited by John Cooper, which is really good and only $50

Hey man I read this amazing book called Sophie’s world.

Completely written for kids in a story format. Goes from atomists to Marx and beyond. I seriously recommend it.

Seriously if you just get them to start it, and you’re done. lol.

https://www.amazon.com/Sophies-World-History-Philosophy-Classics/dp/0374530718

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

There are lots of introductions to epistemology, as a quick search on Amazon indicates:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=epistemology&sprefix=epist%2Cstripbooks

I haven't read most of them, but based on the authors and publishers, I expect these to be solid surveys:

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416622594&sr=1-1&keywords=epistemology

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Richard-Feldman/dp/0133416453/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NPT7RZ11R84R4WD6B1T

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

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy I hear this is a good place to start.

Thinking Through Philosophy: An Introduction I know this is good

Here are some recent introductory books on the subject:

https://smile.amazon.com/Historical-Introduction-Philosophy-Mathematics-Reader/dp/1472525671/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0521533414/

https://smile.amazon.com/Thinking-about-Mathematics-Philosophy/dp/0192893068

https://smile.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mathematics-Princeton-Foundations-Contemporary/dp/0691161402

Peter Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality is a classic introductory text to every major issue in contemporary philosophy of science, including scientific realism.

Of course, you can always check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on scientific realism, and then look at the bibliography!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-Philosophy-GuideBook-Critique-Guidebooks/dp/041511909X

Also try reading prolegomena to any future metaphysics first, as it is shorter

Here are some examples:

The Metaphysics Within Physics by Tim Maudlin

Combining Science and Metaphysics by Matteo Morganti

Quantum Mechanics and Experience by David Z. Albert

Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality by Patricia S. Churchland

God in an Open Universe: Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism edited by Thomas Jay Oord, William Hasker, and Dean Zimmerman

So the "Grube-translation-edited-by-Reeve" version is the one in 1997 Hackett Publishing, edited by Cooper and Hutchinson?

Philosopher's Toolkit

That's a terrible video. There's a huge amount of misinformation about quantum physics on the internet.

You could try starting with this SEP article

Or check out David Albert or Tim Maudlin. This book is good.

Hopping into Deleuze as your first philosopher must have been absolutely brutal. I can't think of a harder introduction. Read Sophie's World for a nice introduction to a whole slew of thinkers responsible for philosophy's foundation.

Referring to Heidegger's view, there are a couple basic ideas. One is that we are faced by uncertainty throughout our lives, and one source of uncertainty is the unknown-ness of the future, which we're always moving towards. Our response is often to keep ourselves busy with everyday superficial existence, or take root in nostalgia for an idealized past, but Heidegger sees these responses as being inauthentic responses to the problem. Another partly related source of anxiety is in the future, and that's death; we can't be certain of anything in the future except for the fact that we will die.

Heidegger's 'solution' to this problem is to encourage us to face our death head-on, although it's less gloomy than it seems at first. What facing our sources of anxiety does is break us out of our more superficial ways of existence and gets us to really own who we are and what we'll do with our lives.

There's a lot more to this, and due to it being Heidegger, it's admittedly not easy, but most of this comes up in division II of Being and Time, although due to the difficulty of the text, the SEP or some more accessible secondary text might be a better place to start, unless you want a challenge, in which case go for it and good luck!