Philosophy.
 

Can anyone recommend anyone I really should read?
I had a look at some neitzche and thought it was just a little foolish, but that could be as much due to the way it was written (translations do seem to be a bit dodgy) as much as anything else.

Anyway, suggest away GD!

Re: Philosophy.
 

kant, descartes, plato/socrates/aristoteles and hegel would be a start

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On Liberty by JS Mill. It's pretty short, too!

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does anyone happen to have the torrent files of an e book/pdf/whatever of any of this?

Re: Philosophy.
 

Don't. You'll save yourself a lot of time

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that was my thinking.

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machiavelli - the prince. mill - on liberty. rousseau - social contract (ive only read books 1 and 2)

all pretty easy to get your head around.

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It depends what sort of stuff youre interested in. Its like asking "what science books should I read?" - its a pretty broad field.

Do you just want a general intro, or what?

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Just a few more general things would be good.

Re: Philosophy.
 

Re: Philosophy.
 

It's flawed and slightly out of date but I always recommend Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.

I can think of no better one-volume introduction to philosophy (although as the title implies, it's only really focussed on European philosophers) and it's very very readable.

Re: Philosophy.
 

do you know of a place I can d/l this Dante?

Re: Philosophy.
 

i'm incredibly suprised there arent more people like me who thought philosophy might be incredibly interesting, read a bit, and was choked by the overwhelming tsunami of bollocks that is written in semen on every page.

Also "People who think theyre better than me for reading / quoting Philosophy" rank alongside "People who think they're better than me because theyve travelled more than me" on the scale of faggotry.

Please note if you enjoy it, and have a genuine interest in it, im glad for you. But theres no denying that people "name drop" philosophers in some sort of pathetic pursuit of intellectual recognition frequently.

Re: Philosophy.
 

Walter Kaufmann's - Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Anti-Christ is the standard summary of Nietzsche and tends to be highly rated. I've only read the first couple of chapters so can’t comment on the book as a whole, but I would expect it to be good since Kaufmann's commentaries in his Nietzsche translations are normally quite insightful (on that subject, you should only really be reading Kaufmann translations). If you want to read original work by Nietzsche then I’d recommend starting with either Twilight of the Idols or Genealogy of Morals, since they are probably the most accessible. Avoid Zarathustra - it's brilliant in its own way, but I think it will confuse most people who arent already acquainted with his ideas, since its written in a highly symbolic manner. Beyond Good and Evil is also a decent starting point, but only if you are already acquainted with some of the philosophical views being criticized.

But more generally, a 'history of philosophy' book could be a good place to start, to give you some idea of what’s going on. Unlike most of them, Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" manages to be both informative and entertaining. However it is tarred by his strong biases, with the last third in particular being exceptionally misleading. Just bear in mind that what you’re getting is more "philosophy according to Russell" than anything else.

In terms of modern philosophy, there’s really 2 separate (and generally independent) schools - the ‘analytic’ philosophy practiced primarily in Britain and America, and “Continental” philosophy mainly located in Germany and France. The differences are hard to summarise - it’s most apparent in the style of writing, with the analytic movement taking the view that ‘philosophy should be like science’, and the continentals thinking that ‘philosophy should be like art’ (these are very broad generalisations). You might find analytical philosophy to be detached, pedantic, and unrelated to any practical concerns, and you might find Continental philosophy to be home to wooly thinking and a general lack of rigour - it’s more personal preference than anything else.

The best introduction to American/English philosophy I've encountered is Roger Scruton's "Modern Philosophy : An Introduction and Survey" - its quite long, but not intended to be read in one go (the chapters are fairly independent). But anglo-american philosophy might not appeal to you - its something of an acquired taste. The 'big questions' that most people tend to associate with philosophy ("what is the meaning of life?"/"how should I live?") are almost never discussed - the focus tends to be on highly technical matters, often involving the intricacies of language. Its hard to give specific recommendations since most work is directed at people already familiar with the issues involved, so I’d recommend starting with an introductory text and seeing if anything interests you. However if you want specific books, Ayer's "Language, Truth and Logic" is a good summary of logical positivism, and a lot of more recent ‘philosophy of mind’ can be read straight away - Dennett and Searle are both pretty interesting. Wittgenstein is one of the greatest human beings to ever live and his work should be read by everyone, however youre likely to find it baffling if you arent acquainted with what went before him. But check it out at some point - “The Blue Book” is probably his most accessible text but "Philosophical Investigations" is the main one.

"Continental" philosophy tends to be more focused on pragmatic issues, with a lot of post-Marx work being (roughly) centered around 'political control' and 'cultural analysis'. There's also a strong emphasis on language, although in a very different way. I couldnt recommend a book on the field as a whole, but David Cooper's "Existentialism" is a good introduction to that specific movement, and Hubert Dreyfus' "Being-In-The-World" is a decent summary of some of Heidegger's work (and since hes the most influential figure in the Continental tradition, hes worth getting acquainted with). Nietzsche is another big figure in this movement, but I've mentioned him already. The other big name is Hegel, who you dont want to read. If youre seeking primary texts, Foucault is more accessible than most - I've only read his "Discipline and Punish" and its rather good, although I'm not sure whether I'd class it as 'philosophy'. Sartre is also readable - Existentialism and Humanism is short, and his fiction is pretty good. But again, I think its best to stick to overviews/introductions until you get some idea of whats going on, and then you can read specific things which sound interesting.

Outside of academia, Ayn Rand is beyond awesome. The Fountainhead is definitely worth checking out. Robert Anton Wilson is also pretty cool - Prometheus Rising in particular.


edit: "Older" writings tend to be a lot more accessible than modern stuff, since they were generally aimed at educated laymen rather than other philosophers. You could read something like Descartes "Meditations"/"Discourse On Method" or Plato's "Republic" without much difficulty. Im not really a fan of pre 19th century philosophy, but again its personal taste.

Re: Philosophy.
 

What about a book on Phil^osophy?

Re: Philosophy.
 

Reading online texts is shit because a) its hard to read large amounts of text onscreen, and b) you cant write things in the margin so you'll lose track of interesting sections. Short online papers are good because you can print them out, but if its an actual book then avoid avoid avoid. Having said that, theres a lot of older stuff freely available here - you should be able to find copies of anything 'classical' (Plato/Aritstotle/Descartes/Kant/etc) without much trouble.

edit: I notice theres an online copy of Bertrand Russell's "Problems of Philosophy" there which is often recommended as an introductory text. I dont particularly like it, but you might. They seem to have Existentialism as a Humanism too :cool: There's no version of his History online though because its about 800 pages long and probably still copyrighted.

Re: Philosophy.
 

Lit crit constitutes an unholy agglomeration of all the worst philosophy written in the last 150 years, true story.

Re: Philosophy.
 

This is true but I'm not really sure it matters. A lot of people seem to take an interest in football so they can gain some sort of kudos with their workmates or whatever, but it's not like that detracts from football in general.

As to philosophy - I think the problem is that people associate certain examples of the "genre" rather than the subject as a whole. Most schools / authors basically seem to be taking different approaches to the same fundamental questions and certain approaches aren't going to appeal to everyone. For instance, Nod seems to love Nietzsche yet I've not found a single piece of his work (or even summary of his work) that wasn't utterly worthless.

In this regard, philosophy is quite exciting in terms of the variety of approaches / styles on offer. If the worst comes to the worst then you can simply start your own.

On this though I think is perhaps the biggest problem (academic) philosophy faces : an understandable but annoying subservience to prior-authorities. Daniel Dennett said once that at his college they don't study philosophy - they "do" philosophy. This idea appealed to me quite a lot - too many of philosophies off-shoots seem to have stopped considering actual questions any more and only focus on what people have already said.

To take political philosophy something like Marxism seems particularly bad for this. Some people only interest themselves in what Marx said/meant. Then you've got others who are only interested in what Trotsky or Lenin said/meant about Marx. And then you've got still others (the really bad ones usually) who are only interested in what some sect leader like Tony Cliff said about what Lenin said about Marx. And so on.

Although obviously we want to avoid re-inventing the wheel there does need to be an actual fresh look at the questions themselves sometimes.

Re: Philosophy.
 

This is an interesting point, and it does really highlight the very different approaches involved. There's a tendency in continental philosophy to view philosophy as a highly abstract form of literary criticism, and a lot of the major figures have written their main works about other people. It's not so much that they want to summarise what past figures as wrote - its more that they want to show their own views by critical engagement with other figures. When you read something like Heidegger's essays on the Greeks or Deleuze's book on Nietzsche, you know that what youre getting is actually the philosophy of Heidegger or Deleuze, rather than that of the people their books are supposedly about. I think this happens a lot with Marx as well - there's been countless attempts to 'reread' him in various ways (Marxist feminists to take a random example). Marx was obviously guilty of this too, since a lot of his important work used explicit engagement with other figures (Hegel, Feuerbach etc) as a springboard for his own views. But again, this isnt really a 'focus on what other people have said' - its more an attempt to develop your own thoughts through creative reading of other figures. Its not like a scholarly 'book about Kant' for instance, where what you'd get is an attempt at an 'objective' summary of Kant's philosophy rather than the authors own unique interpretation. Continental philosophers tends to be _very_ conscious that are writing during a specific historical period rather than investigating 'eternal' truths from a cultureless standpoint. I dont really know if this is the sort of thing youre refferring to thuogh, since I (unsurprisingly) dont read much/any Marxist political philosophy.

In contrast, analytic philosophy tends to be written in an 'ahistorical' way. Theres very little explicit attention to what past figures have wrote, and the work tends to be orientated around specific problems rather than other individuals. Again, this is representative of the 'philosophy as science' view - you have a contextless philosophical 'problem' you want to solve, just like you have scientific problems, and philosophy papers tend to resemble papers from scientific disciplines with an explicit Thesis-Argument-Counterargument structure . Whether this approach is appropriate is debateable.

Re: Philosophy.
 

I'd start with "The Problems Of Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell.

It's short, to the point, and is probably the best introduction to the subject I've ever read.

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I genuinely recommend any works by Billy Connolly.

To me, a person who learns philosophy from the works of others instead of finding their own are like a cover artist vs a producer.

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Guh?

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try this for e-books:
http://ebook.23ae.com/documents/irc.html
you can find more or less everything there. you should use @booksearch or whatever instead of @find as decripted in the link.

Re: Philosophy.
 

Your question is very broad, some might say it is too broad. I would like you to narrow it down a little.

To that end... You say you thought Nietzsche sounded foolish, that is understandable, he can often seem that way. Nevertheless Nietzsche is a good place to start philosophically, he is very readable.

Others have pointed you to secondary texts such as Kaufmann; this is a very difficult book to start off with. It is very useful for the Scholar, but I would not recommend it as an introductory text.

You have also indicated you wish to obtain an online text. My suggestion hits two birds with one stone, it is an introductory passage in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online). It is written by a Professor of mine and is a cut down version of a short introductory book he wrote on Nietzsche.

Here is the address.

That will hopefully give you some idea of whether you wish to read a primary text. Either of the two books recommended by Nod are worthwhile - if you feel like reading somthing with an anti religious bent, I suggest buying the Penguin Twilight/The Anti-Christ book, both are highly readable and very short (£7).

Of course none of this addresses the question, why read Nietzsche? I do not wish to answer this question, I have said quite enough on him... others may wish to of course, but they have not done so yet in this thread.


Two other philosophers I would recommend for the novice are Albert Camus and Michel Foucault.

Camus is best described as an absurdist philosopher, many of his essays are frightfully insightful on the inherently meaningless nature of existance. His philosophy is an attempt to confront the question of Nihilism, while at the same time recognizing that our day to day existance is absurd, that nothing we do ever has any 'meaning' in any tangible sense; and is always "so much dust on the wind of history".

Some of my favourite quotations from Camus are found on This Website, they offer a useful primer to gauge your interest. I have an online version of the Myth of Sisyphus if you are interested (it is relativly short).


Foucault is a little more difficult, but very rewarding. I can understand why Nod didn't think Discipline and Punish was a real 'philosophy' book, it is a book about the evolution of punishment from torture, to the guilotine, to the penitentiary. However Foucault goes further to suggest that the modern prison is in effect a 'model' for a wide range of social institutions that attempt to project power and control over society.

Discipline and Punish is extremely interesting and can best be summarised thus: "Foucault's analysis shows how techniques and institutions, developed for different and often quite innocuous purposes, converged to create the modern system of disciplinary power."

To get a quick overview and to see whether you may wish to read further, again I would direct your attention to the Foucault entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia. He has written on a diverse variety of topics, yet I would suggest Discipline and Punish; it is both highly readable and very engaging, especially in todays 'modern society'.

That concludes my very brief romp through a few of my favourite philosophers. I have chosen two that I think are easy to engage with and provide an interesting introduction to the subject.

Re: Philosophy.
 

philosophy comes from within grasshopper, when you learn, you will understand!

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So everyone has to work out their own consistent interpretation of, say, formal logic?

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how can you have a consistent interpretation of abstract interpretation? those terms contradict one another.

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Interpretation is the wrong word, but blah

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Guh?

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As nodrog said roger scruton's modern philosophy: an introduction and survey is a fantastic starting point. A brief history of the paradox is a nice way of getting a sense of both the historical development of philosophy and the modern state of it. What area of philosophy do you find interesting though? There's a lot of interconnectivity and all but it'd probably be easier if you stated an idea or two that you find interesting.



PS Whatever you do read karl popper please.