How to get started on philosophy?

On July 04 2010 11:34 travis wrote:
i am frequently annoyed by half-men/half-parrots that clearly haven't developed their own views through serious contemplation

On July 04 2010 11:59 shinosai wrote:

As an aside, Descartes is highly respected for his math, but I'd be wary of his metaphysics. He made some great contributions to modern mathematics, including a proof for an "actual" infinity (great stuff for finitists vs infinitists).

On July 04 2010 11:59 shinosai wrote:
edit: Oh, yea, I should probably mention... if you're really interested in philosophy, Kant is obviously a go to. There are more dissertations and papers written about Kant than anyone else, mostly because of how controversial his philosophy is. He's very important, you'll want to know about him.

On July 04 2010 11:17 Pandain wrote:
Honestly, if you want to get started on learning ANYTHING, Wikipedia is the answer. Start from there, then read up more on specific subjects that interest you. Perhaps even get books if your really curios.

On July 04 2010 11:18 Malgrif wrote:
I suggest begin your philosophical journey by first reading some of the works of aristotle, plato, and socraties. they are generally the foundation to most of the modern day views. after you're done with them you can move onto whatever catches your interest.

On July 04 2010 11:23 Aus)MaCrO wrote:
A big part of philosophy is thinking for yourself, and nobody knows how far along you are in your intellectual development, so nobody can really tell you what you should read (ie what will be worthwhile to YOU). Still, as you said, there are thousands of books out there, so a push in the right direction is good.

A website I like is insomnia.ac, which focuses on videogames and philosophy. There is also a forum thread there with a list of recommendations:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?t=2373

Eastern philosophy is mostly a waste of time as far as I am aware.

Hope that helps.

On July 04 2010 11:28 mainerd wrote:
the ammount of literature is enormous, and it really depends what you want to know. if you want this historical aspect of philosophy (east, west, et al), and just want to absorb as much philosophical thinking as possible, you just need to put your nose to the grindstone and do a LOT of reading. however if this is a pursuit of a more personal nature, IE learning your own views and leanings on major philosophical points, this can be more easily achieved by throwing yourself into discussions, like on IRC philo channels. real life discussion is better, but not everyone knows people irl who like to discuss such things.

On July 04 2010 11:52 tryclops wrote:
Regarding Descartes, his writing helped bring the west out of the Dark Ages and made philosophy relevant again, so I can't exactly recommend him unless you're very interested in God or want to understand the concept dualism. He also writes in a very strange style that won't really make much sense in the 21st century. Nonetheless, he is vital in the history and development of philosophy. You can find this for free on the internet so perhaps you'd want to print it out or something (it's about fifty or sixty pages in .pdf).

On July 04 2010 11:59 shinosai wrote:
Taking a class in intro philosophy is a good way to start out. I'm a philosophy minor myself and enjoy the subject. Moreso than any other subject it emphasizes logical thinking. Arguments in philosophy need to be valid and sound (and in studying epistemology, you'll learn that there are some other requirements as well!)

Do not read books that reinforce your beliefs. If your interest is reinforcing your beliefs, then read someone that believes the opposite of you, and try to form an argument that logically disproves it. If you can't, then you've just learned something new.

As an aside, Descartes is highly respected for his math, but I'd be wary of his metaphysics. He made some great contributions to modern mathematics, including a proof for an "actual" infinity (great stuff for finitists vs infinitists). As far as his metaphysics go, he spent a lot of time trying to prove the existence of God. And I think it's common belief among philosophers (at least since Kant) that one cannot prove the existence of God through metaphysics.

edit: Oh, yea, I should probably mention... if you're really interested in philosophy, Kant is obviously a go to. There are more dissertations and papers written about Kant than anyone else, mostly because of how controversial his philosophy is. He's very important, you'll want to know about him.

On July 04 2010 12:06 tryclops wrote:


Some say Descartes contributed so much that France decided not to contribute anything for the next three hundred years

On July 04 2010 12:09 Crahptacular wrote:
Depends on what you mean by getting well educated in philosophy. If you mean the way it's taught in schools, you're looking at learning the history of (predominantly) Western philosophical thought. This involves reading a large variety of books by prominent philosophers, as well as learning about (but not necessarily reading the works of) a multitude of lesser philosophers. When learning philosophy this way, there is little to no connection between what you read and what your personal beliefs/opinions are. They might coincide or contradict with the material you deal with, but the purpose of studying the entire history of philosophical thought is to understand the way various ares of philosophy developed over time.

If you want to learn philosophy in order to further develop your own opinions on certain subjects, you can probably skip straight to contemporary philosophers who talk about what you're interested in, with just a short crash course (e.g. Wikipedia articles) on the background of that subject. For a very broad example, you might be interested in metaphysics In that case, background knowledge of someone highly influential like Kant would almost certainly be needed; and Kant's metaphysics are (partially) in response to people like Descartes, and so on back to Aristotle. Except if you're only interested in your contemporary philosopher, you only need to know very little about his/her influences in order to know what's going on, which is a really good thing, because fully understanding someone like Kant takes years of dedicated study.

As for the question of reinforcing your beliefs vs. challenging them, that's not really a problem. Almost every philosophical work is written in response to something (or everything) written before it. Moreover, many works will make direct references to other philosophers and their arguments, so you'll get a little bit of input from both sides. And if that interests you, you can go find the people who were mentioned and read their works too.

Finally, if you're mostly concerned about more "ordinary" or "everyday" philosophical issues (e.g. ethics), you honestly don't need any background information. It's useful and interesting to read what others think, but if I ask you if doing something is right or wrong, you're just as qualified as anyone else to give your opinion regardless of whether or not you can name drop famous philosophers to support your opinion.

On July 04 2010 12:55 PH wrote:


This is a stupid place to start. Don't do it.

On July 04 2010 13:14 koreasilver wrote:
So you just dismiss an entire culture that has existed longer than Christianity when you haven't even studied it much? For god's sake. That's like dismissing Kant because you read a bit of Nietzsche where he disparages the man even if you've never actually read any of his work yourself.

On July 04 2010 13:43 ella_guru wrote:
Most philosophy is a crock because it's rich white guys spouting their opinions about stuff that has no bearing on reality. It's a big cockfight with no winner, just a big circle of a bad kind of gay people.

On July 04 2010 13:47 koreasilver wrote:
So you've basically read very little. Do you understand how ludicrous it is to dismiss an entirety just because of a very small part of it? It is as absurd as dismissing Western philosophy as a whole because of one or two Westerners. Indian thought and Oriental thought is also very different as well.

You're a donkey, seriously.

On July 04 2010 13:57 koreasilver wrote:

I've read some pretty vapid things before when it comes to Eastern thought before as well. I find that Westerners too often put Eastern thought on a pedestal (particularly of Buddhism).

On July 04 2010 14:21 koreasilver wrote:
A great deal of Buddhist philosophy was written and led by monks that came from the higher rich class of society though. When it comes to these forms of literature the majority of these intellectuals came from comfortable backgrounds even if they later on lived in hardship. I would also argue that Zen in Japan was influenced by the culture of the Japanese just as if not more than it influenced Japanese society.

You're as bad as the last guy with your take on Descartes. That's just really stupid. Yes, he spent a lot of time on trying to prove the existence of an immaterial soul, but the actual argument he used is still relevant and is debated and written about today (conceivability argument). It's very interesting stuff and is VERY MUCH worth looking into. In addition, his skepticism is very important too.

On July 04 2010 14:22 shinosai wrote:


"I think, therefore I am." Yet what is I?

So, for instance, I was initially interested in theories of consciousness, so I took a course in Philosophy of Mind. This ballooned into further interest in consciousness, artificial intelligence, decision making, and ethics (and so forth), so I went after all of that too. There's not really a good way of starting in philosophy if you dont have a more specific interest (imo), and the best way of doing it if you do is to find someone who's already done it with a similar interest to give you advice.

On July 04 2010 14:28 ella_guru wrote:


I is ME of course. How can anyone miss that? Will I define that to you ? Unlikely, since my truth of it is already uncovered.

On July 04 2010 13:47 koreasilver wrote:
So you've basically read very little. Do you understand how ludicrous it is to dismiss an entirety just because of a very small part of it? It is as absurd as dismissing Western philosophy as a whole because of one or two Westerners. Indian thought and Oriental thought is also very different as well.

You're a donkey, seriously.

On July 04 2010 14:35 BottleAbuser wrote:
Philosophy pisses me off. Everything I read is supported by a logical proof, which is also refuted by another logical proof. Eventually, it all comes down to your postulates, which means "believe whatever the fuck you want and you can prove it."

On July 04 2010 14:43 kzn wrote:
Wait, how is deduction invalid by extension from induction?

P->Q, P, thus Q is a deductive argument, and makes no assumptions anywhere, whatsoever.

On July 04 2010 14:40 Aus)MaCrO wrote:


Dude, those two books are supposed to be some of the best on/examples of Eastern philosophy. If I found them lacking, why the hell would I bother with the rest?

On July 04 2010 14:47 kzn wrote:
Thats not an inductive argument. A deductive argument cannot by definition be inductive. A valid deductive argument cannot be false unless the premises are unsound. Certainly, proving the soundness of premises is itself impossible, but deduction as a method of reasoning is infallible.

Deductive arguments also don't need to assume cause and effect, because the P->Q premise establishes a causal relationship whether such a thing is possible in the real world or not.

On July 04 2010 14:51 shinosai wrote:You yourself are now making a circular argument.

"Deduction as a method of reasoning is infallible because in the past deductive arguments have not been able to be proven false unless the premises are unsound. Therefore, in the present, when I make an argument using deduction, the argument cannot be proven false unless the premises are unsound. Therefore, in the future when I make a deductive argument, it cannot be proven false unless the premises are unsound. Because deduction worked in the past, it will work in the future."

Hume's problem was that "it works" was not a valid justification for him.

On July 04 2010 14:51 kzn wrote:
I think the difference between "Eastern" and "Western" philosophy is more that they aren't actually the same kinds of philosophy. Granted, I have almost no exposure to Eastern philosophy but from what I have it seems more concerned with creating philosophies "to live by", where Western is concerned more with asking big questions, and ignoring real life to some extent.

On July 04 2010 14:55 kzn wrote:


It's not a case of "past deductive arguments have never been false". Its a case of the conclusion in all deductive proofs being already contained within the premises. As a method of reasoning, this is infallible mostly because it generates no new knowledge, it merely rephrases what is already known.

If nothing is known, then this is practically useless, but the method of reasoning in deductive arguments is watertight, and incapable of generating an invalid conclusion.

On July 04 2010 14:58 BottleAbuser wrote:
Fuck Hume. By his logic, we can't trust our eyes and ears.

Of course, he's right. We should all revert to solipsism... but for everyday life, induction works well enough that we use it.

On July 04 2010 11:38 noko wrote:
recommending 'sophie's world' then 'Socrates to Sartre'.

On July 04 2010 14:22 shinosai wrote:


Modern philosophy doesn't put much stock in metaphysical proofs of God's existence. My take on Descartes dates back as far as Kant. Sure, the argument is still relevant and debated, in as much as nearly every major philosopher's arguments are relevant and debated. To be honest here, though, every metaphysical proof for God's existence either ends in circularity or an endless regression, no matter how complexly created. It's not really a stupid point of view to dislike his metaphysics, in my opinion. Especially when there are really solid arguments out there as to why believing that metaphysics can prove the unknown is a rather fruitless endeavor.

"I think, therefore I am." Yet what is I?

On July 04 2010 20:12 PH wrote:

You're still missing the point. What's important is not that he was trying to argue for the existence of God or god or whatever. His conceivability argument is actually very important, particularly in Mind/Body philosophy. It was expanded and slightly edited by David Chalmers, and is one of the many theories still brought in and discussed in that field (that's apparently now a hot subject).

I don't care that you don't like that he talked about god or tried to prove he exists...that's not important, and that crucial point you're missing is really making you look bad right now.

On July 04 2010 15:15 shinosai wrote:


I give this post a 10/10. ;P Pretty much my opinion after doing philosophy for several years is that you have to separate practicality from philosophy. If you try to LIVE philosophy you will end up a blind man in a cave with no where to go.

On July 05 2010 04:15 zulu_nation8 wrote:


That is an extremely stupid conclusion.

On July 04 2010 15:07 shinosai wrote:


I agree that the method of reasoning in deductive arguments is watertight. I was merely explaining Hume. For all practical deductions (one's based on real life examples), his argument against induction works just the same as deduction. However, if you were to do something abstract such as P->Q, P thus Q where P's relationship to Q was not relevant, then I think you are absolutely right.

On July 04 2010 14:58 BottleAbuser wrote:
Fuck Hume. By his logic, we can't trust our eyes and ears.

Of course, he's right. We should all revert to solipsism... but for everyday life, induction works well enough that we use it.

On July 05 2010 04:13 Sabu113 wrote:Very interesting thread. My only piece of advice is be ware of Kant. What little I've read of Kant was tough to read. His language is just ... very very difficult to unpack. To be fair, I have only a light background in political philosophy so I might not have the experience or tools to understand it well, but in any case it was not reader friendly. You may want to delay reading him.

On July 05 2010 10:50 kzn wrote:
Yes but Hegel is pure continental and thus cannot be expected to make any sense whatsoever.

On July 04 2010 11:12 Rev0lution wrote:
Am I supposed to read on books that reinforce my beliefs or should I read on the classics, and if so what classics do you recommend?