Accessible Philosophy Books

Flay

My brother has developed a sudden interest in philosophy. I'd like to buy him a book for Christmas but he has a pretty short attention span for these things and I don't think he's quite ready for Tolstoy or Plato yet. Can anyone suggest any good books on philosophy that are still accessible and/or enjoyable?

Teucrian

How old is he?

I own a copy of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Beginners-Richard-Osborne/dp/1934389021/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324524417&sr=8-1

It is not as simple as the title and illustrations might imply, it handles some pretty significant subjects. I keep it in a classroom where it gets picked up often, but it is really too difficult for most sixteen year olds. But some of them really like it and it may be what you're looking for.

Flay

I'll give it a look! As for your question, he's twenty two, a bit older than me, but from an engineering/science background and he's never been hugely in to literature though until now. I know he's a big fan of the Philosophy Bites podcast, but I haven't listened to it myself.

TychoCelchuuu

I'm a bona fide Philosophy PhD student and this book is by far the best introduction to philosophy I've come across (although to be honest I've only read a few "philosophy for beginners" books).

Lolken

Phenomenology of Spirit

/NOT, no really don't

L Ron Howard

Does Koestler or Bukowski count?

UrQuanLord88

Sophie's World?

Also, I got hooked on to the ____ for Beginners series (i.e. http://www.amazon.com/Foucault-Beginners-Lydia-Alix-Fillingham/dp/1934389129/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1324538793&sr=8-8 ). Mostly casual reading. There's pictures and short paragraphs.

SatanIsMyMotor

You could try getting him "Ishmael" or "My Ishmael". It's philosophy wrapped in story.

Granted, the philosophy in it is very flawed but it will at least open him up to ideas and the discourse in it is interesting for a beginner.

Flay

TychoCelchuuu wrote:

I'm a bona fide Philosophy PhD student and this book is by far the best introduction to philosophy I've come across (although to be honest I've only read a few "philosophy for beginners" books).

I passed this one by him, but he seems turned off by the prospect of coming up with his own solutions. The appeal of Philosophy Bites for him was that it involved not just a lot of different topics but also had the perspectives of a lot of different philosophers, in which case I'm thinking it'll need to be something broad.

Also, he does't seem to be interested in a fictional philosophy book either, so there goes Sophies World and Ishmael. :?

SatanIsMyMotor

Does he understand that there's no such thing as fictional philosophy? The philosophy in the books mentioned is 100% real, it's just the presentation of the arguments that is done in a bit more of a whimsical way. It's actually a pretty good exercise for identify the key points in an argument in a real-world setting.

That being said, if he doesn't like it there's not much we can say about that.

godelsrotatinguniverse

Simon Blackburn has a set of pretty good intro to philosophy books: Think, Truth and Being Good.

JebusUD

I've heard good things about "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar".

http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Platypus-Walk-into-Understanding/dp/0143113879/ref=pd_sim_b_5/185-6863403-1936721

fightinfilipino

Zen and the Art of Archery, for all its "played out-ness", is actually a good read on some basics about zen philosophy. it's also accessibly short.

Antonio Gramsci's "The Prison Notebooks" is a lot heavier, but is a great read on philosophies on how power works in society.

TychoCelchuuu

Flay wrote:

TychoCelchuuu wrote:

I'm a bona fide Philosophy PhD student and this book is by far the best introduction to philosophy I've come across (although to be honest I've only read a few "philosophy for beginners" books).

I passed this one by him, but he seems turned off by the prospect of coming up with his own solutions (I know, I know). The appeal of Philosophy Bites for him was that it involved not just a lot of different topics but also had the perspectives of a lot of different philosophers, in which case I'm thinking it'll need to be something broad.

Also, he does't seem to be interested in a fictional philosophy book either, so there goes Sophies World and Ishmael. :?

Unfortunately I'm more or less out of ideas, then, unless he's interested in a specific kind of philosophy (philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, etc.) in which case there are tons of really good introductions/anthologies of easier works to pick up. The nice thing about The Pig that Wants to be Eaten is that it tells you where the puzzles are from, which means that if you want answers you just look up that book and read it. That way instead of struggling through lots of boring philosophers until you find a problem you're interested in, you skim through the problems until you find something interesting then you go read those philosophers who talk about it.

You could ask him what his favorite Philosophy Bites episodes are; some of the people interviewed there have written accessible books.

Aside from that, if he's big on ethics, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics is good. Slightly more serious/advanced is Bernard Williams' Morality: An Introduction to Ethics.

Flay

SatanIsMyMotor wrote:

Does he understand that there's no such thing as fictional philosophy? The philosophy in the books mentioned is 100% real, it's just the presentation of the arguments that is done in a bit more of a whimsical way. It's actually a pretty good exercise for identify the key points in an argument in a real-world setting.

That being said, if he doesn't like it there's not much we can say about that.

Yeah, I tried to explain that but I didn't do a very good job.

TychoCelchuuu wrote:

Unfortunately I'm more or less out of ideas, then, unless he's interested in a specific kind of philosophy (philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, etc.) in which case there are tons of really good introductions/anthologies of easier works to pick up. The nice thing about The Pig that Wants to be Eaten is that it tells you where the puzzles are from, which means that if you want answers you just look up that book and read it. That way instead of struggling through lots of boring philosophers until you find a problem you're interested in, you skim through the problems until you find something interesting then you go read those philosophers who talk about it.

I tried selling him on this again, but he still seems put off. He told me that he's 'more interested in what great philosophers have said on these problems', which I think implies that he's wants to have them collected in a volume rather than having to seek them out himself. Also, I can't find one particular branch of philosophy that he's interested, so no luck there either!

JebusUD wrote:

I've heard good things about "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar".

This he responded a little better to, but it seems like it's a little too light-hearted.

godelsrotatinguniverse wrote:

Simon Blackburn has a set of pretty good intro to philosophy books: Think, Truth and Being Good.

Think looks like it might be the best option so far. He's sort of resigned himself to me getting whatever I think suits him best, and this seems to fill the criteria that he's looking for. I think I'll pick this one up!

Leitner

Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel is a really solid intro and foundation for ethics.

It's pretty short and easy reading.

TychoCelchuuu

Leitner wrote:

Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel is a really solid intro and foundation for ethics.

It's pretty short and easy reading.

Come to think of it, What Does It All Mean? is supposed to be fantastic. I haven't read it but Nagel is a master.

Lachrymite

If he's interested in the history aspect at all, Logicomix is a super accessible graphic novel introduction to the major figures of early 20th century philosophy.

http://www.amazon.com/Logicomix-Apostolos-Doxiadis/dp/0747597200

Inquisitor77

If he is actually happier with the approach to essentially memorize the arguments of other philosophers, then he could basically just go pick up any boring old primer on philosophy and read through it. The reason no one likes those books is because the vast majority of them resort to telling, rather than showing (i.e., people tend to fall asleep while reading them). It's essentially rote memorization of arguments. However, everyone is different, so if that's what really floats his boat, then just pick up the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or something.

All of the other approaches that I think most of us would advocate tends to fall into more of the "accessibility" domain - fictionalized allegories, thought experiments, and (wow!) graphic novels.

Based on your description of him, however, I think your brother is both being stubbornly obtuse as to his approach and naive as to what it means to really understand complex philosophical arguments. If he's the type of person to jump quickly from one thing to the next, then philosophy is probably not going to be his cup of tea... To be perfectly honest, if the accessible/whimsical stuff can't hold his interest, then I doubt the meatier stuff will, because it only gets harder and less straightforward from there.

naporeon

It's too late now, of course, but for future reference, this is a very fun, very accessible, still pretty informative introduction to philosophy: Looking At Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter.

Palmer has spent at least part of his career as a professor, and I believe that most of the stuff in the book, including the endearingly bad drawings, is taken from his actual lecture notes.

Sharp10r

Peter Kreeft is excellent for accessibility and representing moderate realism. His Philosophy 101 is a good intro book, but he also has several books which are Socratic Dialouges including The Best Things In Life. He's a philosopher and theologian, so he'd probably rather have the ones I mentioned than more theological books, but his take on Virtue Ethics is great too.