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So I want to learn some philosophy...
Alchemist449
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And I don't know where to start! I've picked up Bertrand Russel's A History understanding that even though its dated and heavily biased once I hit the 19th century, it's a decent primer. I don't really have a goal except to learn enough that I could read a modern philosophy text (ala Derrida or later) without being hopelessly lost as to the context and implications raised.
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Best and most recent philosophy I've read is Michel Foucault, but I don't know where you'd start, I took a class on him.
Also, if you want to read Derrida well you would be better served by reading the Structuralists that came before him. I'd recommend checking out some Levi-Strauss and Saussure for starters. Derrida isn't easy, but it is certainly possible to read and understand his writing.
mmmm... squash
It's a good place to start - read the summaries and if it piques your interest, go further
then move forward chronologically until you can't stand it anymore.
What I mean is: if you're interested in Modern Philosophy (which, by the way, is an actual period. I'm not sure if you meant Modern or Contemporary), start with the primary texts by the first Modern Philosopher - Descartes.
What's interesting about Descartes is that he basically throws out the majority of Medieval Philosophy and tries to start fresh. Because of this, he doesn't make a lot of direct references to other philosophers, so he's a good starting point.
The people that come after him basically build on what he has done by supporting it or arguing against it.
If you're interested in reading primary texts I can give you some names of people/books.
But yeah, I'd probably start with Descartes's "Meditations on First Philosophy", more commonly called 'The Meditations".
You don't pick up the Stanford Encyclopedia, it's online. It's also the best source of philosophy online, period, so yeah, I should have suggested that too.
This is exactly right. The trouble with reading *about* philosophy is, well, two things. For one thing, it's rather like reading the CliffNotes for Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and supposing you've got Joyce down. For another thing, even the most exhaustive commentary on or summary of any philosopher's or school of philosophers' ideas is still going to be some other writer's understanding of it all.
Descartes is indeed a good starting place, although if I were going to recommend someone read Descartes, I'd encourage him to familiarize himself with what he's reacting against, and... well, that's ultimately Aristotle. But that's neither here nor there - if you're serious about philosophy, engaging with one area will lead you to the rest eventually.
I should add that I know very few people to whom an understanding of many contemporary philosophers comes intuitively, even with substantial experience in the discipline as a whole. If you've got your heart set on someone like Derrida, I'd suggest that at the very least, a course centered on topics relevant to his philosophy might be helpful.
I've got Philo 1 and 2 and they are really good.
They do also repeat themselves in parts, because the chapters are all written by different people, but that also allows you to just jump in anywhere.
But yeah, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Hume will get you started. I think Hume is the most exciting of the bunch, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is particularly fun. Later, you'll want to read Kant. He's a terrible writer (it's cliche to say this but I can't help but agree), so it's an exercise in patience, but a LOT of subsequent philosophers (Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, to name a few) are writing in conversation with his ideas. If you want a decent introduction to these four Germans, check out http://www.amazon.com/German-Philosophers-Hegel-Schopenhauer-Nietzsche/dp/0192854240/. Hegel is super super important though, and to get to him you should probably get at Kant first.
You should probably read Heidegger at some point.
When I took good ol PHI101 this is where we started as well.
Definitely good names.
I think I would probably alternate between the Rationalists and the Empiricists up until Kant so that you can see what each person is arguing for/against as the arguments develop over time.
So, start with Descartes, then read Locke, then do Spinoza and Leibniz together since they were both about the same time even though they're both Rationalists, then jump over to Berkeley and Hume for the same reasons. Follow that up with Kant and you've got a pretty good grasp of Modern Philosophy.
A huge portion, arguably all, of contemporary philosophy is based on or grew out of the ideas of these people, so they're a really good foundation to have.
I've always found Sartre a very good point to start at. His philosophy doesn't require a deep understanding of other philosophers and is very well conveyed in his various plays. I've been to No Exit (Everyone knows that one!) and The Flies and they were both great fun. Sadly, Existentialism doesn't get much attention nowadays.
Also I think you can safely skip most of the western medieval philosophy, i.e. Bonaventura and Thomas of Aquin. It's mostly about why humans are teh suck and god is awesome.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Interesting. Why omit Socrates and Plato?
(Socrates was teacher of Plato and Plato was the teacher of Aristotle for those wondering why I'm asking)
Except Socrates never wrote anything and was actually just featured in Plato's writings... Plato is the best place to start, reasonably simple, and yet still has that "philosophical" feeling to it which is what you're probably going for...
And I guess I'll take most of the advice given here, and grab Descartes Meditation. Thanks guys!
If you want to read Sartre's actual philosophical works you should have some familiarity with other philosophers. Being and Nothingness deals pretty directly with Heidegger's Being and Time. You could probably read Existentialism is a Humanism by itself, but that doesn't get into his actual arguments so much as it summarizes his philosophy. You can probably read his plays and novels without much context, but you'll get more out of them if you know the Kantian things he's reluctantly accepting or what he rejects from Husserl and this and that.
That's so damn Marxist of you Althusser... :P
I think Russell wrote an introduction to the philosophy of mathematics; you might want to read that. I certainly can't recommend starting with the Principia Mathematica, that thing's incredibly difficult to digest.
I would start with the SEP entry and read whatever sounds interesting from the entry's bibliography.
Anyways grabbed:
Descartes- Meditations
Spinoza- Theologico-Political Treatise
Nietzsche- Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Schopenhauer- Essays and Aphorisms
Probably not wisely chosen for the most part, but I'll go back and pick up the authors I missed off of amazon when I have the money. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read more soon...And I don't really want to take a community college course since I'm a senior in High School and will be attending a college next year. Part of the reason for my philosophy reading is to decide if I want to minor in it (knowing full well it won't get me a job).
Nietzsche shouldn't be read "as is". If you can, get some secondary literature first or a biography.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I was going to recommend this, Stephen Law was my logic lecturer for a while. He's really good at making difficult concepts sound easy.