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Philosophy? Where do I start?
Regicid3
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I don't even know where to start, or what I'm doing. I don't know anything. I'm sick of sitting here, wondering aimlessly everyday and not being able to connect the dots.
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If, however, you're just looking to be happy. I'd recommend just adopting an epicurean lifestyle - do whatever makes you feel good and avoid whatever makes you feel bad.
However, studying philosophy will almost certainly create more questions than it will answers. You will never find the right path by studying philosophy, you will simply find more questions that need to be answered.
Actually, The Republic is a rather advanced work. Start with Plato's Euthyphro and Gorgias.
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That said, philosophy makes you work for your answers. It makes you really think about what you believe, and work through your questions on your own. I think it's incredibly important precisely because of that fact, but plenty of people get frustrated with the endless searching.
There are plenty of overview books out there, but you'll get the most out of the primary texts. The standard progression usually goes something like: Plato->Aristotle->Descartes->Hume->Kant. That of course leaves huge holes, and leaves a big gap between then and the present, but it's the broad overview that you'd get in Philosophy 101 or thereabouts.
Honestly, this is probably your best option. Get a taste for articles in a variety of subjects, and then decide what you'd like to spend more time on from there.
Only thing I liked about philosophy is pragmatism.
Edit: I mean exploring in a scholastic sense, I'm not saying you pick up a religion, but they are good for self discovery.
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Or you could go the awesome route and read:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I read this for my Philosophy in Literature class and it was one of my teacher's favorite books, and I loved it, it was fantastic, you should read it, seriously man, I'm serious, don't read some textbook or whatever, start with this, it will be interesting and make you think at the same time. I lie not.
I laughed really hard at this.
If you think you'd like to examine it some more, a first-year or high school philosophy textbook should do you well. They'll have excerpts of model philosophers that you can peruse to see if there's any specific field you're interested in.
If you're serious enough about Philosophy to hit it independently, there are some big names that are probably mandatory reading:
Plato (Republic) <- Greek Rationalist
Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics?) <- Greek Empiricist
Anselm (Prosoglion and replies) <- Medieval
Aquinas <- Medieval
Descartes (Meditations) <- Rationalism
Locke (Essay on Human Understanding) <- Empiricism
Berkeley (Treatise on Principles of Human Knowledge) <- Idealism
Hume (Enquiry on Human Understanding) <- Skepticism
J.S. Mill <- Utilitarianism
Marx <- Socialism
Sartre (Being and Nothingness is hard. Do Existentialism is a Humanism first, then go back if interested.) <- Existentialism
Russell <- Analytical
Foucault <- Postmodern
Dawkins (Blind Watchmaker's probably best?) <- Evolutionary
Rawls <- Social Justice
This is by no means a complete list, but I think it should provide a decently broad overview of western Philosophy, though I've excised the most difficult writers (e.g., Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Rousseau) and some of the lesser known writers (e.g., Leibniz - who I love too PolloDiablo but just isn't that influential - Spinoza, Heraclitus, Parmenides, de Beauvoir, Santyana). I'm also missing a few movements, like pragmatism, but can't think of who'd be good in that role.
ETA: My high school philosophy reader was Voices of Wisdom, by Gary E. Kessler, and it was pretty good. It's got a lot of lesser, modern names but I remember getting some really good readings out of it.
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This has been said a few times, and it is totally false.
Read Machiavelli's The Prince (open source) and J.S. Mill's On Liberty for social/political content. Maybe Plato's Meno for general "what is life/thought?" stuff, but you have to be willing to deal with pretty wildly incorrect assumptions about knowledge and gender roles, among other things.
edit: fix'd
So, in answer to the title's question of "Philosophy?" I have to answer, "not really." Might I recommend literature? I'm currently reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and the main character focuses a lot on what it means to live in today's society. Go sit in the sun, and read that.
Shit, yes.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
But still, read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance cuz I said so
Shut up. :P
Stay away from 19th or 20th century philosophers and philosophies until you've read at least a little bit of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Once you've got a general idea of where these three guys are coming from, you'll be in a position to read what everyone else was responding to.
Fair enough. I retract my previous statement.
Kant? Seriously? You'd recommend newbie Philosophers read Kant, and without Descartes and Locke? I thought Kant's whole thing is the resolution of the conflict between rationalism and empiricism (which I don't think he really does, in that obfuscating-German-way of his, but...) and you need Descartes and Locke (or viable alternatives) to understand what he's trying to resolve.
Not that Kant isn't insightful, but I remember my second-year Philosophy course just going to hell when we hit Kant. He's very difficult reading and nobody in the class had any clue what he was talking about, except the upper-year Philosophy students who were dipping down for the course, and me because I'd studied him in high school. The combination of deadly German prose and his being one of late-comers to the rationalist/empiricist game makes me wave people away from Kant, at least on a first pass of Western philosophy.
Actually, now that I think about it, I usually recommend staying away from the Germans in general. With their made-up words and ridiculous prose, they are so damn hard to read. Between them and the French existentialists...
Well, I'll definitely concede that it helps if you read Descartes/Spinoza/Leibnez and Locke/Berkley/Hume before you read Kant. But if the OP wants to read anything from the 19th/20thC, then he's going to have to read Plato, Aristotle, and Kant just to understand what anyone is going on about. That's essentially the price of entry to anything post-Kant, because a surprising number of ideas and positions are either derivatives of the three thinkers, or are purposely opposed to what those three thinkers put forward.
This. So hard.
Philosophy 101 textbook.
Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy
Sophie's World
1) Of the three texts mentioned, which to start with? I've only read a few philosphy texts and I still don't "get it" in a big picture way like you "get" that math isn't only about counting.
2) "Or you could go the awesome route and read: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
I've read this. It was interesting, but why do you think it's awesome?
Russell is just so readable. He will summarise the ideas of great philosphers for you so you don't have to dig through their archaic prose and figure it out yourself. And he's very funny, in that dry old-fashioned British way that my grandfather can sometimes do.
The criticisms of the book are that he allows much of his opinion into it. There are some philosophers in there that you can tell he doesn't have much respect for, and so if you're looking for purely objective stuff this may not be for you. Also, I've read that the book skips over the significance of some philosphers and doesn't do them justice, and also that the book is too heavy on the ancient Greek stuff and not big enough on relatively modern stuff. It was written in 1946, I think, which can give you an idea on how modern it gets. And when I found that out I was surprised, because as I said it's incredibly readable. Has aged well.
So there's further thought on my original 2c.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
Thirded or whatever on the Russell reccomendations. At the very least it is one of the best reference tools - you can be reading something else, encounter some idea or work that is even briefly mentioned, and then go back to HoWP to get some background. Well, or just stay up all night on wikipedia.
OP - any specifics about what you want to learn? Law and society? Epistemology? Logic?
Another suggestion I can give you that isn't a philosophy text (though combing through source material with a highlighter and possibly even taking notes can be extremely helpful if you're going through some particularly dense stuff) is called Zeno and the Tortoise, by Nicholas Fearn. It pretty much breaks down every major contributor to philosophy and expounds the influence and utility of their contributions. Depending on how much you already know it may seem oversimplified, but it's an extremely easy and quick read, and really couldn't hurt if you're going to go into the big stuff afterwards. Knowing a little history helps, especially given that most philosophers reference the philosophers of their past and the ideas they put forth.