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Understanding Philosophy
Mim
dead.Registered User regular
dead.Registered User regular
Recently I took up an art class for an art requirement called Art and Society that deals more with philosophy than art (it seems all the drawing classes I wanted to take were reserved exclusively for art students...). So We're reading Plato, Kant, Deleuze and Guattari (who are covering Kafka), Neitzsche, and Aristotle and some guy named Heiddgher (sp?) and the teacher said the readings will be difficult.
Is there a way to make this easier? Or is it simply going to be a lot of re-reading? Any tips from philosophy majors/minors?
Is there a way to make this easier? Or is it simply going to be a lot of re-reading? Any tips from philosophy majors/minors?
BlueSky: thequeenofchaos Steam: mimspanks (add me then tell me who you are! Ask for my IG)
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One thing that helps me before broaching a new work is doing a bit of research on the context behind it. What was going on in history/philosophy/science/for that philosopher in particular. Though this may not be as necessary because I'm assuming your class is only going to approach those philosophers' views on art and the value of the aesthetic. Either way, it's helpful.
But yeah, unless you want to get into some secondary reading the best thing I can tell you is to read very carefully with a highlighter in hand. Mark that shit up, and when you're done, go back and review the salient points and it should help you get an impression of the work as a whole.
• Podcasts! There are some great philosophy podcasts on iTunes, sift through for relevant material.
Really, your best bet is to hit the library. There are probably tons primers for each author, especially the ancients like Plato and Aristotle.
The readings will definitely get much harder, but none of them are trying to confuse the reader. They all try to explain very complicated ideas as best they can. With careful rereading, you should be fine.
What you're reading are logical, reasoned arguments so you should be able to simplify them to a few basic points. The basic idea is to set up a few premises that, if you accept them as true, must lead to a true conclusion. So:
P1: All triangles are green
P2: X is a triangle
C: X is green
You can then take that conclusion and use it as a premise for further points. Whilst it doesn't work for everyone, or every reading, this is a great way of not only understanding a lot of the texts you'll be dealing with but also finding flaws and issues in the reasoning when it's time to write essays or study for exams.
another thing that helped me was to realise that I didn't have to think the same way as a philosopher to understand him/her (because for some reason I tought "hey Socrates is suposed to be a great philosopher, I am a great person, I probably think the same!!) that may be "duh" for you, but it helped me a great deal!
I also found the older philosopher to be way harder for me to understand than more recent 20th century one. at first glance Plato would seem easier to read than Heidegger, but I found Heidegger easier to understand.
Edit: I should probably add that my second philosphy teacher was awesome at making anyone understand philosophy. Whenever you have trouble understanding something, your teacher should be there to help, ask question if you're not sure! also try to explain some concept to friends to help you see where your understanding is weak.
http://www.amazon.com/Action-Philosophers-Giant-Size-Thing-Vol/dp/0977832910/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232768174&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Action-Philosophers-Giant-Size-Thing-Vol/dp/0977832929/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
get these. they are hilarious, accurate, and entertaining. they will give you a good basis as to what each major philosopher is famous for and their basic stance on things.
Reading shit on the net that explained these texts in summarized plain english saved my life.
Instead, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an incredible resource (although it is still a work in progress and has far too many TBA articles), and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also pretty good.
I don't think 'pretentious wankers' is the reason philosophy texts are difficult to read, a lot of it is simply because it takes a lot of words and time to articulate sophisticated ideas. Even so, some philosophers simply weren't that great as writers and that's part of the reason for it, but honestly it's sort of insulting to say that it's because they're indulging some elitism. Philosophers WANT to be read and understood.
On that note, it helps to know the general sort of timeline of philosophers and philosophical movements, because a lot of works will reference the more important works of the big name philosophers just before their time.
As far as help learning their works goes, there are a lot of companion guides to different philosophers out there. Routledge publishes a number of guides on different philosophers, and they're a great place to start learning from, and are generally written in a lot more comprehensible way than the original texts. All the Routledge guide books follow the same title format of being 'Routledge Guide to (philosopher's name)'
After I get an idea of what the philosopher is trying to get at, I then take a stab at reading the original text. It really helps you to understand what they're trying to say if you already have an informed view of what they're trying to get at.
But anyway, don't despair, the philosophers you've listed are some of the hardest ones I've had to get to grips with, they're all terrible writers. But I guarantee there are tons of sources you can use that will explain their ideas better.