Neither could Heidegger, if you asked him. I’m convinced of that.
Maybe a good way for me to develop my philosophical skills would be to try and creat this “philosophy in a day” kit. I could have people critique it, and slowly work to develop a Grade A, Philosophy in 1 Day kit.
Heidegger seems way too hard. I’ve fought through Kant before, and Kierkegaard, but Hegel absolutely crushed me. Phenomenology of Spirit was just as comprehensible as trying to read a word search. It just didn’t make sense. And from all I know of Heidegger, he makes Hegel look like a piece of cake.
What is this Symposia I hear of? I looked at it for about five seconds; I didn’t have time to read anything. But that glance got me curious. What is this thing? Who writes for it? I’ll definitely explore it.
Heidegger does make Hegel look like a piece of cake. Hmmmm. (Imp, you got to help this kid out - you always have the right answer for this sort of thing). Hegel has this vocabulary thing. Like many philosophers, he uses many common words in a technical sense. This can confuse the shit out of you.
saitd is going to give me hell, but read Bertrand Russell’s (ouch. OUCH!) History of Western Philosophy. Naw - It’s a good book, but it probably won’t help. Did Hegel really not make sense, or was the problem that he seemed to be making it all up? I ask, because he made it all up. But it does make sense. That’s an odd quality of philosophy.
Maybe you did get it, but expected something different.
Can’t help with Symposia. Never saw it. If you see anything by Impenitent (unless he used his real name, which is Reynaldo Gespacho O’Sullivan) - read it. He’s reliable, even if he’s The World’s Only Living Solipsist.
Just get your metaphorical thumb out of your metaphorical ass and post something. If you are worried about making an idiot out of yourself, please keep in mind that this is precisely the raison d’etre of ILP. It won’t get you laid, either way, so what’s the difference? Don’t ask for any deference - “I’m young, I’m confused” etc etc. it shows weakness, which will be exploited. You will be crushed like the pissant that you believe yourself to be.
Buck up. Read the posts. What the fuck, you think we’re geniuses?
Once you get past the different voices he used, Kierkegaard is rather sensible, at least to me.
Kant, since he’s all over the place all of the time, is hard to follow, but it’s easy to grasp the spirit of his works.
a good intro to philosophy book is called “Looking at Philosophy” by Donald Palmer… highly recommended…
and if you have read all those books in a few months, you haven’t really read the books.
any serious work of philosophy needs to be read once, thought about, objected to, read again, thought about, discussed, objected to, read again, thought about, discussed and then maybe it can be understood. far too many people read a book and claim that they know exactly what was meant in the book, but one will find, especially with nietzsche, that one needs an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the referents involved. that only comes with years of study.
to get into the meat of philosophy itself, start at the beginning. plato (everything, even aristotle, is a footnote to him) and his dialouges are not too complicated or lengthy, but they do help lay a good foundation of the ideas that are discussed in the discipline.
and hegel and heidegger should be tackled only after a fair understanding of the greeks and medievals, and the empiricists and rationalists is obtained (if you are starting form the beginning anyway… then again, you may jump straight into derrida and find that nothing had meaning in the first place)
and faust is correct, read and discuss, put your ideas and interpretations out there because that’s the only way you learn…
“Reynaldo Gespacho”? that sounds more like a soup…
-Imp
Imp -
Firstly, I’m glad you weighed in. That makes sense. I just read everything that wasn’t assigned in school, and in no particular order, which I am guessing wasn’t really the best way to do it. Too late now.
Jean-Luc Kolakowski?
Bruce Lee Higginbottom?
Orson Vladimir Mortadella?
Am I getting warmer?
waiter, my soup is cold!
I did technically read all those books. Two of them were for class (Candide and The Prince, maybe another one). Plato made sense for me, but I promptly forgot all I read. Kant the first time around hurt me; after a lot of background reading I kind of began to understand him. Descartes and Kierkegaard and Aristotle, well, I read the books, but didn’t closely pay attention. Spinoza was the first philosophy book I really tried to wrestle with. I then did the same with all the empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). And Hegel of course made me quit after 60 pages.
I talked with a man in his mid 20’s who studied philosophy since he was in his late teens (like me) about Hegel. He had problems with Hegel’s vocubulary too. And I think those were my problems as well. I didn’t understand Hegel all that well because I was never sure exactly how he was using his terms.
Someone up above told be to grow up and post something real, I will, in a day or two.
read books written by philosophers.
there is no need to get a degree in it – we have plenty of unemployed PhDs already
Hi. I’m a great books graduate who believes in going to original sources. However, when it comes to the likes of Hegel, I believe in reading secondary sources to help pry open the oyster shell of meaning. But again, there are, in this case, even from the start, both rightest and leftist Hegelians.
Being on this board has helped challenge my thinking, but I would still be at a loss without my college training (scholastic) and my access to a library with primary and secondary sources.
I hope you enjoy your time online.
mrn
Hi theonefroberg,
Reading Hegel is certainly waste of anyone’s time.
You’d better read Schopenhauer,his view of the world as will is the only true explanation of the world.but Schpenhauer was absolutely wrong for his pessimistic view of life.anyone reading"The world as will and representation"(written by Schopenhauer)should distinguish its metaphysics from its pessimism which is in the later part of the book and not a logical outcome of it.
For Nietzsche, there are three key people you need to know about in order to grasp his writing - Richard Wagner, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Max Stirner (yes, I am one of those who believe Nietzsche read Stirner at some point; no I do not believe Nietzsche plagarized him in the slightest).
and most if not all of the greeks
-Imp
Eh. Heraclitus, Plato, and Socrates, yes. Other than that, probably not.
read birth of tragedy, genealogy of morals, and daybreak somethime
-Imp
I have them all. It’s not necessary to know all of the pre-Socratics to understand Nietzsche (though it helps). I’m trying to lay down a bare minimum of what is necessary to grasp his philosophy without making the typical mistakes that come with reading him.
Oh, and Spinoza is probably not needed, but it would probably be a good idea to at least thumb through him.
scarab?,
Then what is one to do if they are a Blue-interest Green-style type, or Reason-Artistic-Social type and need a career?
mrn
You asked what types of logic you should learn. If you buy Tomassi’s book he will tell you. Once you have learned the basic propositional you can, if you like, move on to the formal. In answer to your second question these are forms developed primarily by the analytics and are the product mainly of Frege. They would not exist without Aristotle either. There are many different forms of logic that one can study beyond those necessary to engage in reasoned discourse. Do take the newspaper approach I mentioned - very satisfying.
Later down the road, be sure to have an academic understanding of the Greeks and never stop learning the history of philosophy. Knowing how a connects to b saves you several years.
On a personal note (so far everything I have advised has not been personal and indeed I did not have a good understanding of logic before I started studying philosophy - I wasted alot of time) I would recommend delving a little into Medieval Philosophy at some point in the future. People who do not read medieval philosophy tend to have certain ‘holes’ or ‘gaps’ in their understanding of history. Often these can be plugged by examining what they missed during the ‘dark ages’ (a misnomer) of intellectual thought.