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Philosophy for dummies

bluestreak said:
You like Scruton now? I've never read him but I might do now that butch and jeff have recommended him.

Max, from your link:

Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).[1][2] The word is of Greek origin: φιλοσοφία (philosophía), meaning love of wisdom.[3]

I'm not being funny but... you reject metaphysics and epistemology as pointless, you exhibit no signs of or interest in logic, and i've never seen you debate ethics. What area of philosophy are you interested in?
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You can't simply split ethics from epistemology and metaphysics, what constitutes an ethical act needs grounding and as such depends upon epistemology, furthemore any concept of ethics requires some assumptions about the nature of the being, eg is a tiger who kills a child as guilty of an amoral act as a human? Likewise espistemology can't be divorced from metaphysics because the essential nature of the subject doing the 'knowing' has implications for their 'knowing'. They all interwoven and assume each other.

Sorry misread your post,I thought you were telling him to reject metaphysics and epistemology as pointless.
 
roger scrotum isn't worth bothering with.
Avoid anything by AC Grayling or that nob end Alain de Boton.

Simon Critchley's "Very Short Intro" to Continental Philosophy is pretty sound.
 
Alain de Ballbag, hate that cunt.

And Roger Scrotum is a mental tory prick, I had a book of essays by him, in one he rails against Marxism as wanting to kill the father.
 
Oxford University Press published booklets (about 130-150 pages each) with introduction to key figures in Western philosophy

Socrates, by C.C.W. Taylor
Plato, by R.M. Hare
Aristoteles, by Jonathan Barnes
Aquino, by Anthony Kenny
Montaigne, by Peter Burke
Hobbes, by Richard Tuck
Descartes, by Tom Sorell
Spinoza, by Roger Scrutton
Leibniz, by G. MacDonald Ross
Berkeley, by J.O. Urmson
Hume, by A.J. Ayer
Kant, by Roger Scruton
Hegel, by Peter Singer
Schopenhauer, by Christopher Janaway
Kierkegaard, by Patrick Gardiner
Marx, by Peter Singer
Nietzsche, by Michael Tanner
Russell, by A.C. Grayling
Wittgenstein, by A.C. Grayling
Heidegger, by Michael Inwood

One of my relatives read them in her first year at univ and said they give a useful general introduction. I don't think they cost much.

salaam.
 
Aldebaran said:
Oxford University Press published booklets (about 130-150 pages each) with introduction to key figures in Western philosophy

Socrates, by C.C.W. Taylor
Plato, by R.M. Hare
Aristoteles, by Jonathan Barnes
Aquino, by Anthony Kenny
Montaigne, by Peter Burke
Hobbes, by Richard Tuck
Descartes, by Tom Sorell
Spinoza, by Roger Scrutton
Leibniz, by G. MacDonald Ross
Berkeley, by J.O. Urmson
Hume, by A.J. Ayer
Kant, by Roger Scruton
Hegel, by Peter Singer
Schopenhauer, by Christopher Janaway
Kierkegaard, by Patrick Gardiner
Marx, by Peter Singer
Nietzsche, by Michael Tanner
Russell, by A.C. Grayling
Wittgenstein, by A.C. Grayling
Heidegger, by Michael Inwood

One of my relatives read them in her first year at univ and said they give a useful general introduction. I don't think they cost much.

salaam.
Click to expand...

avoid the ones by Singer on Marx and Hegel. Avoid the one on Wittgenstein by Grayling. And Scrotum understands nothing about Kant and Spinoza.

Granta's "How to Read..." series is much better (Simon Critchley is the series editor).
 
articul8 said:
avoid the ones by Singer on Marx and Hegel. Avoid the one on Wittgenstein by Grayling. And Scrotum understands nothing about Kant and Spinoza.

Granta's "How to Read..." series is much better (Simon Critchley is the series editor).
Click to expand...

I wouldn't know. I didn't read them myself as of yet, but I would think that such tiny booklets can hardly have the pretention to be an interpretation of their work, just an introduction to it, and to the philosopher and his background.
Which is what the OP asked for ;)

salaam.
 
but introductions can be better or worse, depending on how much understanding and sympathy with the intententions of the author the introducer has.

I find that may of the OUP authors are bound up with a particular attachment to a certain way of doing academic philosophy, and fail to do justice to the broader emancipatory thrust of their work.
 
The best intro to Marx is a nifty lil booklet by Eagleton called "Marx and Freedom". Singer's sucks dick and the illustrated Intorductions are all of a crudely Leninist bent.
 
If you want to read specific philosophers, there is probably nothing better than the original texts.

EG you want to know about Descartes, read the meditations, and get your own idea of what is being said. Then read the guides. IMO.

Of course, there are some where this doesn't work. Like Hegel, or something.
 
articul8 said:
but introductions can be better or worse, depending on how much understanding and sympathy with the intententions of the author the introducer has.

I find that may of the OUP authors are bound up with a particular attachment to a certain way of doing academic philosophy, and fail to do justice to the broader emancipatory thrust of their work.
Click to expand...

'The broader emancipatory thrust of their subjects?' Which ones?
 
articul8 said:
but introductions can be better or worse, depending on how much understanding and sympathy with the intententions of the author the introducer has.

I find that may of the OUP authors are bound up with a particular attachment to a certain way of doing academic philosophy, and fail to do justice to the broader emancipatory thrust of their work.
Click to expand...

I agree...
 
butchersapron said:
'The broader emancipatory thrust of their subjects?' Which ones?
Click to expand...

was talking about Kant, Spinoza, Marx and (at least early) Hegel. Emancipation from the ignorance of unthinking power is at the heart of those projects, no?

Obviously I didn't mean everyone on the list
 
bluestreak said:
you reject metaphysics and epistemology as pointless
Click to expand...

no i dont

i think that epistemology has set itself up as a shield against scepticism, it is the sceptic who thinks that epistemology is pointless, i am not (could not be) a sceptic

i have never said anything about metaphysics :confused:
 
I think epistomology is a mistake resting upon a bigger broader mistake that much of philosophy bases its assumptions upon.
 
max_freakout said:
no i dont

i think that epistemology has set itself up as a shield against scepticism, it is the sceptic who thinks that epistemology is pointless, i am not (could not be) a sceptic

i have never said anything about metaphysics :confused:
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Apparently (lol) what you fail to appreciate, is that scepticism is itself an epistemology.

So ner.
 
max_freakout said:
no i dont

i think that epistemology has set itself up as a shield against scepticism, it is the sceptic who thinks that epistemology is pointless, i am not (could not be) a sceptic

i have never said anything about metaphysics :confused:
Click to expand...

the sceptic thinks that epistemology is pointless.

max is not a sceptic.

therefore does max think that epistemology is pointless?
 
bluestreak said:
the sceptic thinks that epistemology is pointless.

max is not a sceptic.

therefore does max think that epistemology is pointless?
Click to expand...

"Isn't this placing the sceptic outside epistemology? Surely the sceptic has an epistemology, albeit one which states that our knowledge is either radically curtailed or non-existent." *




* lol
 
revol68 said:
The best intro to Marx is a nifty lil booklet by Eagleton called "Marx and Freedom". Singer's sucks dick and the illustrated Intorductions are all of a crudely Leninist bent.
Click to expand...

The best one is 'A Rebel's Guide to Marx' and no-one's called me a filthy trot yet after being cowed into the corner as a result of my dialectical skills, I'll have you know :mad:
 
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