Gateway to Philosophy

HOPWAG all the way.

What area of philosophy are you interested in? If you are interested in the philosophy of mind, go to the library and borrow a few books called "The Philosophy of Mind" and so on. Don't spend years reading Plato and Aristotle, there's no point. You will not be able to read 2,500 years of philosophy chronologically...

All philosophy begins (and ends?) with a question. Find the question that makes you interested in studying philosophy, and then research that. If you are not driven by the desire to question, you should study the history of ideas, rather than philosophy.

None, its all masturbatory, become a sociologist instead

A handful of benzos and a dark room.

Stated with this after looking around on the net, is this good?

Only experience with philosophy is this one philosophy class in high school. Metaphysics seems interesting after google searching a bit.

I just wanna think about shit that's not math and physics man (studying mech engineer here)

Start with cave paintings. Then proceed to tablets.

All introductions are good introductions as long as you realise that you're going to read lots more along the way, that will overlap and fill in any blanks you missed or clarify any initial mistakes you made. Reading three easy intro books in three weeks is a lot better than spending three years always intending to sit down some time and research what the BEST intro book is.

Think of it this way: If your plan is to explore a country, does it REALLY matter what part of the edge of the country's borders you start on? Some starting points will be better than others, and a bit of initial research can prevent you from having to scale a mountain right away or might reveal an easier road or something, but ultimately you just gotta start fucking walking inward at some point.

Definitely just dive in somewhere. Try reading something short and non-condescending on Greek philosophy and seeing where your brain naturally goes "I want to know more about this" or "that doesn't make any fucking sense to me, how could they have thought that." For example I dislike ethics and moral philosophy but I like philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, but some people are the total reverse. A great intro book, for someone like me, will annoy the other kind of person, because the author also has his own slants and biases.

As you learn more about what you like, and about what's out there, you'll get better at tailoring and filtering what you read, but when you're just starting, you will have to slog through a bunch of stuff that you ultimately just won't find that interesting.

>Metaphysics seems interesting after google searching a bit.
What do you find interesting about it?

Check out E.A. Burtt:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Arthur_Burtt

A good historical intro to Aristotle is the first two chapters of Rist's book, The Mind of Aristotle.

You can never go wrong starting with Plato. Even just a summary of Plato. Or simply learning about other major figures, like Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant. Try to give yourself a skeletal knowledge of the history of Western philosophy, even just a list of "Important Names I Should Know Eventually," so that every time you gain a little bit of "ohhhh, I see what he's getting at now" knowledge of one figure, it also helps to contextualise all the others.

Check out earlymoderntexts.com, but don't dive right into the texts before Wikipediaing the authors.

Use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online. Great resource, but the articles sometimes assume you know a lot already. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also good.

Above all, don't see the history of philosophy as a bunch of disconnected rambling by guys with random opinions. It's one big enterprise, trying to get at very interrelated issues, all in dialogue with each other. Don't ever feel like something you're learning is useless or exists in a vacuum.

Two more recs:

The Teaching Compnany / Great Courses has some good philosophy lecture series, in video or audio. Easily pirated online, and some are uploaded to Youtube. Here's a huge one someone put in a single 10 hour file for some reason:
youtube.com/watch?v=ybBwsldL0k4

Also check out this, if you can stomach the DRIEST SHIT OF ALL TIME but it's still pretty damn good:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM

Also: Check out Will Durant's short book, The Story of Philosophy. There is a nice audiobook version on Youtube. It's just alright - Durant is a good writer but it's kind of surface-y.

Finally: I think the best intro to philosophy is Windelband's History of Ancient Philosophy, along with his more general History of Philosophy, but they're 100+ years old and assume you know a lot at the outset. But if you ever need a good comprehensive, cover-to-cover reference, that's what I recommend. Just don't go and drop money on it.

Also, if you do like political and ethical philosophy, check out Leo Strauss' History of Political Philosophy. A good start.

If you want a one-volume overview, go with Kenny's Brief History of Western Philosophy. It is considerably less arbitrary than other books of such type, and it gives you a bunch of options for further reading.

The podcast History of Philosophy by Peter Adamson is awesome, it goes into philosophers that are ignored by typical university courses and has lots of guest academics.

If you want to jump right in, starting with Plato's early dialogues is fine (Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Charmides...). Make sure to avoid Benjamin Jowett, your best bet is Complete Works of Plato editions.

Holy shit, this is some great info, thanks a lot.

Very much appreciated