Where to start with philosophy

I've been wanting to start legitimately reading philosophical works and fully understanding the ideas and concepts of the great philosophers. I've read much about them and generally know many of the major ideas and concepts but I want to start actually reading them and fully digesting them. Problem is, I don't even know where the hell to start. I'm figuring Classical philosophy first, but not sure who should I start with and what should I begin with. Any recommendations Veeky Forums?

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what are some areas/ideas/thinkers that you think are interesting so far?

I really like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, but I feel like I need to understand earlier concepts and philosophers to really get them. I feel like I need to read Kant and Hegel first too, but I'm not sure which works by them I should read first and which are the most important. I also find Hume pretty interesting as well.

well if you want to be perfectly thorough then you better start from heraclitus and the presocratics and make your way through everyone until nietzsche, but life's too short. just jump in and read thus spoke zarathustra, its fun and you can always come back to the parts you didn't get later.

Ah okay, I have beyond Good and Evil and started a little bit onto that. Should I read those first? I don't want to be entirely philosophy Phd-tier thorough, at least maybe not yet. I generally want a greater understanding of philosophy as a whole and I'm wondering who most people start out with.

that's good

just read beyond good and evil for now, and when you finished that pick up something else. maybe try and find a concise history fo philosophy or some other secondary readings if you want a general overview.

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Thanks man. There's just so much. I want to understand as much as I can but there are just so many. I just want to read the most important ones.

don't worry about that. the trick is to find what you like and what's going to help you. it's just trail and error. keep going and you'll find it.

Who would you recommend are the most important philosophers to read? I just want to get a general handful.

Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Marcus Aurelius
Hobbes
Locke
Spinoza
Hume
Kant
Rousseau
Hegel
Kierkegaard
Nietzsche
Marx
Foucault

Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy is a good starting point in terms of a broad overview

Thanks man that's perfect. I think I'll start reading through all of them first and then branch out into others.

you should start philosophy as a offshot of a subject that you really have interest in.

Law, goverment and legislation usually leads to deep philosophical understanding eventually

History, nature of man and war, hierachy,

Discourse, debate.

Anything that activates your almonds leads you to a certain area of philosophy

Jumping straight into it will end with you liking this field of study forever.

meant dropping this field of study forever*

If you just want to understand others then you are not a philospher, but a historian of Philosophy.
There is nothing wrong with that and all philosophers know certainly something about the history of Philosophy, but if you want to be a philosopher then you have to learn terminology and get up your ass and go to a problem and fucking solve it your way.
I recommend to read only if you can´t solve a problem of your own, i mean if you get stuck in the work process, but then when you read others read them only to solve that problem you are working on, otherwise you will be distracted from your work.

>can´t solve a problem of your own

i mean on your own

Veeky Forums made a google doc with a reading guide. Hope it'll help.

docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

Descarte

For someone with OCD, when I read Rene Descartes and became familiar with his method of deduction, it became the core of who I was. And being someone with ADHD as well, I was prone to skip one subject for another when I got bored; so I cope with this by learning to analyze and deduct through systematic OCD-doubt even faster, which helps me to understand broad ideas quickly, that way my head can skip the subject without leaving something unfinished.

It really depends what you want out of philosophy. I love it, because I'm always thirsty for new ideas, so I start by reading up heavily something that contradicts all my preconceived notions about the world.

For example, coming from a Christian background, I read some books on the philosophies of science. I'm always eating meat, but I never consider the moral implications, so I read up on people with different views, those with different ideas about morality. From there, it leads up to the classical works; but you could also start from the classical works (Socrates, epicurus, marx, locke, etc) and go downwards, though I find for myself that it's counterproductive to my goal.

Study the Greeks. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are your big 3. Study their contemporaries too, but know the big 3 like the back of your hand. Knowing them for philosophy is like knowing algebra or calculus for mathematicians.

Start with the dialogues. Most people like Apology for how well it's written and Euthyphro because Socrates is pretty cheeky and mildly humorous to read. I'd also read up on Sophism because of (in hindsight) how misguided it was and really appreciate why Socrates was so important.

bump

Start with the Greeks

My German Idealism prof did a good job of kind of mapping out the progression of the previous concepts and thinkers that lead up to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. The way he put it was to start with Hume and the problem of Induction. From there you have Kant trying to respond to Hume (Critique of Pure Reason is an example). In response to Kant you get a split between Fichte and Schelling where they both take two different approaches to Kant's formulation. Then Hegel acts to synthesize the two. From here you lead into Schopehauer and then we revisited the later Schelling works. This then leads into Nietzsche. Unfortunately this was a few years ago so I can't remember the specific works we looked at and the such. The main point the prof emphasized is that you must understand the project of the thinker and the problem they are trying to solve. For him the German Idealist project was a response to Hume and the historical context of the movement as well. Thus you need to start with Hume and understand what was happening where these thinkers were and what in the present day were they responding to and trying to figure out. Sorry if this wasn't all that useful with specific texts or concepts.