I want to get into philosophy. What's some good beginner's material?

I always feel overwhelmed when people discuss it and tend to get ahead of myself when I try to talk about it.

What are some good basics I can read up on?

Yes I know saying "philosophy" is rather vague but I don't even know where to start so anything works.

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docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/edit
4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy
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start with the greeks

1. Start with a random contemporary philosopher (French one preferred, but either way be sure to read a translation and start with a late text rather than an early one)
2. Once it goes over your head complain about obscurantism
3. Deduce that all philosophers are obscurantists who want to destroy Western Civilization
4. Read red pill graphs and charts instead
5. Create Trump pepes

Congratulations, you have MASTERED philosophy!

Descartes, then Locke, then Hume, then Kant.

If you dig all that, go back and read Leibniz and Berkeley.

Then either circle back and read Plato/Aristotle, or fast forward and read Frege.

Start with the Greeks is serious advice user, and anyone can tell you that. You're not required to follow the charts people around here usually post, but you should definitely start there.
Plato is our man. His dialogues are (most of them) easy to read and entertaining. He uses his master Socrates as the protagonist and everything is just beautiful.
A good starting point is Apology-Crito-Phaedo. Starts with Socrates' trial until his last day.
Let the man seduce you. Plato was not only one of the greatest (arguably the best) philosophers but he was also a great artist. His writing is beautiful and you're going to feel identified.
They're short works, so after that you can either read more dialogues or try to read key works from him and the philosophers that came after him, starting with socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophy can be read later.

Starting with Aristotle, nor Socrates. Sorry.

This. Greeks. Plato is truth.

Galbraith

I would recommend picking up these three to start out with, as they're probably the most straightforward philosophy books:
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

After reading those, you can probably progress into what are considered the "entry level" philosophers - the ones that should be easily understood by the average person without any background - such as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Schopenhauer, and Derrida.

Don't listen to this guy, those three books are among the hardest

Yeah just do this. protagoras is easy to read for a starting point but just start anywhere with him all his works are good.

Skip the recs in this topic. Most are by and of the privileged, so don't adequately scratch the wide spectrum of philosophical work.

Simone de Beauvoir
Grace Lee Boggs
Patricia Hill Collins
Chela Sandoval
Michel Foucault
Angela Davis

???
These were the first three books I read, and I'm sure other anons will agree that they are some of the best to act as an introduction to philosophy; they're all very approachable.

Read A. Kenny's "New History of Western Philosophy" for a primer. 4 volume work. Proceed further from there once you've found a philosopher that interests you.

Shitpost in a shitpost/10.

(You)

Giants of philosophy box set. Get it

Why would you advise him to start with the sophists of the Enlightenment? The only work by Decartes worth reading are his tractates on geometry and algebra. Kant was a literal aspie. There nothing to find there other than anal retentive idiocy about some nebulous, ill-defined idea of "reason". Hume's whole oeuvre relies on an all or nothing fallacy. Locke's crap is factually inaccurate at every level (like Kant, he too was probably autistic; unlike Kant, he was probably also chronically paranoid).

Leibniz has some interesting ideas, but you need context for them. He was also a much better mathematician than philosopher.

"Start with the greeks" is not a just a meme in this case.

wew lad

are you literally a fascist ?

Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Hume. That's all you need.

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Jesus, the advice in this thread is terrible.

Start with a book that gives a solid contextual background, like Russell's 'A History of Western Philosophy' or 'Sophie's World'. Then move onto a basic text outlining the key philosophical problems. Most Oxford colleges recommend Nagel - 'What Does It All Mean'. After this proceed with the Greeks if you wish, however keep in mind that by that point you should be able to understand the works of most philosophers, the contextuality of their arguments and the arguments that came before so do not be afraid to jump in with a philosopher like Descartes or Kant.

Those are the hardest philosophical works ever written though

docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/edit

get your fucking class warfare out of my philosophy.

Just read the Greeks, Romans, Scholastics, Descartes, Germans, Analytics, and that should bring you right up to contemporary philosophy. Skip most of the continentals, as they are mostly just charlatans disguising their nonsense behind obfuscation. Of them the only important ones are Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, then you're done with continental philosophy.

Ok here is a list I compiled for begginers.

Heraclitus and Parmenides - Fragments, all of them. You may not understand them, but basic explanations are quite simple and should be found in any edition of books containg those.

Then you can go to the real shit.

Plato - Phaedo/Symposium - order not important
Plato - Republic
Plato - Sophist
Plato - Parmenides


And then

Aristotle - Metaphysics - but not whole thing since that will destroy any will for philosophy you may have. Read books 1,3,7,9,12
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Aristotle - De Anima

That is a solid beggining, I find it stupid to list everything after that to anyone. Just read different philosophers and see what you like/understand and then go from that. Of course, Spinoza (Ethics), Kant ( three critiques) and Hegel (phenemenology and philsophy of right) all should be read at some point.

9 volumes of Copleston's History of Philosophy is extensive enough for you to understand much, but not too large considering the quality of the work.

Are you interested in any philosophical problems or subjects in particular? I "got into philosophy" through my interest in a rather narrow subset of problems. I would hardly call myself well-read philosophically, but the nature of any problem is that in pursuing it you will touch on other works.

After you have nurtured your own interests, it is a good idea to go through a generalized history like that other user mentioned. But if you do not have a specific interest, I suppose it can't hurt to dive into one of these anyways, and see if anything strikes your interest.

Also, anyone saying "start with [insert philosophical heavy-hitter here]." is probably being a pretentious twat. First of all, if you were really going to assume this tactic, I'd recommend someone more contemporary, because you will have more context to understand their problems with. Secondly, a lot of them are difficult to digest with no prior experience (and even worse without context). Third, if you have no prior interest in philosophy, why would you start with such a narrow text? Find your interests first and on your own. Be authentic. In other words, don't listen to Veeky Forums's pretentious bullshit.

I always thought that Hobbes Leviathan was as middle of the road as it gets in terms of style, definitions, difficulty, or whatever. And he's challenging enough for newbies to philosophy to catch his flaws while he still maintains something of a philosophic form that can teach the reader in the long run.

don't start with any philosopher, start reading about the history of philosophy so you can get a grasp about what they are talking about

after that, you just pick the one you liked the most and start from there

This book covers a lot of topics and doesn't have to be read from cover-to-cover.

4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy
docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

These two links are pretty much all you need. Philosophy is a huge subject and there's a lot of reading to be done, and it's worth it imo, but don't force yourself to get into it because that will kill any interest you have in it. Start with the greeks, read homer and some mythology, then jump into Plato. Everything he wrote was in the form of a dialogue, almost always between Socrates and other contemporary philosophers. Then read Aristotle, then just follow the advice in the links.

Also check out general books and supplementary stuff like the story of philosophy by durant and some of the other books mentioned in this thread


Have fun user

plato's symposium

then nietzsche's genealogy of morals

this is my "informative and interesting" regimen -- if you're looking to do a serious study something like

The heart of the philosophical dialectic is actually pretty straightforward and easy to get through, although there are a lot of irrelevant offshoots. It goes

Hume->Kant->Hegel->Kierkegaard->Heidegger->Derrida->Nick Land

I did start with Camus, but I'm glad I didn't stop because I don't understand them.
I went backwards; Camus>Kierk>and so
I still don't understand them but I shitpost on lit that you don't start with the Greeks, but with the French and work backwards.

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>I want to get into philosophy
Don't.

Best advice in thread.

If you do, grab something that you like.
>Dont get shit and get out.
>Be more interested and read more.

That's never good advice. Maybe if you don't like to read.
Why'd you tell someone not to read something they're interested in? Let him do it so he can draw his own conclusions. It's not like they're losing something.

Because he may understand something and it may hurt.
Reading philosophy doesnt make your life easier.

>make your life easier

>muh obesity epidemic

pain/pleasure...understanding

>hurr durr

Uh
I meant
>hurr durr 'Truth' is valuable by itself
>Muh learning for the sake of it

Youre one of those who read Nietzsche just for the memes arent you.

>Russell's 'A History of Western Philosophy'
One should consider it a humor introduction.

Mostly just shitposting desu, but the example could have been addiction of any kind (and beneficial balance (t. drinking now)), at least the tools to understand the lack of inherent value of ease might have a positive impact in the long term on average (not everyone will have the same response, but it's still worth a try etc).

>triggered

>Start with a book that gives a solid contextual background, like Russell's 'A History of Western Philosophy'
how can you start a sentence like that and proceed to recommend the most retarded history of philosophy ever written?

You should read "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" by Daniel B. Klein and see what you like. After that use the references at the end.

OP here

What, in philosophy, could hurt me?

Not him but you're going to start thinking about things you'd never thought before, and there are no definite answers.
He's an idiot. Pay no attention.

This.

Jesus Christ you fucking retard why would you recommend the worst history of philosophy ever written?
It isn't a history, it's a bunch of his opinions on philosophers he doesn't understand.
Seconding Copleston, one of the best authors on the subject.

I was kidding user.

Read Schopenhauer

Start with the Greeks

Literally start with the Greeks. Almost all philosophy since then can find its roots in the Greeks. Plato is the number one to read, both for his own stuff and his writings on Socrates.

Don't skimp on theologians, so do maybe look at Aquinas (to get in some Aristotle without having to read Aristotle), maybe even Augustine or Origen.

Derrida is good to take in at any point, to offer some ways to think about text and the symbolic transmission of information. Skip almost all other Critical Theory.

Save Nietzsche for last as he's the end game of philosophy.

Wait, Hume on that list? What were his moral philosophies? Thought he was famous for epistemology.

Would say Kant fits that list better desu because of the categorical imperative and his dedication to duty, sounds a lot like Aurelius.

start with weed
then depending on how you feel about food poisoning do some LSD or shrooms.
then once you've realized time is a never ending circadian cycle
you can then start again with the greeks

>mfw Nietzsche was the one I read first
and now I can't really swallow a lot of philosophers because I know they've been 'refuted' (im too skeptic when I read them, can't get into it no matter how much I try) -same happened when I read Wittgenstein.
it's a feeling that what youre reading is nonsense, and it probably isn't..

really you should save him for last.

>ctrl+f "Greeks"
>12 results

never change, Veeky Forums

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Plato: Read the Ion and the Meno, then read Euthyphro, Apology, Credo, and Phaedo. They are all very short, and they sort of orient you towards the way philosophers approach problems and the peculiar way they write.

After that sky's the limit. I jumped from Plato to Nietzsche back to Aristotle and the Stoics, then I tore through most of the existentialists with little difficulty. If references start popping up that you don't understand stanford wiki is your friend.

Refute Hume's Is-Ought fallacy and his attack on causality.

Start with Socrates, Plato Aristotle. In that order. If you're still not tired by then continue with some French/German philosopher.

Learning philosophy is really a lot like learning a difficult language, and then learning that language's literature and culture inside out. Even just for the language-learning part, there is no one set textbook you can use. You have to use many, and many holistic methods besides. The literature requires not just high level reading ability but getting your understanding of all the nuances and subtleties of that country's milieu up to par, a process too diffuse to monitor precisely so you just have to keep DOING it all the time. And you have to commit yourself to all this, a thousand little things, for years until it really truly pays off in a satisfying way.

I would say the best way to start with philosophy is to take the above approach and apply it to one small, self-contained(ish) area. At the risk of being a meme, you could start with the Greeks, read textbooks and intro materials so you can get a progressively better and better sense of what exactly you're getting into, read the primary sources and read secondary materials to help you understand them, do all the scattered online research you need to clarify things that just don't "click" for you, etc. Then maybe even read some real modern scholarship ON the Greeks, so you can see for yourself how complex an understanding is possible/preferable when trying to comprehend Greek thought.

Once you've done that, you will have a good appreciation for how subtle the whole process is. And you will be able to approach more difficult periods, periods not only with their own complexities, but built on the successive accomplishments, appropriations, and even misunderstandings of previous eras. The Greeks are just kinda nice because you don't have to understand a ton of shit before even approaching them.

Also feel free to read whatever the fuck you want. I'm not saying don't pick up shit that interests you. But this kind of slow "base-building" is really necessary if you want to have high level insight or understanding, and it takes a lot of time, most of which will be very thankless. Most philosophy readers either give up and remain dilettantes, or else they learn one little area just well enough to become provincial.

Secret Teachings of the Ages, by Manly Palmer Hall.

Truth hurts.
Im an imbecile and probably will continue to be.
My character doesnt allow me to systematically study all the stuff.
Also, it is completely futile, I feel.
So, yeah, this user is way too fucking right and I hate him a bit for it, and wont be able to do what he says, but clearly theres no other way.

bump

the sun shall see this thraedh

I've never read a speck of anything philosophy related but I'm going to try to read Apology, Crito, Phaedo by Plato.
Still asking the question of why I should get into philosophy at all because I don't know the answer
But I'll just jump into whatever and see if something will resonate with me

Don't get discouraged, fag. A drop of genuine interest is worth an ocean of careerist learning by rote.

>I, a poster on Veeky Forums, believe I am smarter than Bertrand Russell

fucking kek

I don't know if it's good to start with or not, but I started with Schopenhauer

>let me drop this sweet appeal to authority, that will surely show them!

Screw the greeks. Just read Ghazali and other Sunni doctrines. In the end you'll see the only supreme truth comes from Allah and philosophy is just a waste of time.

thanks for the help guys

Interesting.

Quick few tips and rules
1- Everything is intertwined and connects like a puzzle
2-like any puzzle start with the corners and work your way in
3-anything is a good topic

Aristotle is a shit philosopher.
Fuck you empiricism.

i dont get why people think this is funny

Read "The Prince" and "Twilight of the Idols" in the same sitting. You'll come out the other end a different person

Peter Kreeft's series on Socrates is pretty good. Socrates Meets Descartes mimics a Platonic dialogue quite well and has a good bit of humor to it. Shows Socrates' method of deconstructing arguments while introducing Descartes' ideas gradually.

same could be said for anything nitwit

Who the fuck took the time outta their day to draw that fucking frog in a semi-realistic fashion, instead of as a basic cartoon.

Who would do that.

Why is Derrida frequently mentioned here?
I fail to see what he gave philosophy.

U dunno /b/?

There are lots of unemployed art majors with heaps of time on their hands

Bertrand Russell is just one more example of a smart guy getting out of their element and bluffing their way into publishing a book about something they never studied

if you are into that kind of kool-aid and want to read it as an introduction to what Bertrand Russell thought, do it. But don't read it as a history book.

Good post. Flawless argument.

rekt

Great reply. Flawless retort.

So you want to get into philosophy? Read the following:
Heraclitus
Protagoras
Gorgias and the other Sophists
(you're now done with the Greeks)
Hume
Hegel (for his historicism, ignore literally everything else)
Nietzsche
maybe Heidegger
Wittgenstein
Foucault
Derrida
Quine and Sellars (to see how analytic philosophy destroyed itself in the 2nd half of the 20thc.)
Davidson
Rorty
Williams

After this you will have understood the total failure of the Western philosophic project and be ready to graduate to Indian dharmic philosophy (the Upanishads, Buddha, Shankara and Advaita Vedanta, the Gita etc.) if you are so inclined.

Under NO circumstances should one read the following thinkers:
Plato
Aristotle (except his ethics)
Any medieval 'philosopher'
Descartes
Kant
Any post-Kantian, neo-Kantian, or thinker influenced by Kant
Any analytic philosopher (save the ones above)
Any continental philosopher trying to hoodwink you into his bullshit 'system'

Good luck.

Bait harder, cunt.

>Aristotle (except his ethics)
>Any medieval 'philosopher'
>Any post-Kantian, neo-Kantian, or thinker influenced by Kant
>Any analytic philosopher (save the ones above)
this is literally true

This is sort of what I did, but sort of started with the greeks as well so I semi-understand both.

>he thinks you can understand Hegel without Plato
Get out. Get out normie.

Ignore the people telling you to start with the Greeks. Philosophy's self indulgent obsession with its history is unfounded considering virtually every positive claim made by Plato is later debunked. New philosophy is generally better philosophy. Read Nick Land and you should be good.

>a philosopher writes a historical book about philosophy
>called out of his element
I'm not even defending Russell, but damn. Your Dunning-Kruger is really showing off.

>somehow meming harder than the start with the Greeks posters

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Underrated post.

haha wtf that's the same order i went in, except i kept going because i liked it