I'm looking for an eBook that covers the basics of philosophy. Not something on one specific subject, that basics for those who want to learn. Google isn't offering much help for this problem.
you're welcome. After you find interested in certain subjects, start using the Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy, which is good reliable stuff. Also, before you start reading philosophy, you should know that alot of the 'basics', i.e, foundations of philosophy are written in such a way that may seem frustrating at first, but over time just seems neccesary or, you'll get used to it. Either way, try to read as much of the 'pure' stuff as possible, as it will make more sense than 'simplified' or bullet-pointed stuff.
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Anonymous2008-06-11 13:38
any way to get that in .pdf for my PSP?
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Anonymous2008-06-11 14:40
If you really want to learn about the basics of philosophy, I suggest <i>The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic</i>.
This book is not light reading, so be prepared to actually learn something.
How do you markup text on these boards? I didn't find a faq for the textboards.
The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
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Anonymous2008-07-05 13:31
take a philosophy course
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Anonymous2008-07-05 13:57
"Learn" philosophy?
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Anonymous2008-07-09 19:33
dude, srsly, you just cant learn "philosophy" by reading
such a bullshit like "how i become philosophist" or shit like "the basics of philosophy"
i mean, yeah, you can read books, and take courses,
and that arent bad ideas,
but philosophy is about your mind, what your thinking and how you see certain thinks.
so if you say "hey, i wanna learn philosophy, what can you recommend me"
is nothing other as you would say something like
"hey, what do you want me to believe"
btw: someone who talks about the basics of philosophy, dont know shit about it
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Anonymous2008-07-10 3:40
>>9
So, what do they teach you when you enroll for philosophy at college?
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Anonymous2008-07-10 5:42
>>10
Utter bullshit, ugly and pointless. That's "philosophy" for you, you know.
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Anonymous2008-07-10 12:14
>>9
It's funny to see that you added some self-irony with your last sentence, though I somehow doubt that you were aware of this...
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Anonymous2008-07-11 2:37
What you need is to start at Plato & Aristotle and work your way up to analytic/linguistic stuff that's going on now.
Spark Notes is actually a decent way to bypass a lot of the reading, except you won't get the full experience of some of the amazing writing.
Important Works (This list is very very barebones, these are all what I would consider some of the most important works in chronological order):
Apology & The Republic by Plato
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
The Incoherence of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali
Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas
Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals - Immanuel Kant
The Phenomenology of Spirit - GWF Hegel
Beyond Good and Evil - Frederich Nietzsche
The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James
The Transcendence of the Ego - Jean-Paul Sartre
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm not as well versed in post-enlightenment philosophy, so you'll need someone with more info on 20th century philosophy to get into analytic/linguistic philosophy.
PS: The hardest thing about penetrating philosophy is understanding the implications of certain ideas and why certain ideas are so important, and this is where Spark Notes will help.
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Anonymous2008-07-11 21:55
dude is right dude, there is no learning philo, but you can at least look at the history of philo through Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Da Vinci, Rene Descartes, Dan Millman, Kant, and many others. When you tie the history of what you're learning in as you learn the means to do so, you'll find that every spoke from every corner of the wheel eventually finds its center. :)
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Anonymous2008-07-12 1:50
I recommend, even though it is a childrens book, Sophies World. Its about this girl who starts recieving weird letters about existence, life's purpose, and such. Eventually it turns to be a philosophy course. Its goes all the way fro Pre-Socrates to Sartre.
A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age
"A world lit only by the fire of flying time will be blinded through the inverted reflection in back of the mind's eye."
Life is reflection, living is reflection, experience is reflection, everything perceived, experienced, lived and fought for is reflection. Even whom we are today is a reflection of our past selves in action and the now being that reaction, are you lead by your past by condemning yourselves to relive moment-by-moment the pains of the past into newer times and ages? Or do you use the past, see it in every aspect of your future as in do what you do and are nostalgic of it? What then are the chains the bind us? Who then has the key to unshackle us from our bonds. Surely, someone must know, in this age of information and discovery.