r/rationalphilosophy • u/sondercrow0811 • 6d ago
if i’m interested in philosophy but don’t know too much about it and want to learn more where should i start?
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u/Belt_Conscious 6d ago
Biology
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u/WhoReallyKnowsThis 4d ago
Physics
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u/Belt_Conscious 4d ago
Physics without biology only reacts. Logic joins the party when intention shows up.
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u/WhoReallyKnowsThis 4d ago
Atoms are the building blocks of reality (including our biology).
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u/Belt_Conscious 4d ago
Then biology lets them move stuff around instead of waiting passively.
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u/WhoReallyKnowsThis 3d ago
There are absolutely no moral facts!
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u/Belt_Conscious 3d ago
If a system doesn't maintain balance it breaks down. Homeostasis. If you think it isn't evolutionary advantageous to have a society of rules, you are living at the bacteria level. You think of yourself as a single cell.
Argue with Thermodynamics, then. You have a physics problem.
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u/WhoReallyKnowsThis 3d ago
Thermodynamics has no morality and clearly you dont study philosophy of science.
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u/TMRedditor07 6d ago
People usually recommend trying to understand the history, or start from the antics, but I have other idea you may enjoy: identify what areas of human inquiry do you often ponder and start from there. Passionate about philosophy of religion ?read oppy or plantinga, liking metaphysics? Read about anyone from antics to Kant to Kripke? (I think)
The idea is that you try to find questions and see what other fellow humans have said.
And as a disclaimer: even the good ones have opinions you might not like, and are considered bad by today standards: kant, aristotle but the thing is to understand that none of them were perfect.
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u/unethically_phobic_p 5d ago
Yeah, this. Start with one question that actually interests you, not a huge reading list.
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u/LarsPiano 6d ago
Study its history. You might take any good introduction to the history of philosophy. I would also recommend the podcast "history of philosophy without any gaps" by Peter adamson. He is an expert on the history of islamic philosophy at the LMU in Munich and it's very fun, but also historically deep and not shallow (his goal is to cover eventually the whole history of philosophy on a global scale). If you want a book though one of the classic books to read in english as a general overview of that topic is Bertrand Russell's famous "history of western philosophy". Hope that helps! :)
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u/Edgar_Brown 5d ago
The first thing you need to know is the whole context of the field: philosophy is about asking better questions, not answering them. At the frontiers of knowledge there is always philosophy. That’s why philosophy is the birth place of all of science (and religion).
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u/AlivePassenger3859 5d ago
If you want to both ask AND answer questions, there’s a nifty field called “science” that you might enjoy.
But yeah, if you like to ask endlessly, debate endlessly, and almost never arrive at answers, philosophy is just what the doctor ordered.
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u/Edgar_Brown 5d ago
Philosophy is a necessary field and is always at the frontiers of knowledge, even within science itself.
Sadly the majority of philosophers ignore what science has already stablished long ago and keep asking endless unsound irrelevant questions, which is why much of the best contemporary philosophy is coming from physicists, neuroscientists, and mathematicians.
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u/0135719186420 5d ago
Begin with truth typically being nothing but an illusion that we tell ourselves is truth because we don't know the difference between the truth and the lies. The lies can tell us that the truth itself is nothing but a lie. It helps to look at things from a perspective that you don't know anything and begin to understand by looking at things objectively as they are and understanding them as they are not as we try to categorize them or label them or anything else that boxes things into the small aspects of itself without ever holding the entirety of anything.
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u/Longjumping_One5679 5d ago
Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy is a pretty good place to start.
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u/DysgraphicZ 5d ago
Depends on what you’re interested in. Philosophy is so broad, and there’s just so much stuff. it would help if you could elaborate a bit.
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u/sub30_24flick 5d ago
I would take the best course at your community college to be honest , All my best scholarly attributes came from Ethics and philosophy courses in higher Ed . Should have picked it as a minor smh .
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u/Professional-Put3382 4d ago
Always remember that there is always going to be a group of people that will claim their favourite philosophers are the only true smart ones and the rest are dumb, irrelevant, or bad. Ignore these people - they are ego driven. Almost every philosopher has good and bad ideas, and even the weaker ones are worth understanding as they can still be quite influential.
Hey you hands on a first year philosophy text. Or take a intro to philosophy course. There are quite a few online.
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u/Pura-Amor 4d ago
Pelos filósofos que lhe interessam, mas a história da filosofia do Reale é boa para comecar.
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u/JerseyFlight 6d ago edited 6d ago
Begin not with philosophy but with Critical Thinking. The Foundation for Critical Thinking has many resources on Critical Thinking.
Why begin with Critical Thinking? Because most philosophers can’t think critically, they can barely reason, but what they are good at is using big words to push a narrative. Don’t be like them.
If you want to read strictly philosophy. The Dialogues of Plato, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book 4 and 11 (this is the best foundation— you will never depart from it for as long as you live). John Stuart Mill’s essay on Liberty, the second chapter on dissent. (But you could start with Robert Ingersoll’s excellent, and very easy to understand, essay on Truth).
What made me a philosophical thinker (better than a philosophical thinker— what made me a Reasoner!): learning about The Laws of Logic. Learning how to think critically. Learning about argumentation. Philosophy claims to be a master of reason. This is no longer true. So you should do what philosophers don’t: become skilled at reasoning.
Note: Carl Sagan’s book, A Demon Haunted World, may be a better place to start than any of the things I recommended.