Active Users:265 Time:29/03/2024 12:36:07 PM
What is philosophy...? Is it a world view? An intellectual view? a spiritual view? Danu Send a noteboard - 04/04/2017 12:59:15 AM

A book you might be interested in reading...and I am sure I will be attacked for suggesting it...
Drawing Down the Moon by Margo Adler
it is an over view of Neo-Paganism.
and yes it is a philosophical read.






View original post
By "need," I mean "want."

I've been exposed to a small amount of philosophy through the osmosis of a bachelor's in the liberal arts, and I've read a couple of SEP articles-enough to know when to roll my eyes when some idiot like Harris (or Peterson, god help us all) starts talking. But I would like to actually learn a bit about the discipline, rather than trying to pick up disparate pieces without any real foundation.

The problem I have found is that once you get beyond the absolute basics (a guy named Plato had some ideas about these things he called forms), there's an abrupt and impressive gap between introductory texts that treat you like a newly literate child and "introductory texts" (I'm looking at you, SEP) which begin their articles with sentences like "[Postmodernism] can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning."

Normally I'd just turn to a good book, but frankly all the surveys of western philosophy I've seen either look untrustworthy, too basic, or specialized to a point that they fly way above my head.

So. Help? You people must remember a time before you somehow learned everything.


CrazedWeasel
OCWIATJ Forever!
Reply to message
Help. I need to learn philosophy. - 31/03/2017 07:57:48 AM 761 Views
I have the same issue. - 31/03/2017 09:06:43 AM 803 Views
I know that feeling. I try to use SEP and IEP, but they can be so freakishly dense. - 31/03/2017 05:28:34 PM 472 Views
Sigh you forgot to mention Anatta and Dukkha - 31/03/2017 08:44:54 PM 512 Views
Anicca is the first of the tilakkhana. *NM* - 31/03/2017 09:07:00 PM 293 Views
Spoiler answer to life the universe and everything - 01/04/2017 02:24:59 AM 660 Views
Making up A-Z lists of concepts is very effective - 01/04/2017 12:13:43 AM 631 Views
Don't start with an overall survey. Start with the Ancient Greeks. - 31/03/2017 12:26:06 PM 618 Views
Those are really the only ones I've actually read. - 31/03/2017 05:16:44 PM 530 Views
There is no spoon. - 31/03/2017 02:37:05 PM 802 Views
Watch out, buster. I know kung fu. *NM* - 31/03/2017 05:29:30 PM 275 Views
Did you try Bertrand Russell's overview? - 31/03/2017 03:51:32 PM 478 Views
It's been recommended twice now, so I will. - 31/03/2017 05:20:14 PM 510 Views
What are you having problems with in Kierkegaard? *NM* - 31/03/2017 08:16:01 PM 245 Views
What is philosophy...? Is it a world view? An intellectual view? a spiritual view? - 04/04/2017 12:59:15 AM 553 Views
Or you can go with the same ol' same ol' Frankfurt School... - 04/04/2017 01:11:54 AM 575 Views
I ain't go no time for fancy book lernin' - 13/04/2017 06:05:52 PM 815 Views

Reply to Message