finding a schizo at a train station who'll teach you the basics
t. happened to me

Greeks. Git.

>>23541830
The greeks , duh. You can read Avesta, the Talmoud, the bible, and the Quran too; but the books of the apostles and the teaching of Jesus are better, except for maybe Avesta, and the the greeks are ALL one needs to know. Stoicism is the inly philosophy one has to know for living ideal and tranquil life.

File: IMG_1748.jpg (94 KB, 655x1045)

94 KB JPG

>>23541830

>>23541839
>>23541859
>muh Greeks
If you’re going to start from the beginning you might as well start with the Upanishads, but since you asked for philosophy without specification, I’ll assume you mean philosophy in the west, so I’d like to recommend a title.
>Philosophy before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia
It’s about what its title says. The thesis is that the philosophy of language was historically first and started in Babylon. Further there was also philosophy as was discovered from observing the stars, and that of the legal profession.
It helps make sense of a of the things we see in the Levant, Anatolia, and Egypt.

Look up university syllabi, and read through what is listed on them.

Whatever you do, whenever/if you do anything Nietzsche, start with Twilight of the Idols.

>>23541911
Yeah this. Read the st. Johns syllabus. Honestly Russell's history of Western philosophy is a great starting point if you're in your late teens or early twenties. Also pirate TTC courses. Tons in piratebay. Lawrence cahoone's course is an excellent companion to Russell.

File: IMG_1850.jpg (115 KB, 646x1000)

115 KB JPG

>>23541944
>Honestly Russell's history of Western philosophy is a great starting point if you're in your late teens or early twenties.
dear God no don't do this. read picrel anon.

>>23541957
I haven't read Marias but I am aware of Russell's glaring inadequacies and general midwittery. I still recommend it to kids because it helped me at that age. What makes Marias better for a 20 year old?

>>23541839
>>23541859
which greeks?

>>23541830
Start with Aristotle, read Plato alongside him. Plato is fun but too simple, you will miss a lot of what is going on in Plato if you don't understand him through the context of Aristotle. This is why later Platonists insisted that their students read Aristotle first (generally 2-3 years of Aristotle). Aristotle is real philosophy, he also functions as a history of philosophy (albeit a biased one) because he saw himself as synthesizing all that was good in his predecessors including the Pythagoreans, the Ionian physiologists, even Antisthenes the Cynic. It is dense, you'll want commentaries. The process of slowly realizing what he is talking about is quite rewarding. You also can't understand modern philosophy without Aristotle because modern philosophy is nothing but a rejection of Aristotle in one way or another. His style is dry as dust, but his ideas are fascinating if you put in the work to understand him. As I said, expect it to take 2-3 years, though I'm sure you could speed-read through the corpus in a matter of weeks.

>>23541830
Read Marx, The Bible and be done, anything else is trash, especially greek, chinese, french and German Idealism

>>23541830
Start with Plato's dialogues
They are fun, engaging and get you to see what philosophy is all about
Historical context is not as important for Plato as it is for others and I'd argue that a blind dive into Plato would get you into the spirit more
That should take you at least a month
Even though it's generally recommended to follow a strict path using secondary and primary literature through the history of philosophy, this process is actually a massive slog and few succeed in applying it
Instead, I recommend that once you're done with Plato, you come back and ask for more on things that interest you whether that be ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, Greek wrestling or the spiritual meaning of pedophilia
You'll get much better recs through focused questions and might even generate discussion that will give you further pointers

>>23541971
no you read euclid with plato, i hope nobody listens to you since you are ignorant of geometry and which socrates repeatedly said is crucial

That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient.

That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true.

Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down.

Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect.

Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry.

faggot

>>23541944
>Russell
One of those unfortunates who can't understand any philosophy but his own.

>>23542000
Plato was way too obsessed with geometry and mathematics, that was one of his errors. He should have spent more time studying the natural world if he wanted to understand the world.

"Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to formulate, as the foundations of their theories, principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development: while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations." (De Caelo II)

Plato got so obsessed with math he ended up creating this wacky arithmological theology with the One acting on the unlimited dyad, not so dissimilar from the Pythagoreans. Don't be like him. Leave the Euclid on the shelf, it will lead you away from the path of truth.

>>23542018
you never read euclid, yet you talk about the real world, your opinion is therefore not based on the real world and that makes you a pseud and a fake and gay hypocrite

>>23542041
You're just trying to goad me into writing more brilliant and interesting replies to your low-quality bait.

>>23542058
you talk about reality and books but in reality you talk about books you never read, you are a huge faggot and fake and gay and you have been exposed effortlessly through simple socractic examination which you said was ''simple.

>>23541898
True. Pythagoras brought back to “great Greece” from Babylon and Egypt a lot of knowledge.

>>23541836
Hey, are you the mysterious old man I met who started churches in Brazil?

>>23541969
Platon, Aristoteles, Sokrates

>>23542099
great greece then took that knowledge and cultured it with greek culture and then spread its refined and greater knowledge to the other parts of the world such as egypt and babylon,
now if i was to quantify this egyptian/babylon knowledge as a magnitude and call it A and compare it to the knowledge of greece and call it B then the knowledge of egyptian/babylon is greater but then when i compare the knowledge that then cam from greece lets call it C to the rest of the worlds knowledge lets call it D the the magnitude is not proprtional to what came to greece as what flowed out was a torrent compared to the trickle that came in so as A is to B C is not to D thus the greeks are greater and your attemt to undermine them is retarded

>>23542133
When someone tells you to read Socrates you know he's a pseud. Not only that, but a dimwit to boot

>>23542150
Egypt and Babylon didn't have shit. Egypt had a crude geometry used for laying out fields, Babylon made astronomical observations mostly for the sake of astrology. Neither of them had anything like a philosophy, though they did have priestcraft mumbojumbo. This idea that it all really comes from Egypt/Babylon is absurd. Show me the Egyptian Plato. Hell, show me the Egyptian Thales. He doesn't exist.

>>23542150
The politics of great greece at the time could be assimilated to that of the US , that’s the reason why Pythagoras left greece to Italy.

>>23542166
No one told me to read Socrates. I told someone else to read him.

>>23542169
i agree, the greeks were greater

>>23542169
None sense. Read the writings of Diogenes Laertius and Iambichus.

>>23542184
The Greeks had this fetish for deriving their knowledge from eastern wisdom, this is well known and is present even in Plato's dialogues. That does not mean the Egyptian and Babylonian priests were philosophers. I know there were myths about Pythagoras traveling to Egypt and Plato getting all his knowledge from Jerusalem but they were just that, myths. How can I be so confident? Because we have deciphered cuneiform and hieroglyphics and have a ton of data to work off of. There is nothing there any more profound than what you find in the more boring parts of the Old Testament.

>>23542194
>Plato getting all his knowledge from Jerusalem
What tf are on about? The Levantine semites were illiterate farmers, whilst the Greek were *one* of the most advanced civilization of that time; the Babylonians were advanced as well, and the Egyptian aristocracy weren’t stupid semitic Arabs , but Macedonians from great Greece.

>>23542227
I was citing it as an example of a later myth about the Greeks getting their knowledge from Egypt/Israel/Babylon etc. This turd was trying to get me to accept Iamblichus as a legitimate source on the history of philosophy. (Disclaimer, I like Iamblichus, but he was full schizo on those sorts of questions).

Here are the philosophers worth reading:
>Plato
>Aristotle
>the scholastics
>Descartes
>Leibniz
>Spinoza
Philosophy died after the 17th century because it was made obsolete by science, so don't bother with the newer philosophers, they're all trash.

>>23542279
>[philosophy] was made obsolete by science
this is how to reveal yourself as a dimwit in 3 seconds

>>23542347
Prove me wrong.

>>23541830
Begin with the shitposters, then you can work your way up to catposting, spamming the same threads over and over then reach the lofty heights of
>black and white portrait of a writer/philosopher
>retarded opinion
threads.

>>23542370
prove yourself right

>>23542653
Name one philosopher after the rise of the scientific method who produced anything insightful and new.

>>23542730
a question isn't a proof of your argument

>>23542742
The burden of proof is on you. Non-existence is the default. You claim existence. Prove it or admit defeat.

>>23542772
nta but it's just low-quality bait. You should practice trolling on a more basic board like /r9k/ or /b/ and come back in a few months. As it is you're wasting precious bandwith.

>>23542796
I'm just stating a fact. No need to be upset.

>>23542801
I'm not upset omg you are so annoying mann I am buttblasted over here you little nuisance y ohhh wait I see what you did there, nice troll man you got me. Definitely gonna screenshot this and post about it on reddit later.

>>23542803
Wtf is wrong with you? I just wanted to be helpful, telling OP which philosophers are worth reading and why the others aren't.

>>23542809
You're right this site is warping my brain. I'm going to make an appointment with a psychologist tout suite.

>>23541971
>generally 2-3 years of Aristotle
AHAHAHAHA holy fuck

>>23542018
>>23542041
Seriously, not having any serious understanding of mathematics will *severely* hold back your ability to do anything fruitful with philosophy. You don't need to have an understanding close to advanced as someone with a math degree, but neglecting geometry, algebra, calculus and analysis on the whole will mean you're limited to being a dabbler in more serious discussions. The main point of Kant's critique will go over your head without hand on experience with mathematical demonstrations.

>>23541830
Hitler

>>23541830
I'm terribly sorry for these shitty suggestions you are getting. So here's what I did during my first year of philosophy which included many introductory units.

As many point out correctly starting with the Greeks is a must, specifically Plato. Plato's Symposium is a great read and really try to understand Plato's ideas of beauty and pursuit of wisdom (story of penia & porus). Then you move to Aristotle who will fully encapsulate the context of greek philosophy knowing Plato. At this stage you will learn logic and laws of causality from Aristotle, with this I would start learning truth tables, tautologies and what sound/unsound, valid/invalid and deductive/inductive arguments are. Learning basic logic and argument forms will make you more knowledgeable then 99% of /lit users, it's a free super power.

Before leaving the greeks, or transitioning into middle age/enlightment philosophy READ BOETHIUS. Boethius is the perfect transition from Greek philosophy into scholasticism and is a precursor to Aquinas, Anslem all these guys. Consolation of Philosophy is a fantastic read and even more improved when you learn how to critically dismantle Boethius's arguments and see what is valid or invalid. I recommend writing an essay in regards to the following question, "Does Boethius hold a valid reconciliation between free will & foreknowledge, if yes/no, elaborate."

From Boethius you can move into Aquinas, Anslem. This is where we get into the nitty gritty of proving God's existence. I'm not gonna lie this kind of philosophy is painful to read and is an uphill battle but still worth it. Whenever you read a text, do write down annotations and notes on whether these arguments work and why/why not, this will really add to your development in discerning trash philosophy.

From Scholasticism we come into the Enlightenment and boy you must start with Descarte. Meditations is a must alongside with Descarte's correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. Do realise and spoiler Descarte is completely incorrect in every response as Elisabeth herself will point out in the correspondce, but this philosophy opens up a whole can of worms. Dualism vs monism, rationalism, skepticism etc. there is a lot here and definitely spend your time deconstructing Descartes arguments, Elisabeth does god's work but do some yourself.

Following Descartes one moves into Hume, you can stop by John Locke but meh, Hume is just empiricism fully encapsulated. Treatise of Human Nature is a great read for empiricists but Hume has a big problem, the problem of induction. Know if you learnt logic you will have learnt of this logical issue, David Hume does not seek to answer this problem, but is the first to bring it up.

>>23541830
• Encountering a person at a train station who taught basic philosophy.
• Reference to Greeks and Git.
• Greeks are essential, with works like Avesta, Talmud, Bible, and Quran also mentioned.
• Stoicism is emphasized as the essential philosophy for an ideal and tranquil life.
• Mention of "Philosophy before the Greeks" book about philosophy starting in Babylon.
• Suggestion to look up university syllabi for reading material.
• Start Nietzsche with "Twilight of the Idols."
Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" recommended for young readers.
• Alternatives to Russell recommended, mentioning a course by Lawrence Cahoone.
• Debate on whether Aristotle or Plato should be read first, with emphasis on the importance of Aristotle's works.
• Marx and the Bible recommended, dismissing other philosophies.
• Plato's dialogues suggested as a starting point for understanding philosophy.
• Debate over the importance of Euclid's geometry in philosophical studies.
• Argument over the significance of Egyptian and Babylonian contributions to Greek philosophy.
• List of philosophers worth reading: Plato, Aristotle, scholastics, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza.
• Claim that philosophy became obsolete with the rise of science.
• Importance of mathematics in understanding philosophical concepts, particularly Kant's critique.
• Suggestion to start philosophical studies with Hitler (likely a troll comment).
• Detailed study plan for introductory philosophy:

• Start with Greek philosophers: Plato and Aristotle.
• Learn basic logic and argument forms.
• Transition from Greek to Scholasticism with Boethius.
• Study Aquinas and Anselm on proving God's existence.
• Enlightenment philosophy starting with Descartes, followed by Hume.

Modern philosophers who deal directly with the problems inherent in AI are far more important to read in this day and age than any ancient.

This board may think that this is ignorance or trolling, but as much genuine value as there is in starting with the Greeks, we've learned so much in the meanwhile and totally ignoring modern advancements in science, logic, computing, mathematics and the arts in favor of a completely historical approach is silly when modern philosophy can often be directly engaged with without needing any knowledge of what some medieval said about whatever.

To make myself clear, I'm not telling you to disregard older philosophy in favor of the new, as if the old is merely obsolete and to worth engaging in, I'm saying that the approach of jumping into things that are relevant to the problems that we can and should productively tackle now, where possible, is an extremely worthwhile approach that /lit/ underrates the value of, even if there is real merit to taking the works of philosophers of all eras seriously.

Anyone who tries to talk about time, space, causality, will ('free' or otherwise), without a modern understanding of relativity, quantum mechanics, neurology or computability is frankly stupid and wasting their time that could otherwise be used to actually develop knowledge essential to understanding these problems. Do not take this for the STEM bugman idea that 'science trumps philosophy', rather I'm imploring the essential need to actually study modern science and philosophy if you want to seriously understand and tackle meaningful problems.

>>23542395
/thread

>>23541859
>>23541839
midwit post like this proves the muh greeks argument wrong. You should start at whatever you are guided to.

>>23541915
Wrong. BGE or genealogy.