I guess I'll make another /phil/ general edition>What is /phil/ Philosophy General?A general for readers, students, and armchair thinkers interested in philosophy, whether it be Western, Eastern, analytic, continental, ancient, contemporary. We discuss primary texts, secondary literature, online lectures, podcasts.>Why read philosophy?Politics, science, psychology, etc. all began with or were inspired by someone who thought philosophically. Basically, if you are interested in just about anything, philosophy will help you better understand that subject. Because it is at the foundation of every conceptual institution made or discovered by humans, it is in the underbelly of human experience, and so it is worth taking seriously.>Why study philosophy formally?Surprisingly versatile and undervalued. Phil majors consistently score among the highest on the LSAT, GRE, and GMAT. Strong pipeline into law, policy, ethics consulting, AI alignment, and academia.Previous thread >>25317851
Do I need to read a whole stack of Greek and western philosophy before reading Schopenhauer? He’s the only philosopher that really intrigues me.
>>25374110Schopenhauer co-opts a good deal of Kant's philosophy and makes it somewhat his own. What Schopenhauer recommends you read first of Will and Representation is the appendix which itself is a critique of Kan'ts critique. If you want to read Will and Representation, you should know some Kant. If you want to read some of his selected writings or aphorisms or whatever, I'm not quite sure what you would need.
>>25374110Just go for it, you can supplement by consulting references as you go, you don't need to understand every last paragraph, and if you find you truly can't make head or tail of it just set it aside and you'll have a much better idea of what exactly you need to read up on to give it another go. Be bold! DO it! Go read Schopenhauer you clever bold self-authorized reader you! Don't wait for permission!
Has anyone ever made so much of an attempt at decyphering what Plato's unwritten doctrines were?
>/phil/ - Philosophy General #7
>>25374123Look into the Tübingen School. But I can't give you very much more than this. Not my area of specialization, i just know that thry exist and read a few things that crossed my path.
do any of you guys have experience writing scholarship applications? Im being considered for one but this is my first time applying to something specific rather than a general application.
>>25375227Just don't write some variation of "I want to help others, I overcome my own problems, I'm tough". Don't dress something up as a narrative that's a list. Keep it tailored and relevant and simple and if possible, short. And most of all, be sincere and authentic.I don't subscribe to Julius Evola's ideas, but I like him to read because he believes them and comes across as authentic even if I think he's a little mad. I've read other books that seem embarassed just to be talking about their ideas. That authenticity is what you need to get across.
>>25374123You could try looking into the works of his successors in the Platonic tradition.
>>25374123I second >>25374906, it's their whole shtick and focus, and >>25375719, where Plotinus and Simplicius both discuss the Dyad. That said, it's not really exciting, the principles are the One (= the Good) and the Dyad, and by acting on each other they produce numbers, the Forms, and the beings we ordinarily encounter. But how exactly it worked and why it was such a secret are still puzzling.
>>25374034got roped into a debate with this one guy who believes that properties must be defined people before knowledge and I struck back that defining things absolutely is where something ceases to be philosophy and becomes ideology.
