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Ask HN: Can anyone recommend some philosophy reading?

31 points by te_chris ↗ HN
So one of my friends has been accusing me of being a Nihilist lately - mainly because I don't really care about the whole Osama thing - and this has made me curious again about philosophy. I know a little bit from various things I learned in university, but I really want to learn more about the thought and writings of various philosophers.

That being said however, I have read Foucault and a couple of other philosopher's texts before and it was difficult. I know that is partially the point, however I figured the intellectually curious HN community must be able to recommend some easier to read, yet still in-depth and not patronising books discussing philosophy?

58 comments

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mindcrime
Bertrand Russell - The History of Western Philosophy:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Western-Philosophy-Bertrand-Ru...

count
That's sort of evil to use as an 'Introduction'...it's like reading the Silmarillion before you read LOTR.
kd0amg
It's substantially simpler and more straightforward than a lot of the primary sources, which makes me wonder what is the analogue of LOTR here.
sebkomianos
You did that as well? I thought I was the only person in the entire to universe to do so.
mindcrime
Maybe, but it's a nice overview of a lot of stuff, spanning a long period of time, and it is better - IMO - than telling somebody "go read primary sources for all Western philosophy developed since the Greeks." I suppose one could recommend Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy, but it's difficult due to all the untranslated quotes from primary sources. (Well, unless you happen to read Latin, German, Greek, and whatever else.) It's also 9 volumes long, which is quite an undertaking.
haecib
I'll second this. It's both thorough and accessible. Sounds like a good fit for what OP is looking for.

At any rate, I think that it is a question of which history of philosophy the OP reads rather than a book on any one philosophy in particular based on his original post...unless he really wants to get back with his friend on that nihilism comment...

te_chris
Thank you, that looks like a great start! Like I said, I have read philosophy before so I'm not looking for a "for dummies", just looking for someone to do the hard work with the primary sources as my curiosity has been piqued again!
ahsanhilal
The only problem being that it is Bertrand Russell's view of the history of philosophy
karlzt
Friedrich Nietzsche http://www.theperspectivesofnietzsche.com/nietzsche/nphil.ht...
mbanana
You may find the Dialogues of Plato rather entertaining - http://www.classicallibrary.org/plato/dialogues/

The funny thing is, they were written more than 2000 years ago, and no one has been able to add anything substantial to the subject since then :-)

plamb
The books that made me decide to be a philosophy major:

Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Ishmael

Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethinc for Beginners

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

dytrivedi
+1 for Zen & The Art of MC Maintenance
[dead] losethos
I read a lot of God's essays.

God says... summit females enquiry liberality teachers once field trees brows hale five reproved Ambition waver what's LIABILITY sinner tumultuously Dakota Ordainer decrepit falls distracting equably rejoices aright husbands owe assurance poison mighty throngs watch bemoaning Idaho withering mule slow able Passing both looking Difficulty Creusa's framed thereof expectation phantoms recorded regeneratedst hearers forgotten patience hushed power borrow desireth presumed notorious unintelligible Only objections fixing enacted keeps inward day painful vanished Instantly sacrificed sayings forgot Up vessel eminent based claim mingled increase singular trust directly deceiving exultation healthfully own walked engaged powers purely rehearse capable sawest intense turn checking safer fairness nets bubblings vindicating Each Wondrous obstinacy fostering filleth original position loth Soft tip oratory decree quickness lighted curiously affirming furtherance equals Men abiding commanded genius after aside songs deserted pricks dreaded trailed vaunt Law of crookedness tumbling sighed ceasing also Latins delayed magical shapen contradicting tastes frightful inclination immense deferred required meditated theatre swerving

lhnz
More to the point are there any short books that will get right down to the nitty gritty and spare me all of the examples, 'proofs' and old-fashioned language?
jerf
I'm going to say something probably unpopular, given the tone of many of the suggestions popping up, but philosophy is one case where I actually prefer to stay away from the so-called "primary sources". They are typically extraordinarily long and verbose for what they have to say, and if the idea some source is groping for is genuinely new, the fact that they are only in the beginning phases of grappling with it tends to show in the presentation. Plus they will tend to use quirky nomenclature that was not necessarily settled on later. If I'm after an actual understanding of philosophy and not merely enjoying some work for its own sake, it's better to read something that has been distilled over the years to its essence and stripped of its ornamentation, so you can contemplate the essence of the idea on its own.

I scare-quoted "primary source" because in a way, the ideas belong to humanity as a whole and the first person to "discover" a particular school of thought is not always its best advocate; it's primary more in the sense merely of first rather than the journalistic sense of authoritative. I would say the journalism or scientific drive for the "primary" sources is much less important here. To me it would be like insisting the only way to tour the Americas is to follow Columbus' precise route and anything else isn't really seeing the Americas.

I say this not because they are worthless or even a bad idea, but that I really do consider them a bad place to start.

Frankly, you could do a lot worse than to just cruise Wikipedia, and drill down in what you find interesting from there. (Don't skip the drilling down. I'm not saying Wikipedia is a full education on the topic. I'm just saying, it's really not a half-bad way to start.)

te_chris
Cruising wiki has been the source of most of my philosophical knowledge since leaving university, just looking for some well regarded sources that cover the topics in a little more depth.

Agree completely about your position on primary sources too, though of course there is lots of insight to be gleamed from reading the original texts, I've always preferred reading their interpreters.

Arun2009
The early modern texts site (http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/f_why.html) contains works that have been translated to contemporary English which could alleviate the archaic language problem. From the link:

<QUOTE> My versions are faithful to the content of the originals, but are plainer and more straightforward in manner. I could have made them even plainer, but that would have taken them further than I wanted to go from the stylistic feel of the originals. I love the original texts, and am glad to have spent years wrestling with them in their pristine form. I do wish, though, that through the years I could also have read them sometimes with all my energy going into the philosophy. </QUOTE>

To the OP, two overviews of Western Philosophy (of the analytic variety) I'd suggest are Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy" (http://www.ditext.com/russell/russell.html) and Nagel's "What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy".

zhynn
I have to say, I've learned more from LessWrong (lesswrong.org) and OvercomingBias (overcomingbias.com) than I have from nearly all of my classical reading. No, it doesn't cover the classics in the same detail, but they do cover rational discourse of philosophy very well.
len
just read the apology
peterzakin
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus is extremely readable and a classic of modern nihilistic thought.

I'd also recommend Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals. It's not his most famous work, but it's pretty widely acclaimed as his best.

bm1362
^ I too recommend Camus, 'A Happy Death' as well as 'The Myth of Sisyphus.' I'd also read Milan Kundera's novels- although they are much less nihilistic than Camus it still deals with the futility of life, love, and society etc.
szany
Nicomachean Ethics
kelvin_huggins
Do you want something challenging, don't you? I think there are many good recommendations here but you want "something". Maybe you can try "The Life of Milarepa"
avichal
A must read that's not on the list yet: On Liberty, John Stuart Mill.

The thoughts/ideas on society and politics are the sort that will resonate with a lot of the HN crowd. They advocate things like free speech, freedom of thought, equal rights for women, a utilitarian view of morality.

Some choice quotes: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness"

"the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

He was a pretty smart guy and a lot of what he advocated is now baked in to western societies as the norm.

jasoncrawford
I recommend W. T. Jones's History of Western Philosophy. It has a good combination of excerpts from primary sources plus commentary on those excerpts.