What are some good books about philosophy?
I realize for a while i've been thinking about things with a philosophical approach .... but have no actual experience with the topic.. So what are some good books to read on the subject?
I want to start reading philosophy. Is Essays by Montaigne a good book to begin with?
Montaigne’s book is one of the most wonderful in existence, and can change your life, but as a starting place in philosophy, it might give you the wrong idea.I might suggest you start with one of the early Platonic dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Meno, or Phaedo. This will give you some idea of how philosophy began, what kind of discourse it deals in, and what purposes it was initially envisaged to serve. If you like these, read the Republic and others.It has been said that all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. This is an exaggeration, but not a wild one. Plato and his student Aristotle form the foundation of philosophical discourse in the West. From there, you can strike out in many directions.You might also want to read a book on the history of philosophy. Avoid Bertrand Russell’s, which was a potboiler and does serious injustice to some important thinkers, particularly Hegel and Nietzsche. Avoid, too, Will Durant. Anyone who thinks Voltaire may have been the greatest philosopher ever to live should clearly have stuck to writing popular histories. Try, instead, something like Anthony Kenny’s A New History of Western Philosophy — readable, clear, written by a master, and more balanced than Russell’s often-cheeky, always-tendentious account.Amazon.com: A New History of Western Philosophy (9780199656493): Anthony Kenny: BooksBut by all means, do read Montaigne. He is wonderful, and his Essais a book to live with, reread, and savor.Seventeen! So young. I wish you many happy hours in the study of this great discipline. The humanities are quite out of fashion now, and perhaps in irremediable eclipse, but they continue to reward those who come to them seeking illumination — not with the meaning of life, perhaps, but certainly with some enlarged sense of what life is, and what sort of creatures we are. Best wishes.
Good languages to learn for philosophy? Western or Eastern.?
English is all that's needed to STUDY Western philosophy. Philosophy is generally discussions around certain concepts, which are often given Greek, Latin or German words anyways. Such as sophrosyne, nominal, Dasein, etc... when these words are translated to English they don't really fully encompass the concept, so they are left untranslated. At an undergraduate level also studying the languages would not be helpful... it might get in the way of learning the important concepts if you spend as much time working on understanding the other words. However, if you plan on spending your entire career as a Nietzsche expert, you probably want to be able to read his original work. Also, if you want to really study Theology and Biblical Hermeneutics, that's a case when you'll need Hebrew and Greek. The East is different. Or rather it has specific concepts like in the West but it is translated less Academically. I study a lot of Eastern philosophy, Daoist texts in particular, and I believe there are certain concepts which cannot be adequately translated. Unfortunately, translations are usually less academic... it's assumed the reader will not be familiar with the actual philosophy in the work so each translator does his own approximation. This means that you will likely not have a good grasp of Laozi's thoughts after reading a single translation of the Dao De Jing. Same with the early Vedic texts and Sanskrit. The problem with Traditional Chinese and Sanskrit is that finding classes for them isn't as easy. At university I studied Chinese for two years... but it was not directly helpful with Chinese philosophy. Ancient texts use a style and even a written language more advanced than you can really learn in a 4 year program. The Chinese classes were useful in helping me start with the basics of the written language so that I could study Traditional Chinese on my own. If, in the future, you think you might want to write dissertations on Nietzsche or Levinas than you can start studying German or French. BUT at an undergraduate level studying any other language will not directly be useful while studying Philosophy at the same time. Greek, Latin, French and German are close enough to English that the translations are going to give you a better understanding of the work than you could on your own after only a couple years studying that language. Focus on learning the basic ideas in English.