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Comment by hoshigakii | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have recommendations for a layman interested in philosophy?

The Mind's I[1] can work as a decent entree to some core philosophical issues and styles of thinking, while entertaining a lay reader at the same time, or so I found.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind%27s_I

If possible, find a local philosophy group. Philosophy is so much better as an interactive discussion.

There are many great first year lecture series by a variety of universities that are pretty good.

probably the one I enjoyed the most was "Justice" which you can find here http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ ( the site seems to be super snazzy now, was a bit more basic years ago when I first saw it )

But there's a lot more indepth lecture series out there, I'd sugest starting with the greeks / socrates / plato / aristotle.

Seconding the first year university classes recommendation, my philosophy 101 class covered (lightly) most of the people in the threads on this news item. IIRC we had five additional books from selected philosophers, and I really needed the lectures/question/answers to understand the Marx reading material among others.

Listen to "Philosophy: Who Needs It?" [1] (duration 40 minutes; and/or read it [2]) -- an address by Ayn Rand to the 1974 graduating class at West Point.

Whether you agree with her philosophical theory or not, she makes a brilliant case for the layman needing philosophy (for life on earth).

[1] http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-works/pwni.html

[2] http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html

Copleston's A History of Philosophy series is a decent way to get one's feet wet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Philosophy_%28Cop...

There was a famous debate between Russell and Copleston broadcast over radio by the BBC (1948):

http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/p20.htm

There's a series of books titled "Very Short Introduction" where many of them will cover schools, topics, and thinkers involved in philosophy. They run about 150-200 pages and often provide a good overview of the material. I read the books on philosophy, philosophy of science, Habermas, etc. and they were very good.

I would start with "Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction" by Edward Craig, see what catches your interest, and go from there.

Also +1 for Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy".

I would recommend Walter Kaufmann's The Owl and the Nightingale: From Shakespeare to Existentialism. Kaufmann is most known as a translator and professor, but his own work is fantastic. The Owl and the Nightingale is primarily a history of modern philosophy, but it manages to cover a lot of ground without being superficial. He is extremely engaging and clear, which is uncommon in philosophy :)

In college we used the book "Problems from Philosophy" by James Rachels for Philosophy 101. It covers different philosophy ideas in chapters that aren't too long so you won't get bogged down on certain topics you might not find interesting. After reading this book you should have a good idea of what sort of philosophical questions interest you and you can dig in from there.

I would recommend The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottleib, and his followup, The Dream of Enlightenment. And if that gets you interested, then the 5 volumes on the history of Western philosophy by W.T.Jones. As for Copelston, which some below recommend, it is too detailed for a beginner. And Russell has a strong classical analytic bias.

I read Will Durant's Story of Philosophy when I was a teenager. It made me realize I was too inexperienced with life to appreciate philosophy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Philosophy

For podcasts, Philosophize This (high level) and The Partially Examined Life (more in depth)

The Partially Examined Life podcast is fantastic. I'd definitely second that.

The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps is also decent.

Bertrand Russell - The Problems of Philosophy

Also by Russell: A History of Western Philosophy. It has various critics, for good reasons, but it's as good a walkthrough of philosophical developments in the West as anything you'll find.

>Also by Russell: A History of Western Philosophy. It has various critics, for good reasons, but it's as good a walkthrough of philosophical developments in the West as anything you'll find.

There's also the entire audiobook on YouTube, which is fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0fK0ZuAcbU&list=PL6BE82595A...

I want to second this one, if for nothing else than the fact that in addition to being a wealth of information about the philosophies themselves, it's also a fascinating (granted, biased) perspective about how philosophical developments might map to political and cultural developments, and vice versa. Again, with a nod to its critics.

Also, Russell is, as always, a charmingly witty writer.

I like Russell. He's a witty and entertaining writer. But anyone reading his work should be aware that he's heavily biased towards an Analytic perspective.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any summary from the Continental perspective that's remotely as well written as Russell's. Maybe you could start with reading through some of those comic-book style "Introduction to..." books about various philosophers. They seem to do a decent enough job for a taste of what the philosopher in question is about.

But, really, there's no substitute for taking an intro to philosophy course. Philosophy isn't just meant to be read and pondered. It's critically important to discuss it and the ideas and questions it provokes in you with others who are also encountering this material along with you. A philosophy course is ideal for that. Though, once again, the Analytics dominate such courses in the English-speaking world (and increasingly in the rest of the world as well). So it's pretty hard to find philosophy courses where you can get an Continental perspective.

Third vote for this book! Amazingly knowledgeable man who is quite the succinct writer.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Anyone aware of something similar for the last century?

Part of what makes Russell's book good (or at least useful) was that it connected philosophical developments to later historical events. With that in mind, I think it would be really hard to have an equivalent for 20th century philosophy - we don't have enough historical perspective yet. And that's without even getting into whether you could find a writer capable of understanding and fairly treating both sides of the analytic/Continental divide.

But if I'm wrong and someone does know of a useful work like this, I would also love to see it.

I would recommend against that book. Through slightly changing claims he's "established" he concludes for the need for "sense data" which is nonsense.

Also, white paper looks yellow under a yellow light because it white. White is the color of the paper.

The book is an example of philosophy being done in a lucid, beginner-friendly manner. It's opinionated and conclusions are drawn. You might not agree with them. It's a fine introductory text for getting a sense of argumentative form and a decent sampling of contemporary philosophical debates.

Wha's wrong with "sense data" ?

Seconded for Russell

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