Hey. I’m looking to delve into the philosophical aspects of, well, a lot of things!
A few subjects of interest: natural rights, natural law, subjective and objective, ethics, the socratic method, logical empiricism, marxism, or, well, whatevs!
I guess ethics, logic, political philosophy, mainly.
I am looking to get into the basics for a beginner on most subjects of philosophy and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on where to start?
I recommend the historical approach.
A wonderful intro to the history of philosophy is The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb. It’s marvelously written.
Also The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard, a lecture series by David Gordon, is brilliant, especially for people of our leanings, if a bit difficult to listen to. (The great man doesn’t have the smoothest delivery.)
And I have my own history of philosophy series of posts that I’m working on, called Epistemology and Worldview Throughout History. I’m still covering the ancient Greeks in that series, and will be for a long while.
For political philosophy, Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies is an easy to understand, well written, and in depth analysis of the errors of Plato (Volume I), and Hegel (Volume II).
You are giving a basic description of Roderick Long’s lecture on the Foundations of Libertarian Ethics.
I highly recommend it.
Word. I just put David Gordon’s lectures on my iPod. Thank you. I’ll check out your blog and the book you mentioned, as well.
I will check this out. Thank you!
Nice. I already have this one sitting on my iPod. I’ll check it.
Anyone have anything on the Socratic Method? Any valuable resources on how to properly use it? Or structure it?
Well the Socratic method is really a type of questioning in which you lead your answerer to deduce his/her own contradictions.
RULE #1–whatever your travels, keep your feet on the ground. If you don’t understand something, or find it easy to deny, don’t accept it. In philosophy, the bullshit is in the clouds, not on the ground. Real philosophic foundations, although they may form the basis of your greatest most inspiring values, are as mundane as the light striking your retina and the vibrations in your ear–literally.
First understand what an axiomatic concept is, and their implication for persuasion and intellectual laziness. Then go to Rand’s epistemology and Mises’ human action. Both give you a solid inescapable foundation in axiomatic concepts and a condensation of the best of the classics. Then go back and read the classics, pulling the wheat from the chaff in each person’s ideas.
For logic, learning the formalisms is very useful. Read a book on set theory–but don’t ever forget rule #1.
This is some amazing advice. I will take it to heart, dear sir.
Before you get into any textbooks you should read Sophie’s World. It is fiction, but is the best introduction to philosophy out there.
Stefan Molyneux and Ayn Rand are both amazing intelligent/amusing