Questions tagged [learning-methods]
51 questions
14
votes
7 answers
What are some simple ways to start learning philosophy?
It is hard for me to read and understand philosophical texts or secondary literature - even with Wikipedia. I don't want to give up, I just need to start slowly and with very basic things.
How can I proceed? It's too large a challenge for me…
Sabrina
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8
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7 answers
Should you read simpler paraphrases before the older original works of philosophy?
I'm self-learning philosophy, but am untrained in linguistics, and fear obscurantism. So I prefer and find more helpful 'paraphrases': (which I define to mean) other philosophers' rewrites and glosses, of the originals, in enjoyable plain simple…
user8572
3
votes
1 answer
How do philosophers approach learning 'new' texts?
In the West, do most contemporary philosophy students and philosophers reads the entirety of Western philosopher?
Do they, for instance, read every single thing written by Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, etc.? Or, do they…
Papabear
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2
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2 answers
What does it mean for philosophical texts to be also great literary works?
Source: Philosophy: The Basics (2012 5 ed), p. 2 Bottom.
The history of philosophy is a fascinating and important
subject in its own right, and many of the classic philosophical texts
are also great works of literature: Plato’s Socratic…
user8572
2
votes
3 answers
How does excelling in philosophy help shorten the learning curve on other subjects?
[Penultimate bullet:] Get really good at something totally different than philosophy (because being good at philosophy helps shorten the learning curve on everything [bold mine]).
This question interprets everything to be other subjects besides…
user8572
1
vote
1 answer
How to read philosophy papers and articles more efficiently (especially for research purposes)?
Very often philosophy papers/articles/essays by some influential contemporary philosophers do not have an abstract/introduction/synopsis. Some articles, such as a recorded talk given by the author at a seminar, may even start with some rambling.…
James Young
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1
vote
2 answers
Why can parts of masterworks in philosophy be skipped?
TL/DR: This question presumes reading of a philosophical work for fun and self-learning.
How did philosophers err or underperform, and so enable or justify some skipping? Did they repeat themselves redundantly; digress; write poorly compared to…
user8572
0
votes
1 answer
Why do people read the original works in some fields, such as political philosophy, but not in other fields, such as biology?
The more time I spent on this, the more I feel there isn't a simple answer to this question.
In some fields, such as political philosophy, students are encouraged to read the original works such as Leviathan.
In the other extreme, in biology, almost…
J Li
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How do we learn a subject which we know nothing about?
Recently I wanted to report on a certain social issue which was going on in my community. The problem I encountered was that there was a mass load of information and I didn't understand how to structure the story or how to assimilate and then put…
tryst with freedom
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Why cannot anything in Plato be skipped, because you cannot skip a part of a play or poem?
Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (Revised 1972 ed.), p. 284 Top.
Spinoza carried the conception even farther. His Ethics is written in strict mathematical form, with propositions, proofs, corollaries, lemmas,…
user8572
0
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0 answers
To learn philosophy, which famous philosophers favour starting with modern introductions over primary sources?
Source: p 211, Philosophy; The Classics (4 ed, 2014) by Nigel Warburton BA PhD (Philosophy)
At the very end of his book [The Problems of Philosophy], Russell claims that students
who want to learn more about philosophy will find it
‘both easier…
user8572