Anyone into philosophy/ethics/theology?
I’ve only studied technical fields, but I love trying (and typically failing) to engage with philosophical material. One of my old roommates studied philosophy, and we’d stay up late discussing it so I’d get tangential exposure and a good dialogue on ideas (I credit them with helping me “discover” actual theory). Anyway, they’ve been dead for a while now and while every day I wish it weren’t the case, so is my only connection to engaging with philosophical topics.
Anyway - I wanted to pick up more background info of ethical philosophy, and have been wading into Kant (like literally getting started with reviewing overview pages like this: https://iep.utm.edu/kantview ) and the page author’s summary stood out to me:
Kant’s ethics are organized around the notion of a “categorical imperative,” which is a universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone. Kant argued that the moral law is a truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are bound by the same moral law. Thus in answer to the question, “What should I do?” Kant replies that we should act rationally, in accordance with a universal moral law.
Kant also argued that his ethical theory requires belief in free will, God, and the immortality of the soul. Although we cannot have knowledge of these things, reflection on the moral law leads to a justified belief in them, which amounts to a kind rational faith. Thus in answer to the question, “What may I hope?” Kant replies that we may hope that our souls are immortal and that there really is a God who designed the world in accordance with principles of justice.
Maybe I’ll have my own understanding when I engage with Kant’s actual writing, but I find the mentioned notion of a “categorical imperative” interesting. I guess when I’ve heard disagreements framed as “philosophical differences”, I never took it literally (ironically), but it seems like differences in worldview stem from a disregard of the
universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone.
and it makes sense then that common ground cannot be found when opposing viewpoints are rooted in incompatible principles. (Assuming that all parties have principles of sorts).
Idk where I’m going with any of this post, but I don’t have anyone to engage in my philosophical dumbassery with, so you’re all the lucky recipients.
Also can one hop around between authors? Or is there a benefit to interacting with older material? I was interested in reading some Kierkegaard, but thought I should go through Kant and Hegel first… but should one go further back to idk… Plato?
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Thank you all for some awesome replies! Looking forward to reading through them and checking out your recommendations! A lot of this stems from recently learning about Ecological Ethics and starting to read some Bookchin essays before realizing ecological knowledge does not cover the same bases as “ecological ethics“ lol. NGL it’s exciting to find a thing so familiar but foreign to learn about! Will be undoubtedly talking more with you all :)
Stay warm out there! (Or stay cool if you’re somewhere warm!)
Bookchin’s on my list. I wonder if that has anything to do with ‘the Ecological Thought.’
Plato is a good place to start if you're already comfortable reading difficult texts. Mainly because of how influential he was to all of the other western philosophers. A more modern starting point would probably be Bertrand Russel, most of his stuff is easier to parse.
If you're purely interested in the historical context of these ideas and their influences on societies, I'd say read it mostly "in order" as the ideas tend to build on one another. If you're trying to understand some specific aspects of life or something, like you're interested in the philosophy part itself and not just the historical context then I'd say write your questions down and look for the authors who discuss them the most.
Anyway, Diogenes is the only ancient philosopher worth a fuck and the meaning of life is to overthrow our oppressors
If you’re really ready to read difficult texts start with Wittgenstein and learn why philosophy is a mistake.
Definitely figure out what you hope to get out of your study, because if it’s nothing to you but a pile of facts it’s not much use. Do you enjoy learning about the origin of ideas or how to act morally? My deep interests are the nature of being and how we know words correspond to things and thus how to think. If you don’t know but like comics, I recommend browsing https://www.existentialcomics.com/ and picking up more material on whoever sounds interesting.
There are some alright ancients but Diogenes is indeed the best.
Edit: as a Marxist I will endlessly promote dialectics as the most valuable philosophy as paradoxical logic is useful for understanding many other things including other philosophies. For chronology, start with Heraclitus. For ease start with Mao. Well, you could also start with the eastern ancients.
I didn't think about this before, but an intro to philosophy textbook written by a Marxist would probably be a great resource for a sort of generalized understanding of the history of philosophy without all the liberal bullshit and hero worshipping. Plus you can just about always get a PDF of textbooks
needless complication
Ah, but Marxists disagree about philosophy. How would we decide (like we’re a unified body lol) what to put in such a text. We are even divided within ourselves on these subjects (dialectics, duh). What is the aim of this introduction? Presumably this is for the reading of non-Marxist texts, but how do we prime people to do such? Do we give them doctrines that they must compare with others to decide their “correctness?” Do we try to teach them how to think? Each question comes with more that are disagreed upon within philosophy, even Marxist. What is the ends we wish to encourage? Marxism is general pragmatic toward the ends of revolution but how should philosophy encourage that? There is a dialectical balance to strike in our actions towards revolution and we must somehow lead people to better their judgments.
Most importantly, who the heck reads textbooks? There are probably already decent Marxist articles on philosophy, with contradictions. I think we should just make sure people read Mao and encourage them to read whatever they feel like it. Under the assumption Freire was right, I guess we philosophy nerds can continue engaging in discussion with other organizers and hope that works?
I know many leftist movements have been harmed by bad ideas but it is hard to know how to promote correct ideas when they change from situation to situation and I’m not omniscient however much I feel like I know about philosophy.
I don’t know why I had to go on this skeptical rant (autism) but I’ll post.
Haha I love textbooks! You can get a massive amount of info all in one place and as long as it's not a shitty book you can usually rely on the info to be relatively accurate. The reason I think an intro textbook is good for studying philosophy is that it will give you a broad look at the topic without an overwhelming amount of detail and typically there is some effort put into the order in which the info is presented, which matters a lot when we're talking about thousands of years and dozens of different philosophers. Like don't only read textbooks by Marxists, but it's not a bad place to start
We also don't have to decide what to put in the text as these books already exist. There are a lot of Marxist academics, especially in philosophy. Obviously there are disagreements and such, but idk what your point is tbh. I'm just saying to find an intro to philosophy book written with dialectical materialism in mind. Even one without a Marxist perspective would be useful to anyone trying to learn about philosophy.
That’s fair. I prefer to read articles or primary sources at random, but I also don’t know what I’d do without random podcasts and videos and honestly where I’d be without some random and very elementary in person classes I once took. Textbooks are a source of info, whoever reads them. Honestly there’s some odd idiosyncratic reasons I don’t want to read textbooks. My ADHD says if I’m learning about something it’s good to make it quick and textbooks aren’t that. My autism says if I want to claim knowledge on philosophical positions it is best to have read the real source material from front to back whether I understand or not, and textbooks are too secondary for a time commitment.
My point is that I think that an “official” Marxist introduction to the very theory that says how to think and how we know things should avoid dogmatism and revisionism, and that’s a hard thing. We don’t want anyone abandoning Marxism to random pointless idealism and we don’t want anyone disregarding Mao because it doesn’t feel right to what they’ve been indoctrinated in. And of course we don’t want anyone treating Marxism as a fixed truth without a real understanding of the counter arguments.
Any text has its perspective and potential to influence. I am just currently in full skepticism I don’t what to believe including if it’s possible to believe mode, tons of contradictory ideas with different sources floating in my head.
Heraclitus is cool actually but so little survives
I wouldn't recommend starting with Kant, and I definitely wouldn't recommend starting with Hegel. Not only are both of them notoriously hard to read, but you'll also be missing a ton of context that is pretty much necessary in order to understand what they're doing. When I teach into to philosophy, I always organize it around problems/questions instead of chronologically, and that's how I'd recommend doing self-study as well. Pick something that you're interested in (it sounds like "what makes an action good?" is one option), and pick up some contemporary surveys of the question. Get a feel for the terrain and the way philosophers approach the questions you're interested in. Pick up some vocabulary, and get a sense of what the primary positions that people stake out look like.
Once you've done that, chasing down the history of particular lines of argument will be easier, and you'll have the kind of background necessary to contextualize and critically engage with classic authors. The SEP is a decent place to start, but I'd also recommend looking at some syllabi for "introduction to philosophy" courses and seeing what grabs you from their reading lists. When you do engage with historical authors, be strategic in what you read: unless you're a Kant scholar, you don't need to (and likely shouldn't) read all the Critiques cover-to-cover, for instance. You can pick and choose sections, or read something like the Prolegomena or Groundwork instead. Same goes for Plato: find out which dialogues are pivotal for the things you care about, and focus your attention there rather than reading The Republic straight through. That's where having a good syllabus comes in handy.
Starting at Kant without going through Hume at least is a recipe for confusion. I don't even think starting with Hume works if you aren't semi-familiar with formal logic.
it seems like differences in worldview stem from a disregard of the universal ethical principle
and it makes sense then that common ground cannot be found when opposing viewpoints are rooted in incompatible principles.
That's a very normative and idealist worldview, that itself fails to regard other, opposing principles and thus doesn't live up to the standards it pretends to set. In reality, differences in worldview often have material reasons rather than ideological ones. For example all the brilliant dialectics of Hegel ultimately amount to him embracing the Prussian monarchy as the ultimate end result of history. The final goal of all human morality. It just so happens, that he was a privileged intellectual, comfortably living under Prussian rule.
Hell yeah. Love the insight! Definitely the risk of exploring things on one’s own is missing out on the context from others who have studied and interpreted works. Very happy to have this community
I think hopping around is good, especially if the authors reference each other. And yeah ethics philosophy is quite fundamental, utilitarianism is a popular one you might also be familiar with.
Anyone into philosophy/ethics/theology?
Kant was probably autistic btw. I respect all sorts of foundationalism but I don’t necessarily agree with Kant from my little engagement. I have yet to read him of course. Those are quite the authors to start with. If they call to you sure, but I’ve read way more philosophy than most people and they sound relatively daunting. I tend to hop authors constantly, reading whatever I feel like at the moment. There’s some sort of unity and connections but that could be confusing for some people. I recommend starting with secondary or tertiary material.Awesome thanks!! My background is mostly in ecological systems so I’ve backed into some of material by chance. I tend to forget about the importance of secondary or tertiary for interacting with new topics- I usually assume I should dive into the primary source at its origin and then wonder why I’m confused lol. Like I fell out of a dang ol’ coconut tree.
I'm an amateur too and yes, personally, I think one should definitely "hop around" between authors before engaging more deeply with one of them. Or else be prepared for a rude awakening once you finally managed to work through one author (any author) and the next one just completely destroys their core premises in a few sentences. Yes, this will totally happen with Kant.
universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone.
That's an incomplete description. Kants real categorical imperative claims we should always act in such a way, so that we can, at the same time, wish for the principles of our actions to become universal law. For example Kant says it's always wrong to lie, no matter the context, because if everyone lied, no one would understand each other and lying would become pointless. So if a murderer asks you were you hid their next innocent victim, you are compelled to answer truthfully.
A dialectical critique of Hegelians against Kants categorical imperative lists many examples where it leads to absurd conclusions. For example is it ethical to give to the poor in order to reduce poverty? Not if you follow the categorical imperative, because if that became universal law, poverty would be eliminated and charity would be pointless. So, strictly speaking, you can not act in this way and at the same time rationally wish for your action to become universal law. In the same way, the categorical imperative can be seen to fail to address any material contradiction on a society wide scale.
I'm not saying Kant isn't worthwhile(although it almost does seem as if he made his writing hard to understand on purpose). Any philosopher can be criticized and many still have a lot to offer us. It just helps to know what you're getting into.
For a general overview and if you like podcasts, you could listen to "history of philosophy without any gaps" with Professor Peter Adamson. The main series is about philosophy in Europe and the Islamic world (which includes Jewish philosophy). It's engaging and funny and starts with the Pre-Socratics and over 450 episodes later is still going in the Renaissance. There are also spin-off podcasts for African, Chinese and Indian philosophy.
Studying history, you'll get a good understanding of why people call the entirety of philosophy merely "Footnotes to Plato". Also it helps in understanding any philosophical text to know what context philosophers react to (for example Kant reacted to Hume, Hegel reacted to Kant, there is no consensus on who had the better arguments). You also definitely go away from the podcast with a sense of "history isn't over".
Studying history helps understanding how contemporary philosophy isn't "better" or "worse" than philosophy at other times in history. People have always been smart and always had complex ideas. And who knows if philosophy of our time will later be remembered as an important contribution. Another important lesson from studying the history of philosophy is that it's easy to attack any philosophical system, but hard to build one. You can very quickly go from "wow, this makes a lot of sense" to "this is completely absurd" and still gain a lot from engaging with the material.
For a good sense of how well a particular philosophy holds up against it's critics, I like reading the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy as well as articles linked in the sources.
