this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
74 points (96.2% liked)

Asklemmy

43874 readers
2602 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Lately I have found an interest in philosophy. I would love to dig deeper into it when I get the time.

I just started reading Seneca's Letters from a stoic and plan to read Tao te Ching next, as I always wanted to implement thoughts from Stoicism and Taoism in my life.

I'm aware that, randomly reading different philosophical works won't give me much in-depth knowledge.

I want to know what's a good way to go about it and the resources I could use.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is going to sound dead obvious, but I'd honestly recommend some Intro to Philosophy/Logic/Ethics books, e.g. Logic: A Very Short Introduction or The Logic Manual. I know you're not necessarily looking at logic specifically, btw, but it's one of the regular recommendations with philosophy more generally, especially if you branch out to other thinkers.

Also a somewhat common introductory text that I personally didn't care for is Sophie's World, which acts as a narrative historical overview of Western philosophy. If you want that sort of thing you may be just as well with a text like A Little History of Philosophy, which might be available via your library.

Finally, for ethics, you might look to Hornbook Ethics and/or Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? Besides A Little History of Philosophy, if memory serves all of these I've linked to have at one point or another been required texts for different philosophy and ethics courses depending on where one attends, so in reading these independently you'd basically be getting some intro level course education on the cheap.

Honestly though, I'd say reading the primary texts as you're doing isn't a terrible way to go about it, as that's what many philosophy courses would have you do anyway. What I would recommend alongside that is the same as I'd recommend for any older text then, which is to read up on the historical context to get a better sense of what may have influenced their writing, how they were received by their peers and broader community (if they were noticed at all during their life), and develop your understanding from there.

Sorry if this is a bit much, but I hope it helps! Be sure to check your local libraries for any of these before buying them btw, as they may have hard copies available despite not having digital copies. Also remember that college/university libraries may be an option too, albeit likely more costly if they do offer a library card to borrow materials.