Introduction

Welcome! This is a new series, in which I will try to give you advice on how to best learn philosophy if you are not a university student.

I have noticed in the comments to the Daily Philosophy YouTube channel that there are many viewers who would like to learn more about philosophy but they don’t know exactly where to start.

And it is difficult if you are not a university student. Even finding out what you’re supposed to be reading can be daunting – and then, when you try to read the great philosophers of the past, you soon find out that these are very heavy books, dense with jargon, and is difficult to understand any single one without knowing all the others that came before it.

So the problem remains: Where to begin and how to get into this whole philosophy thing. So let’s get going! Here are my five most important tips on how to learn philosophy later in life.

Tip number 1: Be patient

The first thing to keep in mind is to be patient with yourself. Philosophy has been around since the beginning of human history and nobody knows all of it. In fact, philosophy professors are so specialized nowadays that someone specializing in early modern philosophy will usually have no idea of bioethics and so on.

Realize that in the end you will have to make choices. First try to get an overview of what is out there, what the history of philosophy looks like from a very high level point of view. And then pick your favorites and read up on those. There is no need to suffer through Russell or Kripke, if analytic philosophy is not your thing. There is no need to read Thomas Aquinas if you are not interested in Middle Ages theology. It’s okay to not know things.

Philosophy should be fun – so find out what’s fun for you and go for that.

Also, remember to take enough time. It took me personally 10 years of studying at university and another 10 years of teaching philosophy, in order to get a working knowledge of a handful of philosophers. That’s okay. You cannot rush it. Start with philosophers who are relevant.

Tip number 2: Start with real life

Start with life in general or your life in particular.

Yes, it’s easy to get excited when you first encounter questions like how many angels fit on the tip of a needle or whether all our actions are predetermined. These sound like fun, interesting questions. But they very soon can become very tedious and very technical.

It’s much easier to see the relevance of philosophy if you stick to everyday questions at first. The most satisfying for me are …

Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)