rationalskepticism.org

The Black Jester wrote:

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:

With the exception of Aristotle and Frege, all shit.

Although UE's advice is solid on Sophie's World, I usually recommend people use wikipedia. There just isn't a proper general book on philosophy that isn't horribly biased one way or the other. From there, read primary works of authors - don't be afraid to read diagonal, skip chapters or not understand stuff. Go back later if you want more. Check out different authors, different viewpoints.

Intriguing advice. Forgive the intrusion, but I've been following this thread (and other Philosophy threads) with interest, and have appreciated your contributions. I've been looking for some advice on solid, introductory material myself, and have been frustrated by the offerings I've been finding thus far. Most that I've seen do seem to have a fairly obvious slant, particularly where introductions to Philosophy of Mind are concerned. I can't imagine introductory material in, say, Ethics would be any less biased.

I have been quite slanted in this thread, specifically to underline that. UE's advice is pretty solid because Jostein Gaardner is one of the few authors that does the introduction reasonably well. If you look at Bertrand Wooster Russell, you'll come out feeling pretty horrible if you have any regard for Post-Kantian German philosophy.

There are introductions into contemporary/modern/whatever ethics, but really, if you want to know the deal, read no further than Nietzsche, Levinas and MacIntyre (After Virtue). None of those books are introductions, however, and perhaps even impossible to read for someone who doesn't have a background in philosophy. Hence my recommendation of wikipedia. It's not entirely fair and balanced, but if you read multiple articles, you usually end up with a pretty good understanding.

For an understanding of Nietzsche, I would first recommend his own books, if that's impossible, the wikipedia pages on him and his works, and only then various introduction texts. The latter are always occupied with interpreting him in their own ideology.

Now, is my advice above on ethics biased. Sure. MacIntyre is a Thomist - a Christian - and I sincerely doubt anyone can believe what Levinas is selling, but I do believe that ethics is in quite a crisis. Mind you, I think the real interesting stuff on ethics is being done in the field of evolutionary psychology, and whoever wins that gets to do the rest (hence my involvement there ).