How can I absorb Philosophy better?
I started reading Descartes and Hume. I read several dialogues of Plato and plan to read the Republic by him. I study psychology but I took an interest in philosophy, mainly in metaphysics and in existentialism. After a time, I want to read Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Hegel. I find it harder to remember for the things I read after a few months, especially if they are hard texts. How can I absorb these texts better, how can I improve my comprehension and my memory regarding philosophy?
Comments (45)
Many may disagree with what I am about to say, pointing to the need to be extremely systematic, going through the various important thinkers and fields of thought. That seems to be the advice given to you.
I take a different approach and say start with the thinkers and aspects of philosophy which interest you. I believe that is the way to make it the most comprehensible and meaningful. Maybe, the rest of theoretical exploration can come at a later stage. But, in the meantime, perhaps you should follow your passions more and read what seems to really speak to you on a personal level, even it is not the texts which are the ones which are considered to be the essential classic works..
By deciding what your purpose for reading those texts is, and then reading those texts with that purpose in mind.
And making notes and reviewing them regularly.
But it is said that to really understand Nietzsche, one should at least read Plato, Kant and Schopenhauer. Then for Kant, Hume should be read and some others. So when I got interested I read who influenced whom.
Aren’t there certain movies you love to watch? Aren’t you inclined to watch them again and again over the years? It’s the same sort of compulsion...but with a greater gravity, that drives someone to go back to and dwell with a soul immortalized in a book that has affected him so much, maybe even shaped his basic notions of the world and of his own life.
Absorb?
I recommend looking for what interests you as a problem that concerns you personally. Put some skin in the game. That is what these people you are reading did.
I'm interested in the existence of God, in morality, identity, why do we exist, what is reality, what is evil, why is there evil on the world, why do we deceive ourselves and are we moral beings or should we construct our own morality.
That's what my philosophy prof told me in a senior-level class when I went to his office and complained that I was having real problems trying to understand the writings of one of the classical European philosophers I was assigned to report on.
Pretty big list.
The personal would be something you need to go forward, in any capacity.
His Dialogues, and On Benefits are excellent, but I think his greatest work is perhaps the Epistulae Morales, maybe because it is addressed to one, Lucilius, an adherent to philosophy, whom he wished to convert to TRUE philosophy, and whom he sometimes praised for his efforts, more often chastised for poorly following what his mentor saw as correct.
I like Nietzsche's Gay Science, I haven't read his other works yet. His aphorism on intellectual conscience captivated me the most. I really like Plato as well. I think about reading Schopenhauer, Kant and Kirkegaard because they are somewhat psychological.
Also it helps reading comparatively - how does Hume differ from Kant differ from Schopenhauer differ from Nietzsche? So read secondary texts that do this comparative work and which pick out this or that problem (aesthetics, ethics, truth, etc) and how different authors approached it. You'll start thinking about philosophical books less as a random collection of thoughts than as motivated solutions to problems raised within them (where a 'solution' might even be as general as 'asking a more appropriate question').
And there are many connections to many things, which is largely why it interests me to begin with: it’s sort of at the hub of all fields, language, math, art, physics, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, all kinds of stuff.
Good luck, brother in wisdom and philosophy!
Quoting deusidex
I have found that you have to take notes. And, when I say that, I've found what is most important is what you are thinking about when you read them. Questions, other topics, connections, just anything that floats into your head. Also, do not read summaries or general articles on philosophy--it is not about knowledge; it is about "the dark journey" (as Hegel says) and how it changes you. So go with the whole book, or the book with a book about the book (Heidegger on Nietzsche, for example, after reading the Nietzsche of course). Also, if you think of philosophy as a set of "problems" you will not get as much out of it personally--the issues are framed differently every time so don't get sucked into "the! solution".
Other than that, you must figure out when they are using a "term" and come at that from the context and relationally to the rest of the text (not from a definition)--in a sense, don't assume anything and go to them on their turf. Don't dismiss someone for what you think is an error or when you disagree. I would argue against having a axe to grind or some other perspective and start fresh with them (but of course their place in the history of the books).
Do not take what is said at the first impression, and do not take everything as a statement that you can either agree or disagree with. Especially with Nietzsche, what he says are not statements he is making that he is going to justify as true--they are examples to see how our relations (moral, etc.) are said to work or for us to see for ourselves his insights. It is good to start with Plato, and then Descartes (who introduces the modern problem of radical skepticism) and then Kant (who removes metaphysics). After that I might skip Hegel. Nietzsche is based on a response to Kant I would say more than Schopenhauer, but he is a tough one; as is seeing that Emerson is responding to the analytical tradition.
I actually disagree with this pretty strongly. The biggest thing I took away from my formal philosophical education was an impression of how almost every author had at least some things right, and so did their opponents, and the only way to find a really solid understanding of it all was to combine and cross-connect pieces from lots and lots of different views.
Just taking a deep dive on any one philosopher is a good way to end up an expert on someone who is probably very very wrong about at least something rather important.
Improving comprehension can be done with note taking, annotations, and only reading the authors/thinkers you truly are interested in. Some people will disagree but I believe this is the best way. Why waste some of your time reading texts that are somewhat interesting and not the thinkers that you want/desire to read? If you don't understand some of the texts you are about to venture into fully, that is okay. You can always read up on what thinkers are referring to while you are reading it and read after as well.
Another thought on comprehension, I really think that reading and re-reading texts help. The more I read a text, the more I get out of it long-term. Also, try to summarize or talk to people about the text. In my experience, talking to others about what you are reading helps tremendously.
Quoting The Questioning Bookworm
This.
Quoting The Questioning Bookworm
And ideally this.
Simple.
- lecture for breadth
- reading (original texts) for depth
- writing for clarity(?)
- discussion for... speed?
I'm a little fuzzy on the exact formulation of the last two, but the gist of it was that you write a lengthy piece on your own to clarify and organize your own thoughts on it, and then you discuss it with others to see how well you can recall and use the information on the fly. I remember thinking of it as analogous to the martial arts practice of slowly doing forms, and then sparring much more quickly with others.
Outside of an academic classroom setting, you could probably substitute some overview text like an online encyclopedia for lecture, and substitute a forum like this for discussion. So the modified version of this four-part structure could then be:
- Read an encyclopedic overview of the author/topic
- Read the original material
- Write your thoughts on the topic in an essay
- Post that here as an OP and engage in the subsequent discussion.
Exactly. I just read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This book is 800 dense pages with small text, but I am able to recall almost the entire book because I annotated and took notes on every single page of the text. Additionally, throughout reading the book, I would re-read grand sections with considerable philosophical depth. Then, I would talk to my girlfriend, father, mother, friends, and colleagues about the text--or at least sections of the text--all because I was so fascinated from it. In short, this can deepen your understanding of a philosophical work and also make it more than just words on a page or a prescriptive exercise. Thus, doing so, increases your memory due to the fact that you not only picked a book that interests you so much, but also you have experiences with the book.
I wonder why you want this comprehension and memory? If it is to gain qualifications, to impress the ladies, to be able to name drop impressively, and so on, then the advice you already have is sufficient.
But if you want to understand the world, then allow yourself to forget everything if it doesn't stick with you. Use a philosophy dictionary instead of a memory. What matters is what matters to you, and that you will remember without effort. What matters is what you live by, not what you can recite or summarise of someone else's philosophy.
If someone else wanted to figure out what is “the correct alcohol” (if there is such a thing), I would advise starting out with a survey of different kinds of alcohols and the differences between them, and what makes one better than another in a particular way or vice versa.
Of course there probably isn’t a universally correct alcohol, but philosophers do act in a way like they’re trying in different ways to come up with the correct solution to the same problem(s) and that others who do so differently are wrong for that. So if you’re not just trying to learn how to master the study of one philosopher specifically, but you’re trying to master philosophy generally...
Now, you may disagree with me in this thumbnail analysis of Nietzsche, but I only use him as an example...
In my intellectual life I have encountered one or two or three, or maybe four or five, souls that captivated me in this way, and that is the key term, “captivated”. To become a true student of philosophy, you must be in a state of destitution from the start, like a freed slave, as though wandering and weary in a world where you only find barren soil for your subsistence, but always hoping for and seeking nourishment...
...and the nourishment is there!...as I have found out during a life brief and full of evil...
So, the true student of philosophy is a truly lamentable soul...but the only human being who has the motivation within him to correct his situation, and, at least so far today, also the means, if he look hard enough outside. For the material still exists and is accessible...though how long such an existence remain for a rare and endangered flower of civilization, I cannot tell.
Many years later when I did find myself in a state of destitution, that abstract philosophy helped me to find me way out of it; and also, it helped me to really ground all of that abstract philosophy better. But I never found just one master to guide me into the light. I had to make one from scratch for myself.
“The university’s task is illustrated by two tendencies of the democratic mind to which Tocqueville points. One is abstractness. Because there is no tradition and men need guidance, general theories that are produced in a day and not properly grounded in experience, but seem to explain things and are useful crutches for finding one’s way in a complicated world, have currency. Marxism, Freudianism, economism, behavioralism, etc., are examples of this tendency...
“The very universality of democracy and the sameness of man proposed by it encourage this tendency and make the mind’s eye less sensitive to differences...Our temptation is to prefer the shiny new theory to the fully cognized experience...Producing theories is not theorizing, or a sign of the theoretical life. Concreteness, not abstractness, is the hallmark of philosophy. All interesting generalization must proceed from the richest awareness of what is to be explained, but the tendency to abstractness leads to simplifying the phenomena in order more easily to deal with them.”
It seems to me that, someone to whom philosophy appears to be the neatest puzzle to be solved, might indeed be prone to the error outlined above.
Btw, I hope the inclusion of quotation marks, though I do not betray the author, shields me from being exiled for plagiarism!
I'm very liberal here. I don't even think you need to read more than one philosopher to "do philosophy" well. I'd go so far as to argue that those who say you have to have read Plato or Descartes or whoever, are potentially putting people off. What matters are the topics and what you think about them. We already know what Plato, Descartes and Hume said about these things. If any philosopher helps you in your pursuit, then that's all you need.
Given the era we live in, you have so many ways to get philosophy, you can see lectures online, you can see documentaries, you can participate in forums like this one, you can read any part of any philosopher you like while ignoring the rest. In short, I think it's a big mistake to focus on what X philosopher said. It's only valuable so long as you get something out of it. If you don't get anything out of it, then it has no value.
I disagree from the point of view that original works give an audience to a passion that descriptions of the ideas never will.
The net result of some survey you might employ is not the challenge the authors required from the readers.
It depends on the person, the idea under discussion and how the author is received. It can and often does help to read the classics, but I don't think it's mandatory to need to read anybody specifically. But this depends on each person's goal. I think it's a mistake to insist that you need to read X's thoughts on the self to understand the topic. It can help, but it may not. Novels may do a better job, or talking to a group, etc. The idea is to keep the approach to the topic broad, but not so broad so as to include New Age stuff. It's a hard line to draw.
As for "the challenge the authors required from the reader", maybe? I don't think difficulty for the sake of difficulty is good. The topics themselves are already very hard, so making it more difficult doesn't necessarily help out much. If the topic under discussion or the way somebody writes causes you to think from a different perspective, then that's obviously good. I have in mind people like Wittgenstein or Nietzsche as people who fall under this category.
I sat down beside the woman I loved. It was late evening, the sun was hanging low on the horizon, and I was spellbound by the play of light across that face I'd fallen in love with.
I reached into the wikcer basket, and picked up an orange. As we talked, I peeled the rind off, deposited it on the side of the table and popped one slice of juicy orange into my mouth. It was delicious but I had to do some tongue gymnastics to avoid biting and swallowing the seeds which I spat out as far as I could - it flew in a parabolic curve and landed on a patch of ground close by.
That's what I remember of those precious moments a very long, long time ago as I catch sight of the now fully-grown orange tree that's sprouted from one of those seeds that my love of orange and loving earth's gravity had conspired to deposit on that small patch of fertile ground.
I ate that orange.
Well, both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein asked that their readers undertake some kind of labor to engage with them. I don't understand what either was trying to say. But the demand to produce something is clear to me.
Then that's a problem. How can we be more or less confident that we know what a famous philosopher is saying? Is the point to be able to reproduce, word for word, the main insight from a major work? I get it that many of these figures did ask people to engage with them on some level. Sure.
But to do philosophy you don't need to read Nietzsche or Wittgenstein or Descartes. You could do it through Rorty alone, or from a combination of Searle and Chalmers, or mixture of everybody. I think the point is to be engaged with certain ideas, but I understand if you say that these ideas are best expressed by a certain person. Maybe, but it's not clear to me that anybody is essential.
Think about what you read after you read it.
Take notes.
Write papers.
Walk up and down and talk to yourself.
Rehearse the ideas, and they'll stick.
That is good challenge. As a question of what can be asked, can the ideas of every philosopher be explained in terms they did not use? Is there a universal language of what can be talked about that encompasses all of what has been expressed?
I am not so sure. I greatly appreciate the various encyclopedias that compare one body of thought to another. But the act of collection misses something. If one can say what everything means, why bother with trying to understand things for oneself?
It seems to me inevitable that we express ideas of philosophers in terms they did not use. Quite clearly with Plato and Aristotle, after all they didn't talk about "the hard problem", though they had much to say about the mind. With Leibniz, we wouldn't talk about monads, but we would speak of intrinsic properties of particles or fields.
Hume's theory of mind (and Locke's too) has been refuted by modern neuroscience, the brain/mind is simply not "white paper" or a theatre of ideas. With Kant, we no longer speak of "space" and "time" as separate things, but instead of spacetime.
It's likely that in the future, the terms we use will be outdated or simply won't capture the same phenomenon we are discussing, although there is overlap otherwise we couldn't talk at all.
What you say is true, if we read an encyclopedia or several, that explain certain ideas of people like Kant or Hegel or whoever, we miss out on reading them. On the other hand, what if when we read Kant or Hegel, despite trying as best we can, we simply don't get much out of it? I personally get quite a lot from Kant and Husserl scholarship, but much less so from Kant and Husserl themselves. Not so with Schopenhauer or Peirce.
There's always an "opportunity cost". We may take longer and read Kant entirely. We may understand it better than the scholarship we read. But if it takes us 3 months to read Kant vs. say, a week or two to read good or useful interpretations of him, we gain time to look at other things.
It's not an easy issue. But it seems to me that there are many ways to proceed, which is better than only one way.