Malagasy Rain

Hello. I'm new to this board but I've been reading some of the posts here and have been very fascinated by them. While there are times when the dialogue goes over my head and I don't pretend to know much about philosophy (I'm only a teenager), are there any resources that I can visit for the elementary concepts of philosophy? I'll appreciate it.

jon1

Hey, I'm "only a teenager" too and I've been reading philosophy for like two years and I think I have a pretty good grasp on the subject. I, along with others, are probably exceptions since I don't know a single other person who understands philosophy or cares but that's beside the point isn't it? Anyways, my personal favorites are http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ and http://www.philosophypages.com/ I think you'll find these pretty good but by all means read everything you can, go to google and just type in Philosophy and you'll be on your way.

Malagasy Rain

Thanks a 70 sextillion (the number of stars in the universe).

jon1

Oh yes, and if you don't mind reading whole books online you can check out Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy at

http://www.ditext.com/russell/russell.html

jpbrooks

Never mind. My error.

jpbrooks

Hello and welcome to the discussion board, Aurora!

In addition to the sites above, you may find Peter Suber's website helpful. I would highly recommend his "Guide to Philosophy on the Internet" and the Earlham College Philosophy Department resources.

pariah

read books. not books about, but the stuff written by the philosophers.

xorbie

hmm... I personally would go the other way. I am 18 and the first philosophy book i read was "philosophy for dummies" and I loved it. It helped me take the pre-existing ideas I had and see what they matched up, and guide me to what I might find intersting. Moreover, for the less accessible philosophers (like Kant *shudder*), you might want to try reading only selected important passages (i.e. definition of the categorical imperative in this case) and just read a summary on the rest of it. Unless of course you have oodles of time.

Bill Snedden

pariahSS said: "read books. not books about, but the stuff written by the philosophers."

and xorbie said: "Moreover, for the less accessible philosophers (like Kant *shudder*), you might want to try reading only selected important passages (i.e. definition of the categorical imperative in this case) and just read a summary on the rest of it."

In fact, I think you're both right.

I think it's often helpful to read "summaries" or books "about" philosophy or philosophers in order to get a good general idea or introduction to new concepts or new ways of thinking. Routledge has an excellent series of books designed to do just this. I call it their "on" series. Each of the books is about a different philosopher. I'm currently reading "On Wittgenstein", and have read "On Hume" and "On Rand".

However, once having read a summary or other such generalized book, one should not make the mistake of thinking that one knows all about this or that philosopher or his/her ideas or even that one has an unbiased and objective idea of what he/she wrote!. Pariah is quite right: read the stuff they actually wrote. If an idea interests you enough or seems important enough, what the actual thinker actually wrote will be far more valuable than merely reading someone else's idea of what he/she meant.

Regards,

Bill Snedden