Q&A: How to Get into Philosophy Seriously
How to Get into Philosophy Seriously
Question
Hello and blessings, Rabbi,
I am 17 and a half. At around age 15 I was exposed to your work, and thanks to you I got into philosophy and also started getting much more deeply into the Talmud in an analytical way.
My philosophical knowledge is basic to intermediate. I’ve listened to a few Hebrew University courses on philosophy of science, some lectures here and there, some of your books, and a great many posts of yours that I’ve read.
The Life and Death of Socrates, The Great Philosophers by Bryan Magee.
I would be happy if you could guide me on how to begin studying philosophy systematically in terms of which books I should read, whether to proceed chronologically, or whether there are later books that are worth reading before the earlier ones.
All the best.
Answer
I’ve been asked this more than once, and I always answer that I don’t have a formula. You need to roll along according to your areas of interest. The goal shouldn’t be to know everything, but to accumulate tools for forming a worldview of your own.
Discussion on Answer
Blackburn’s book is not successful or recommended at all.
In paragraph 2, line 1:
… Simon Blackburn’s book, Think…
With God's help, 17 Cheshvan 5783
It is important, in my humble opinion, to note that philosophy can sharpen the considerations and define the arguments on either side, but like all human thought it has an inherent limitation: a person has only what the eyes of his senses and the eyes of his intellect can see, but he has no ability to grasp what is beyond him. He cannot have a clear perception of the ways in which his Creator conducts the world, neither of the purpose of creation nor of His demands from His creatures. For that, prophetic revelation is needed, in which the “Manufacturer” gives the “instructions for use.” For that one needs the Torah of God, which philosophy and the other sciences can help us understand, but cannot serve as an alternative to it.
With blessings,
A.N.S.
The best tip I can give you is to develop English skills to as high a level as possible. The philosophical literature in Hebrew is immeasurably sparse compared to the English literature, both in quantity and in quality. As a side benefit, there is an abundance of introductory books to every field in philosophy in English, a richness that doesn’t exist in Hebrew. They will allow you to develop in a more systematic way.
Good luck!
With God's help, 16 Cheshvan 5783
Lishi — greetings,
I’m no great expert in philosophy, but I’ll suggest a few books that might help you:
The books of H. Y. Roth: A Guide to Greek Philosophy and A Guide to Modern Philosophy. The book by Rabbi Shlomo Goren, The Theory of Philosophy (which includes lectures he gave as a visiting lecturer at the University of Haifa). In the field of Jewish philosophy, the book by Rabbi Professor S. B. Urbach, Pillars of Jewish Thought, may help you.
Yuval Steinitz’s Invitation to Philosophy; Rami Yisrael’s Gateway to Logic; Blackburn’s Think: A New Introduction to Philosophy; Yosef Agassi’s Introduction to Modern Philosophy. And the books of Elazar Weinryb (published במסגרת the Open University): Greek Philosophy, From Descartes to Hume, Problems in Moral Philosophy, Historical Thinking — Chapters in Philosophy, and Yuval Eylon’s Language, Thought, World — Classic Essays in Analytic Philosophy.
The books in the first paragraph I mentioned from personal familiarity with their covers; the books in the second paragraph I fished out by googling “introductory philosophy books.” Since your wish is to “get seriously into philosophy,” it seems to me that Henri Bergson’s book Laughter may help you, since “knowledge of opposites is one” 🙂
With blessings,
Ernst Nachman Schmeichler