philosophy

philosophy happens when friendfriend

the friend, says zarathustra, is always a third person in between "i" and "me" who pushes me to overcome myself and to be overcome in order to live – nietzsche and philosophy


s of wisdom create conceptconcept
In what is philosophy?, a concept is a creation (act of creativity) that testifies to the positive power of thinking as an event of life. philosophy creates concepts and puts th...s (socratessocrates
socrates was a philosopher from athens. he asked how should one live?
; deleuzedeleuze
gilles deleuze (18 january 1925 - 4 november 1995) was a french philosopher and, to me, the philosopher's philosopher and a sage. his work grapples with difference, creativity, though...) discuss (rortyrorty
richard rorty (1931-2007) was an american philosopher who worked on pragmatism.

reading list

Rorty, Richard. “Philosophy as a Kind of Writing: An Essay on Derrida.” New Literary History 10, n...) how to direct their lives (seneca Private or Broken Links
The page you're looking for is either not available or private!
) and dispel misconceptions that hinder them (wittgensteinwittgenstein
ludwig wittgenstein (1889-1951) was a philosopher, one of the most influential of the 20th century. his work pertained to language among other things.

wittgenstein was born to a wealthy vienes...). A philosopher is not necessarily a sagesage
for a platonist or a stoic, a sage (sophos) is one who has attained wisdom. philosophy is only the love of wisdom, the philosopher only a friend of wisdom.
 but a friend of the sage.

in epistulae morales ad luciliumepistulae morales ad lucilium
the epistulae morales ad lucilium (moral letters to lucilius) are 124 letters written from seneca to lucilius.

letter 16 - daily study and practice
 letter 16, seneca writes

Non est philosophia populare artificium nec ostentationi paratum. Non in verbis, sed in rebus est. Nec in hoc adhibetur, ut cum aliqua oblectatione consumatur dies, ut dematur otio nausia. Animum format et fabricat, vitam disponit, actiones regit, agenda et omittenda demonstrat, sedet ad gubernaculum et per ancipitia fluctuantium derigit cursum. Sine hac nemo intrepide potest vivere, nemo secure. Innumerabilia accidunt singulis horis, quae consilium exigant, quod ab hac petendum est.

In empiricism and subjectivityempiricism and subjectivity
empiricism and subjectivity: an essay on hume's theory of human nature, published in 1953, is deleuze's diplôme d’études supérieures (roughly master's) on hume's empiricism. What follow..., deleuze says

a philosophical theory is an elaborately developed question, and nothing else; by itself and in itself, it is not the resolution to a problem, but the elaboration, to the very end, of the necessary implications of a formulated question.

For him, there are 4 critical responses to philosophy:

  1. The question raised by a philosopher is not a good one.
  2. We should raise it in a better way.
  3. We should raise a different question.
  4. It does not force the nature of things enough (philosophy as interrogation).

Resources

Getting into philosophy is rewarding but difficult. Here are my recommendations for beginners.

  1. Start with what's interesting. For me, it was stoicstoic
    a stoic practices stoicism, the hellenistic philosophy founded by zeno of citium (c. 335-252 bc) who studied with plato's successors at the academy in athens. zeno taught at the stoa, meani...    ism, esp. Marcus Aurelius.
  2. Good general background resources are the podcast Philosophize This and Will Durant's Story of Philosophy, which goes through about a dozen big names in the western canon of philosophy.
  3. I'm planning to follow Susan Rigetti's guide to flesh out my understanding.

Philosophy comes down to readingreading
reading is a technology of retrieving information from Writing through interpretation. nabokov says a good reader needs 4 things: imagination, memory, a dictionary, some art... a lot of the time. How can we read philosophy well?

Ellie Anderson's advice is to learn from somebody who has expertise. Take a course with an expert or join a reading group. Use vetted resources like Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

  1. Skim and slog. Skim a portion of the text, then go back and closely read it.
  2. Annotate your text after finishing the section. After a reading session, take some notes about what you read in a notebook or app.
  3. Watch out for the logical moves that are being made. How is the author moving from one point to the next? Look out for errors or fallacies, and how much it matters.
  4. Resist your first – and second – urge to reading.
  5. Don't check your phone. Start with 25 minute reading sessions.
  6. Learn to swim, to figure out the flow of a given philosopher.

Other advice:

  • Read with a pen or pencil
  • Use sticky notes and annotations. Write marginalia.
  • Export notes to notecards.

  • Hold off on doing anything with the notecards until you're finished with the book.

  • Don't remember. Understand.
  • Figure out which claims support which other claims.
  • Look for signposts.
  • Make abstractions concrete.
  • Try to disprove it.
  • Read it again.