Do you read any philosophy? If yes, what type?

[Kyriakos]

Well, do you? Cause "the unexamined life is unworthy of a human" etc

While philosophy degrees are generally scoffed at, i did manage to build my career on one. Apparently the uni of essex has a good name...
Anyway, do you read any philosophy? Or are you like dawkins and foolishly think you know philo without bothering with any book?

 

[Gori the Grey]

I just so happen to be reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics right now!

I have a hard time reading Plato's dialogues, because when a character in the dialogues gives a different answer to Socrates' question than I would have given, I want to hear Socrates' response to my answer, not that stupid dialogue boob's answer. But Aristotle makes life feel orderly. I look up from it and life feels disorderly again, but while I'm reading, life feels orderly.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sometimes socrates himself answers for the other person. Eg notably in the theaetetos dialogue, where he makes up a version of the opposite argument, which might have been uttered by protagoras (who was dead at the time).
But the parmenides is the main dialogue on dialectics. The theaetetos is something like a brief account of a few major presocratics, and it deals with epistemology.

 

[Live trash can]

I just so happen to be reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics right now!

I have a hard time reading Plato's dialogues, because when a character in the dialogues gives a different answer to Socrates' question than I would have given, I want to hear Socrates' response to my answer, not that stupid dialogue boob's answer. But Aristotle makes life feel orderly. I look up from it and life feels disorderly again, but while I'm reading, life feels orderly.

But there are wonderful things besides the main philosophical points the participants in the dialogue make or try to make.

I particularly remember one from The Republic. In the opening pages. Socrates asks an old man how he finds old age. He asks if the old man is still able to be with woman (physically). The old man says he isn't but it isn't a curse. It is like being freed from a ferocious demon! (the details are not accurate).

I find that very interesting. I live more or less as an ascetic and find the absence of sexual desire a great asset. It used to be very unruly and tumultuous. I think the old man is on to something. It is a piece of wisdom of old age although I am unsure about what Plato wanted to achieve with it

 

[Kyriakos]

Then again apparently socrates claimed that one should always choose to marry; for if his wife is good he will be happy, and if she is bad he will become a philosopher

 

[brennan]

Yes:

Epicurus, Plato, Spinoza, Saint Augustine, Kant, A.J.Ayer, Sartre, Nietshze, Hume, Marcus Aurelius, Hobbes and Calvin & Hobbes, but not actually Calvin, Hannah Arendt, Spinoza, The Tao Te Ching, Locke, John Stuart Mill, Marx, Engels. Probably some others I can't recall and some people you'd think of more as political or as historians maybe (Xenophon for example).

About to start a Penguin compilation of 'Early Greek Philosophy'.

 

[Live trash can]

I am 'slightly' impressed by you guys' ability to read a lot, like Brennon and many others I suspect. I read quite small volumes of literature. But what I read I (sometimes) read quite well.

 

[brennan]

I don't read an awful lot these days. Only about a book per month.

 

[Live trash can]

I was thinking about how many books a university course or a university degree is the equivalent of. But I am pretty sure that varies between courses and subjects and fields of science. I think a course is rarely larger than a thousand pages.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Always up for some ethics and political economy. There's the occasional toe-dip in epistemology and metaphysics.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes: Calvin & Hobbes

The man knows his philosophers.

 

[tetley]

I do not read philosophy. Reading about legal has more practical use.

 

[Live trash can]

Well, do you? Cause "the unexamined life is unworthy of a human" etc

While philosophy degrees are generally scoffed at, i did manage to build my career on one. Apparently the uni of essex has a good name...
Anyway, do you read any philosophy? Or are you like dawkins and foolishly think you know philo without bothering with any book?

Sure do! I am enrolled at a university on a degree in philosophy.

Very interesting topic! I am looking forward to hearing what you guys have read.

I have't read any philosophy in a year though, as I am focusing on the support-subject of my bachelor.

I have read a little of many philosophers, but some that I really like are:
Hobbes, Thomas Kuhn (philosophy of science), Peter Railton (ethics), Plato

I have read Theaitetos (on epistemology), The Republic, and Meno. I love the conclusion of Meno!

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Hegel, Camus, Sarte, Popper, Heidi, Habermas, Adorno, Bataille, Derrida, Baudrilliard and Deleuze mostly. I dabble in philosophy of science, power, sexuality, politics, ethics, metaphysics and pretty much anything imagineable.

Currently liking Baudrilliard a lot.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sure do! I am enrolled at a university on a degree in philosophy.

Very interesting topic! I am looking forward to hearing what you guys have read.

I have't read any philosophy in a year though, as I am focusing on the support-subject of my bachelor.

I have read a little of many philosophers, but some that I really like are:
Hobbes, Thomas Kuhn (philosophy of science), Peter Railton (ethics), Plato

I have read Theaitetos (on epistemology), The Republic, and Meno. I love the conclusion of Meno!

Meno is the one with the suicide of socrates?

 

[sophie]

Making my way through the Marx-Engels reader currently. I want to start reading some Hegel at some point this year - he’s a philosopher whose work I’m only familiar with via other philosophers and social scientists. I’d also like to read some postmodernists besides Foucault this year, maybe Baudrillard or Derrida.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

For Derrida I preferred his essays (he may or may not piss you off if you read anything longer than a few pages), for Baudrilliard I heavily recommend Simulacra and Simulation. It's a very quick read and it'll suck you in. The kind of book where you're sometimes scared to turn the pages because thoughts seem to spiral out of control. All the while Baudrillard has the cold, moral indifference of a sociopath disinterestedly watching the world burn in front of him. He is kind of the opposite of the preachy philosopher, he just produces a big log on your carpet and then leaves you with it.

 

[Live trash can]

Meno is the one with the suicide of socrates?

Then it would be pretty weird if I liked it.

I can't remember anything of that! Isn't that in The Apology?

Meno is about virtue. An I suspect some other minor topics which Plato sneaks in.

 

[Ironsided]

I philosophise a lot but I don’t read much philosophy. I inherited Bertrand Russell’s “A History of Western Philosophy” from my grandma I think. It’s a wonderful book and I flip through it and read small snippets from time to time. I don’t think I can read philosophy honestly. My mind starts to wander all over the place after a couple of paragraphs. If I could I would try more eastern philosophy. I really like what little I know about Buddhism and Taoism.

 

[Live trash can]

Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Hegel, Camus, Sarte, Popper, Heidi, Habermas, Adorno, Bataille, Derrida, Baudrilliard and Deleuze mostly. I dabble in philosophy of science, power, sexuality, politics, ethics, metaphysics and pretty much anything imagineable.

Currently liking Baudrilliard a lot.

May I ask what you get out of Hegel?
I see @Owen Glyndwr is interested in him also.