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[entremet]

I took a few philosophy courses as electives in college and had tons of fun with them.

But I stopped reading the older stuff after graduating.

Recently, I read Marcus Aurelius's (He was Commodus's father in Gladiator lol) Meditations, which wasn't really published by discovered. It was mostly his journals so it doesn't really have any rhetorical flow, but it's fascinating to read.

Apparently, it's a favorite of many statesmen throughout the years, something I learned after reading it.

But what's amazing about it is reading that Aurelius, even though he was the most powerful man of the western world at the time, he dealt with doubt and insecurity.

Including the immense stresses of managing his advisors, enemies, traitors, and the imperial court. In the book, he discusses how he handed setbacks, thought objectively, avoided sentimentality.

I'm really enjoyed it because it was also practical, which was philosophy's original intentions, starting from the days of Plato.

It's a bit sad that philosophy today is something people only look at academically, instead of something that can help you live wiser too.

For those with a passing interest, Youtube is a good starting point.

The School of Life channel has some great vignettes on notable philosophers and philosophic movements, but presented in a practical and actionable way.

Here's one for Plato.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDiyQub6vpw

 

[oreomunsta]

I took a bunch of philosophy courses in university, and like you OP, I heavily enjoyed them.

I mostly enjoyed the learning aspect of the courses. Reading about how people of long ago thought and saw the world was fascinating. I started to despise philosophical debates, though, as I kept taking those classes because it never seemed like people wanted to discuss the material and ideology; instead they just wanted to seek justification for their personal worldviews.

Plato's records of Socrates are among my favorite, because of his view on how inherent human ignorance can be quite enlightening

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Kinda. I have a minor degree in philosophy. Most of it was centered around ethics. I just find different ways of thinking to be interesting and it's helped change and form my own ways of processing information.

 

[entremet]

I took a bunch of philosophy courses in university, and like you OP, I heavily enjoyed them.

I mostly enjoyed the learning aspect of the courses. Reading about how people of long ago thought and saw the world was fascinating. I started to despise philosophical debates, though, as I kept taking those classes because it never seemed like people wanted to discuss the material and ideology; instead they just wanted to seek justification for their personal worldviews.

My focus is not on who is better or what is right, but gaining bits of wisdom from various philosophers and schools of thought.

Like you, I'm not really interested in who is right--Plato versus Aristotle--and other stuff like that.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

I'm studying philosophy in university right now because I prefer deductive reasoning to inductive reasoning, and writing assignments are a huge part of a degree. When I was taking psychology courses it was all "citation, citation, citation", and it kind of killed all the enthusiasm that I had for the subject. That said I'm not even all that logically oriented of a person, but if I can't (at least clumsily) work from a set of premises and conclusions my reasoning ability feels even more crippled. I actually want to be a Buddhist chaplain in the prison system, though, so philosophy is probably only related in the sense that both disciplines involve reading and interpreting difficult texts.

 

[old]

I tried Zizek but grew bored. I was reading what I already knew.

 

[oreomunsta]

I'm studying philosophy in university right now because I prefer deductive reasoning to inductive reasoning, and writing assignments are a huge part of a degree. When I was taking psychology courses it was all "citation, citation, citation", and it kind of killed all the enthusiasm that I had for the subject. That said I'm not even all that logically oriented of a person, but if I can't (at least clumsily) work from a set of premises and conclusions my reasoning ability feels even more crippled. I actually want to be a Buddhist chaplain in the prison system, though, so philosophy is probably only related in the sense that both disciplines involve reading and interpreting difficult texts.

Keep at it, even if you feel clumsy at it right now :] critical thinking skills are huge, and you'd be surprised at how many successful people have degrees in philosophy even though they're in finances, tech, etc

 

[Ovid]

I took a few philosophy courses in college as well. It really opens up your perspective on everyday things.

I liked reading about Descartes and his "Meditations on First Phillosophy". I also enjoyed learning about Kant's thinking on how the mind played an active role in building the around us.

I'm studying philosophy in university right now because I prefer deductive reasoning to inductive reasoning, and writing assignments are a huge part of a degree. When I was taking psychology courses it was all "citation, citation, citation", and it kind of killed all the enthusiasm that I had for the subject. That said I'm not even all that logically oriented of a person, but if I can't (at least clumsily) work from a set of premises and conclusions my reasoning ability feels even more crippled. I actually want to be a Buddhist chaplain in the prison system, though, so philosophy is probably only related in the sense that both disciplines involve reading and interpreting difficult texts.

I bet Schopenhauer is your favorite.

 

[Air]

Yeah, I love philosophy. I've been meaning to read through meditations and other classic stuff but I don't really have the time.

Edit: philosophy is the only thing that matters

 

[thequickandthedead]

I really enjoyed my philosophy course at college. Then I tried reading some philosophy texts on my own. Stuff like Plato is really accessible but fuck Hegel man.

 

[entremet]

I really enjoyed my philosophy course at college. Then I tried reading some philosophy texts on my own. Stuff like Plato is really accessible but fuck Hegel man.

Check different translations. It makes a huge difference with classic texts.

Cool thing is that most of these are public domain so essentially free if you have online connection.

 

[Ovid]

I really enjoyed my philosophy course at college. Then I tried reading some philosophy texts on my own. Stuff like Plato is really accessible but fuck Hegel man.

Lol, Hegel is notoriously difficult to read.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Lol, Hegel is notoriously difficult to read.

Would you see he is more, less, or relatively equivalent to reading Kant.

 

[Ovid]

Would you see he is more, less, or relatively equivalent to reading Kant.

More difficult to read than Kant.

 

[99hertz]

I do but mostly for a philosophy of life, which at this point is mix of Epicureanism and Stoicism. I avoid indulging too much in vain pleasures, accumulation of money, sex and romantic relationships. I get anxiety around people so Stoicism is helpful in my day to day life (especially Marcus Aurelius, guy didn't exactly loved people). The problem with Epicureanism (for me) is that Epicurus was obsessed with friendship but I don't see friendship as worth the trouble it involves for me. The problem with Stoicism is the virtue horseshit but the Roman stoics were more into tranquility.

For people insterested in this but don't know where to start, here are some books I liked:
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
Tending the Epicurean Garden by Hiram Crespo

Other books I recommend are:
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty by Harry Browne
Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker

Those last two are not philosophical books but they're good source for different views about the world and tools on how to live a worthwhile life, so they're not exactly unrelated.
If I had too pick one from each set I would read Irvine and Fisker.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Keep at it, even if you feel clumsy at it right now :] critical thinking skills are huge, and you'd be surprised at how many successful people have degrees in philosophy even though they're in finances, tech, etc

That is kind of my thinking on it, too, I think it might make for the best 'general' education. I'm also more in a position now where my thinking is more permeable to different perspectives. I used to cling more to certain ideological viewpoints as sort of a self-protection mechanism, but lately I've become more comfortable with uncertainty. Like recently I took an epistemology class, and it was mostly contemporary stuff, and practically every day we'd learn a theory that contradicted or challenged the previous one. I could tell a lot of people in the class were getting frustrated at the complete lack of consensus, but I ended up finding the mind-warping lack of certainty kind of invigorating, lol.

I bet Schopenhauer is your favorite.

That's a good guess!

 

[Steamlord]

I minored in it, but I still don't feel like I know anything about it. I suppose that's the point.

 

[Davidion]

Lol, Hegel is notoriously difficult to read.

I can pinpoint reading Hegel as the EXACT event in my college studies that turned me off from reading philosophy more seriously. The EXACT I-can't-be-bothered-with-this-shit moment

Thankfully I kept coming back to philosophy avocationally, but I still don't read as much as I'd like to.

People have no idea how even basic understanding of philosophy can help put them head and shoulders above so many others in terms of critical thinking ability.

 

[burntchomsky]

Would you see he is more, less, or relatively equivalent to reading Kant.

I would say that if you are going to be reading 19th century philosophers, you would vastly benefit by reading some sort of book that explains intellectual culture / history of philosophy at that time, and why the philosophers were approaching topics as they did. If you understand the context better and why certain issues were important to Kant, Kant ends up being fairly easy to read. Hegel...well Hegel is always pretty obscure.

Also, I'd highly recommend reading Dosotoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov to those interested in avocational philosophy reading. Great philosophy and great literature all in one!

 

[entremet]

I minored in it, but I still don't feel like I know anything about it. I suppose that's the point.

Most people forget everything they learned in college, so don't feel too bad lol.

 

[HarryHengst]

I got a degree in history but to be honest i now wish i went with philosophy instead. But i guess that i had never discovered philosophy without history, as i went with ancient history as my specialization which led to discovering Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I would say that if you are going to be reading 19th century philosophers, you would vastly benefit by reading some sort of book that explains intellectual culture / history of philosophy at that time, and why the philosophers were approaching topics as they did. If you understand the context better and why certain issues were important to Kant, Kant ends up being fairly easy to read. Hegel...well Hegel is always pretty obscure.

Also, I'd highly recommend reading Dosotoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov to those interested in avocational philosophy reading. Great philosophy and great literature all in one!

I've taken historical philosophy classes, but the focus basically went from Spinoza to Hume to Kant and sort of ignored Hegel and a few others during the age of enlightenment. And I hadn't gotten around to reading them yet. Kant was the more obtuse of the bunch so I use him as a measure of difficulty for now.

 

[appaws]

I like Aquinas a lot, but is has been a few years. I find Rawls interesting but simplistic, wrong, and terrifying in his totalitarian implications. A lot of you would probably really like him.

I spent a summer during undergrad with John Stuart Mill, very enlightening but not really what people would expect.

My love of Coleridge attracted me to neo-platonism, but I didn't find much of it very engrossing. I am not sure whether it is just dry and difficult, or if my taste for this stuff has changed over the years. I have been reading more history and novels, so maybe I have lost some of the mental vigor it takes to read philosophy well.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

I lean more towards psychology, sociology, etc. Studies of how people think and interact with others and less discussions of ideologies. I should give classical philosophy a shot, though, for a different sort of baseline.

 

[HerbertBirdsfoot]

Yeah, I like to read philosophy. Mostly I read it in conjunction with history. Philosophy courses were some of my favorites in college, but I think I only took three of them.

This podcast is really good for history of philosophy:
http://historyofphilosophy.net/