It is my understanding that depression is a medical problem--and one that can be effectively treated. My advice (not especially philosophical, admittedly) is to have a talk with your physician.

Well, perhaps it will reassure you to know that there are several jokes about philosophers as social beings. One of my favorites is a cartoon labeled "philosophers at a party." All are staring off in space, obviously pondering some abstract question; none are interacting with anyone else in the room. Maybe you have also seen Monty Python's soccer match involving philosophers--again, all are so lost in thought they cannot manage to engage in the contest at all (until somehow Socrates figures out what he is supposed to do). So, OK, maybe we are not generally all that much fun to party with, and philosophers notoriously question others in areas they would prefer not to be questioned, which can cause a degree of social friction. But I guess I would caution you about allowing this stereotype (which I grant may have some basis in truth) to allow you to think of what you call your "quandary." To be more specific, if you have deficits in interpersonal skills, these will also create problems...

Let's go slow here. First, philosophers generally distinguish between the validity of an argument and the soundness of an argument. A valid argument is one whose inferences are of a truth preserving form. In other words, in a valid argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion will also be true, in every case, and without counter-example. A sound argument is one that is valid and also has all premises true. If one has a sound argument for one's position, it should be game over. But... Unless arguments are already in the formal language of logic, establishing even validity can be difficult, because there are different ways of translating natural languages into formal logic. Participants in any verbal or oral debate might not share the same agreement about how such a translation should be done. And this is not even the main problem here...once you get into debates about interpretation regarding the truth of premises, especially on very abstract subjects, where all of the...

I would certainly like to know these questions...and the three-year-old child who has such wisdom! Surely this question is a joke...?

There are forms of determinism (called "compatibilism" or "soft determinism") in which determinism and things like choice or personal responsibility are regarded as compatible. But the more traditional versions of determinism ("hard determinism") and solipsism seem to be philosophical positions that are not "livable." In other words, one cannot sensibly choose to be a determinist, or decide to live in accordance with the principle that we cannot really choose or decide anything, just as one cannot sensibly try to convince someone else that solipsism is true. Notice that the problem of being unlivable is not the same as being logically incoherent or inherently senseless. The idea that no one else in the world has consciousness or mental states isn't incoherent, but it would make what I am doing right now (trying to answer your question) weird, at best. But even if these positions were in some sense formally incoherent, that does not at all mean that they could not affect someone's behavior....

The advice, "Act; don't think!" would be good advice if thoughtless action was likely to be good action. Since I see no reason to suppose that people would reliably act well when they fail to deliberate, I think the advice to act thoughtlessly is bad advice. There are several problems here, in fact. One is that good action can sometimes be somewhat difficult to discern, and may engage somewhat conflicting impulses. Take a case that happens often these days: One is approached by a sad-looking homeless person, who asks for some money. One's first impulse might be to give the person some money, because one feels sorry for the person. But then, one might (not unreasonably) suspect that the money would not actually serve any real benefit--it might simply go to feeding an alcohol or drug addiction, which is a major part of why the person is in such bad shape. Should one then refuse, but make a donation to the local homeless shelter? Or perhaps some other charity? Or...? Acting simply on impulse here...

Anyone who supposes that philosophy (the word means "love of wisdom") is self-sufficient is probably not a very good philosopher. Most philosophers continue throughout their careers to learn everything they can about cognate disciplines, and what these disciplines have to say about the issues we study. In some fields (philosophy of physics, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind, for examples) one can hardly function at a professional level these days without substantial learning in "non-philosophical" areas. Those who love learning, I think, are the most likely to advance knowledge in any field.

Reading philosophy can be difficult even for those of us deeply engaged in the profession, so don't feel bad that you are finding it difficult. In fact, most of us who do lots of reading of these materials actually don't "go it alone" in the way you are trying to do--we read, then discuss with others, which often helps us to avoid misunderstanding (as well as motivates us to continue, when the going gets slow). So here are a couple of suggestions: (1) Find others who are interested in reading these kinds of materials. Then figure out what you want to "assign" to yourselves as readings, and meet once a week (or once a month, or...the main thing is to have a regular schedule that works for the people involved, and to which they can commit themselves) to discuss what you have read, and to consider what you want to read and discuss next. (2) Take an evening class at your local community college. This will get you back into practice, and will give you (in the classroom and in the person...

It sounds to me as if you are off to a great start, Steve. No one can really predict how one would become a Plato, Aristotle, or Kant. Greatness such as theirs, plainly, only comes very rarely and may skip many generations before appearing yet again. My advice, for what it is worth (not myself being anything even close to a Plato, Aristotle, or Kant!), is merely to aim to keep growing, intellectually, all of your life. Whether one's work ends up being regarded as great, or merely good, or mediocre, or simply foolish is not up to the one who does the work--it is up to those others who judge it. Because you have no control over what others will think of you and your ideas, I would urge you not to give too much attention to trying to achieve whatever they would require, in order to consider you great. Instead, find what it is that makes you passionate, that calls out for your attention to such a degree that you find your mind drifting back to it even when it is socially inappropriate to do...

The list of such texts will either be very long (if you allow that not absolutely all philosophers need to read each one), or else there will be no such list (if you insist that absolutely all philosophers should have read each one). Philosophy has come to have so many sub-disciplines that it is quite possible for someone to be very good in field X and yet never have read any of the basic texts in some other field(s). Also, the closer we get to the present day, historically, the more difficult it becomes to name the texts that are going to be the "classics" of philosophy. The safest answer to questions such as yours would be to look at the lists of texts taught in most history of philosophy classes (those covering ancient Greek through 19th Century European philosophy). What professors assign to their students in these classes are generally regarded as very important works of philosophy that good philosophers would do well to have read and understood.