Question I have a question on how to study philosophy; that is, should I start from the text or from the lectures? Is it better to listen to lectures and look at summaries/webpages before going on to the text, or to struggle with the text in the beginning and start from the concepts that arise from it? Thanks - from a Junior; student of philosophy

Accepted:
July 7, 2009

Comments

I am glad you got in touch. It is always nice to (virtually) meet serious students like yourself.

Your question seems to acknowledge two strategies, each with its own pitfalls. (1) Fight every inch to understand the original texts on your own and then go to the videos and lectures or (2) use the supplements first, even though they may unduly influence your own interpretations of the texts once you get to them.

Surely either way you will make some headway in terms of understanding philosophy. I bet the purists would say only (1) will do. But these purists may be biased, being already trained in philosophy. I think whether strategy 1 or 2 is better may depend your own personal learning style.

Some people love to tinker; they love to take things apart to see how it all fits together. More than once I have begun a knitting project, for example, just to see how all those knots are supposed to come together. (Memo to the brown wool sweater: I will figure you out yet!) If this metaphor describes how your mind works I think you might be best off reading the original texts on your own, trying to make sense of it all, and then going on to see what others have written. On the other hand, if you are the kind of person who likes to listen to stories, who gets wrapped up eavesdropping on other diners' conversations at restaurants, then I think you should go to the supplements first. Some people are just more attuned to narrative and it could be very helpful to them to have the philosophical 'story' laid out first, as only a few philosophers write in an explicitly narrative way.

A caution about websites for supplements: although that nerdy student project posted on youtube.com may offer a hilarious depiction of Descartes being bossed around by Queen Christina, you might want to stick with websites that have content vetted or posted by professional philosophers. In addition to askphilosophers.org, I can also recommend the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu), Ethics Updates on the Web (ethics.sandiego.edu), and No Dogs or Philosophers Allowed (nodogs.org). Good luck!

Perhaps there are three different issues hereabouts,

There's the question of whether the best route in for beginners is via texts (written material) or via lectures and other media.
There's the question of whether first to struggle with "original" texts (meaning articles or books which were/are supposed to be making novel contributions, whenever they were written) or to approach issues via textbook treatments and other works more or less intended for beginners ("supplements", to borrow Lisa Cassidy's word).
There's the question of whether to approach things via "original" historical texts (meaning now, in particular, writings by the Great Dead Philosophers) or to start with more contemporary materials.

On (1), lectures might be fun and helpful because they tend to be more relaxed and unbuttoned than written texts: but if you are going to study philosophy then, inevitably, you are going to be doing a lot of reading from the very start. Moreover, since the arguments quickly become intricate, you need to go slowly to disentangle them and will repeatedly need to backtrack: so you'll want to see the arguments carefully written down.

On (2), there are some wonderful introductory books available these days -- books that are serious, genuinely illuminating about the issues, and are accessible without trying to soft-pedal difficulties. If I had to choose just one intended for beginners, it would be my colleague Simon Blackburn's terrific Think. But there are plenty more. And in my experience, beginners get a heck of a lot more understanding of the philosophical issues out of good modern books of this kind than they do trying to tackle "original" texts (in the sense of books or articles that are -- or were in their day -- trying to make original, ground-breaking, moves). Which is hardly very surprising!

As to (3), too many of my professional colleagues make a bit of a fetish of the Great Dead Philosophers (in a way that those philosophers probably think is rather bizarre, as they amusedly watch our antics from Elysium). And I've certainly never heard any good argument why beginners at philosophy should have these texts thrust upon them, any more than we should give beginning physicists Newton's Principia to read. After all, the Great Works of the Past are in part selected for their complexity and resistance to easy construal -- they are very hard to understand when ripped away from some appreciation of the remote historical contexts which set their particular agendas. It is difficult enough for beginners to get to grips with our philosophical problems let alone trying to get into (say) Aristotle's mindset and understand the problems he had. Still, you probably will have to battle with some historical texts (far too) early in your philosophical education: and you'll absolutely need the good modern commentaries if you are to make any real sense of them.