I've never had that much of a problem with reading but I have a harder time with texts such as the Meditations or the Art of War. Are there any tips on how to read philosophical and strategical texts?
>>7502043
Hope you reincarnate as a human with an IQ over 150. It's literally the only way. Anyone with an IQ lower than the is practically brain dead comepared to these authors and will be, without a doubt, unable to comprehend these texts.
If you have an IQ under 150, don't even try. You will simply misunderstand.
>>7502043
it's okay to read them many, many, times until you get it, it's only the fiction that is designed to be consumed quickly and become stale after one round.
>>7502043
>Meditations
which one,are you talking about Marcus Aurelius or Descartes? Because if it's Marcus Aurelius' you might be retarded senpai.
Not OP but how are you supposed to read 'The World as Will and Representation'? People said it was a straightforward text but after reading the first few pages I am confused as fuck.
I get the gist and grasp the concepts but I have no fucking idea what Schopenhauer is talking about 99% of the time until he expands on it in simple terms.
>>7502129
That's a hard book although it's by a clear writer. So I don't think it could be explained any better by anyone although keep in mind he was desperate for literary fame.
I can't say I've read it all either (I'm just starting in philosophy and it's still on the list), I think it is the first time we come across the Will as an explanation for the existence of all the things and then asks: what are things really but representations to us? Kant, Plato and Darwin are the required reading before hand if I remember correctly.
>>7502047
>it's a bragpost
>my image.jpg when
>>7502043
G R E E K S
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Can I read Wittgenstein just like that? Do I need some introduction to him? Is there an introductory book to him?
>>7503381
There are two books on Wittgenstein by Ray Monk, which I love, IMHO The Duty Of Genius (biography + history of Witty's philosophy) is a great read and introduction
>>7502047
idiots, wich never read books shudnt be shilling on reading-tips request threads.
bad anon, bad.
Read a history of Philosophy, or just a general book on philosophy and it's jargon. Meditations isn't very difficult, if you find that hard you'll struggle with works like Theaetetus or CoPR. But as with any field, if you put in the effort, you'll improve.
>>7503391
Btw that post was assuming you meant the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, not Descartes.
>>7502047
So you are saying that every philosophy student is a genius? Topkek
Read + take notes.
Philosophy is useless, its just endless jargon and wordword.
If you want to understand human experience, just walk around your city for an entire day and watch people go about their routine. You'll realise everyone is a compartmentalized fuckboi isolated and withdrawn, forever toeing the line of acceptable behavior and completely boring and bored.
The fun people are the degenerates, criminals, mentally ill, homeless, the dregs and scum of society are unpredictable and live a vicarious and engaged life, full of suffering misery happiness joy victories and defeats.
Everyone else goes home tired to argue with the only people in the world who even care they exist.
>>7503381
Skip Witty and go straight to Derrida
>>7503797
get a load of this jabroni
Read them qualitatively, not quantitatively
>>7503381
First Wittgenstein: Meinong, Frege, Russell, Moore.
Second Wittgenstein: First Wittgenstein, Augustine, Kant, Kierkegaard, Heidegger.
Very very last Wittgenstein: Second Wittgenstein, Hegel.
>>7503797
Are you 15 years old?
>>7502043
Philosophical texts are rarely texts that you can read once and be done with. They benefit from careful re-readings.
Take note of the form of a given philosophical work. Treatises are different from dialogues, which are different from poems, which are different from aphorisms, which are different from polemics, etc. Before you can dismiss or say you've finished dealing with a philosopher's written work, you have to have some account of why they chose that form over some other one, and how it is that the form relates to the contents.
Try and figure out who the audience for a given text is, since that may qualify some of its contents. Descartes wrote so as to be taken seriously by the scholastics, who he was subtly refuting. Leibniz wrote with either Cartesian or Scholastic premises in his essays, depending on who he was addressing. Aristotle's Ethics is written for "serious men" who aren't philosophers. Kant writes for fellow academics. The "Communist Manifesto" is addressed to different European socialist communities. An element of a text that strikes one as surprisingly conformist might be better explained by considering the audience, and how they might affect the author.
Read slowly. It might be a different story with comparatively more modern philosophers, but ancient and early modern philosophers were among the best educated in their societies, and they're perfectly aware of how to use rhetorical devices (for example, Hobbes considers the use of metaphor to be a strict abuse of language in the Leviathan, but then he goes on to use plenty of metaphors all throughout, which should give the slow reader pause to wonder what he's doing).
*If* you can, and *if* you have the time for it, try to work out what premises the author might be working by. Do they bring them up explicitly? If not, is there any indication that they're aware of them, as either necessary, or as a problem they're concealing for some reason or another?
Pay enough attention to contradictions, and try to work them out first before dismissing them as mistakes or as the result of faulty thinking. There might be some passage that resolves it, after all.
>>7502129
Same problem here. I bought the original one in german with lots of footnotes and shit. I finished the first of four chapters but i didnt get most of it. Later that summer i read myth of sysifus by camus and thought i get what schoppenhauer was trying to say cause it seemed very similar. (only the metaphysical part pf course.)
