Hey /lit/, I'm trying to familiarize myself with philosophy, and thought it'd be a good idea to read something that serves as an overall preview of philosophy, rather than to start right off with the pre-Socrates texts.
Which one should I read first out of pic related?
>>8092985
Fuck, I didn't realize the pic was upside down
>>8092985
Read the Russell book. It is partisan, but actually engages with the philosophical content of each thinker. Durant was a pop historian, and had no clue about philosophy.
The best single volume history is Kenny (2012).
Durant is surprisingly good and very readable. I think he's a great writer. It's good for a quick overview of some major modern philosophers at least. But his coverage of pre-modern philosophers is more of a character study than a synopsis, and he peters out after Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (as much as I like Bergson). Even his coverage of the latter is kind of skewed by the lack of critical distance and benefit of hindsight. Nietzsche became a lot more important soon after Durant wrote. But still, good overview.
Russell is better to read once you already know a decent amount about philosophy, because it's basically just an autistic pedant rambling about how everyone who disagrees with him believes silly things.
The best way to think about learning philosophy, when you're just starting out, is in terms of quantity and not quality. It's way better to just read a bunch of shit than to try to nail everything down from one "perfect" book. The whole process is so jagged and uneven, there are so many threads that need to be woven into one another, that there is just no way to learn philosophy completely "cleanly." You should still try to be rigorous about it, but don't feel bad about Wikipedia'ing Nietzsche, or reading Routledge "So You're a Total Dumbass" Editions Presents: A Very Short Introduction to Nietzsche, For Total Dumbasses.
>>8093014
What are your academic qualifications?
>>8093014
Great post. Exactly what I was going to say about Durant: it's a book much more about the lifestyles the philosophers lived (and how these were reflected in their works) than just their writings alone. Little character sketches that ease you into their writing. Very accessible, and does a good job of making you excited to pursue the philosophers further.
