Philosophy books Aren't Meant To Be Enjoyed - The Honeymoon Problem
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- Do you find yourself yearning to read philosophy, but never quite had the commitment to pull through the challenge? Here's a bitter truth that one has to swallow.
Visit the blog for more content:
www.thequirkyin...
I have a degree in philosophy and as soon as you said "the metaphysics of Kant" I literally WINCED 😭 There was no honeymoon period because it was essential reading for my degree. Three weeks into university, we were forced to read Kant's ethics, which is easier than his metaphysics, but it still sent ALL of us into a deep mental abyss of despair where we all just wanted to drink ourselves into oblivion. Philosophy is damn hard, but it's also so much FUN, when you've plugged away at a text or an argument for ages and something finally starts to click. I went ignorantly into my degree because I didn't get accepted to a snobbish creative writing school, and whilst I spent most days swearing, cursing and spitting at my reading, I also really love twisting my brain like that? (I didn't read even ONE actual BOOK from start to finish during my degree. We read essays, antologies and selected chapters. But rarely, if ever, entire books. If philosophy is for you, I suggest you do some broad reading through essays and anthologies before delving into the books themselves. It's like watching the trailer to Lord of the Rings before committing to the entire trilogy.)
You wrote this v well !
Iam also a doctorat student in philosophy, you were right philosophy is damn hard its took me 3 month to finish thus spoke zarathustra but it was worth it
no
@@connorkearley7381 yes
@@assiakessai doctorate my ass
Really love the idea of inspectional reading it's like taking the book on a date before taking it home.
😂😂😂😂 bruh you got me dead . you take it home to smash it
Somewhat related....If you read a bunch of books on any given topic, learning and memorizing certain sophisticated points, maybe even accumulating lots of such information, and then recite these interesting and sophisticated observations in discussion or in writing ------ IT DOES NOT MAKE YOU SOPHISTICATED. It makes you a good parrot.
Philosophy students who regurgitate secondary readings are not thereby good at philosophy. In fact, it's those students who run to secondary texts that retard their philosophical growth -- because they put off doing the real hard work, the work necessary to developing philosophical skills: struggling through the problems on your own. Philosophy students, simply because they have deadlines to meet, often run to secondary literature instead of toiling through the primary sources.
Philosophy is strenuous. Most people -- heck, most philosophy students -- don't know just how strenuous it is. The better you get at philosophy, the harder it will seem to you, because you'll realize just how hard you have to work to do anything of quality. When you can't produce quality work, then you're simply guessing at what it actually takes to do so. It's people with low ability, with shallow understanding, that read philosophy books in a month. People have written entire dissertations on one paragraph by Aristotle. If you can't fathom that, it's because you have no idea of the depth quality study, quality philosophy, often requires.
Chill
im so proud of myself that im in my early 15’s and i can perfectly grasp what you’re saying whilst living in a generation where speaking if front of a classroom makes u brave or making a TikTok video on a certain topic maybe on meditation makes you spiritual. im waffling at this point but idk this small rant is just to relieve that feeling ive been holding on to
Pens Suck Such a long paragraph that doesn’t say anything other than philosophy is damn hard, it’s strenuous, and people, philosophy students, just don’t get that. But you seem to get that.
I've just started reading philosophy books and I read the same book 2 times and it took me many months to be able to grasp what Aristotle was trying to say. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right or just taking too long since it wasn't enjoyable. This video explains a lot, thanks for making it!
See Arthur Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines for a humbling expectation of how much one has to carefully read a book unlimited amounts of time (for understanding is truly the quest for understanding) to understand a single book which, in turn, limits the amount of books we can actually read in a lifetime. Hence the need to read only the greatest things one can read (the politics of what contitutes a book great or canonical is merely a secondary question). See Leo Strauss' What is Liberal Education?, and his Liberal Education and Responsibility both found in his anthology Liberalism: Ancient and Modern.
If there is any teleology in the world, then it is at least the teleology of one who progresses in understanding, no matter how gradual or incremental---This alone is admirable and worthy of living, no matter the toil of study. See Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life and Etienne Gilson's Love and Wisdom in St. Thomas Aquinas.
You know what i really like aboutyour videos? Even tho i might know nothing about the subjectyou are introducing in the video, i can still follow along and listen to your explanation, your debate. It broadens my horizons. Thanks a lot dude
As a law student, I had to read excerpts of Kants work on society and law and I was 19 years old then. Sometimes I wanted to bang my head but my teacher was very patient and helped me out through it. And again I encountered the subject jurisprudence, which is basically philosophy of law. There were no honeymoon period but will be always thankful to my teachers
I experienced the honeymoon period with kierkegaard, I began to understand Fear and Trembling but stopped halfway ahhh. I'm going to make it my mission to read it inspectionally this year. Thank you for this perspective!
Not gonna lie Kierkegaard's other stuff was more interesting to me than Fear and Trembling, personally; read Sickness unto Death, Either/Or, or Purity of Heart and it'll be hard to put any of those suckers down
@@mitchellm2208 Yh my copy of Fear and Trembling is a dual book, it also has Sickness unto Death in the back. I think Fear and Trembling will always have a special place in my heart, but sickness unto death is great too.
how is it going :)
ni
Well said! Seems like there's a lot of similarity between philosophy and pure maths in terms of really challenging your thought
I'm beginging to read philosophy and finding it extremely exciting, and your experience with philosophy is equipping me well to tackle it better.
Can anyone recommend some more youtube vlogers covering their experience with philosophy
You can check epoch philosophy, theory and philosophy out. However none of these provide as a substitute for actual reading books.
Grandpa kitchen
My new favorite channel
important thing you said was "know when to cut your loses" It took me 2 years of studying philosophy before i could read and "understand" Nietzsche
This is a great video! The point of studying the text rather than just reading it passively is crucial.
I wonder if you'd enjoy reading something like A Course In Miracles?
Buen video. ¿Has pensado en la posibilidad de subtitular tus videos al español? Eso ayudaría a que llegues a más público
People become disenchanted when they have to read the body of someones work to find how they reached their conclusion. Instead of hearing the conclusion and just say "I think that's right. Sounds right"...
If I have learned something after working as an addictions therapist for many years it is this. Any theory that cannot be simply explained is unlikely to be true. People might enjoy twisting their mind around 'complex' ideas but there are no complex ideas. Look at it like this, the road to a conclusion may be complex but the theory that comes out of it, the refined gold, is always meant to be to the point and clear, or you have failed as a philosopher.
Shards Of Divinities is an incredible novel that will transform you spiritually and intellectually. It's about the intersection between science/logic and religion/spirituality. The novel is available on that site named after a river in South America.
Well said BRO.....no shortcuts....
New sub, despite my love of literature and skepticism towards most philosophy.
Try reading Joyce and Nabokov and make the same argument about the ease with which they can be read.
I disagree with your view on Literature; I do think that reading literature shapes reality somehow.
Totally true this video. 👍
Subbed. I needed to hear this.
back in 2016 i read some markus aurelius in the train - before work. after reading 2 little paragraphs i always fell asleep.
today i'm like: alright let's dive deep into the next 3000 pages of derrida!
it's a very pleasant but slow journey. love it!
PHILOSOPHY IS NOT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE READING, BUT TO OPEN YOUR MIND TO NEW IDEAS AND OPEN YOUR MIND WORLD TO THE ABYSS OF THE UNIVERSE OF THOUGHTS.
This is completely untrue. Yet its about opening your mind, but its also about understanding what you are reading. If you don't understand it as a uni student, you will fail.
How can your mind be opened if not through understanding? Isn't that the point?
Okay, Deepak Chopra.
What's the point of opening your mind, if you don't seek to understand anyway?
Agree with your claims about how to read philosophy, but I think you give fiction short shrift. If reading philosophy "rewires" your brain, reading good fiction develops your capacity for empathy.
See Arthur Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines for a humbling expectation of how much one has to carefully read a book unlimited amounts of time (for understanding is truly the quest for understanding) to understand a single book which, in turn, limits the amount of books we can actually read in a lifetime. Hence the need to read only the greatest things one can read (the politics of what contitutes a book great or canonical is merely a secondary question). See Leo Strauss' What is Liberal Education?, and his Liberal Education and Responsibility both found in his anthology Liberalism: Ancient and Modern.
If there is any teleology in the world, then it is at least the teleology of one who progresses in understanding, no matter how gradual or incremental---This alone is admirable and worthy of living, no matter the toil of study. See Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life and Etienne Gilson's Love and Wisdom in St. Thomas Aquinas.
As a novice, where should I start with philosophy? I have only read some Descartes.
Start where you are interested. Most philosophical arguments start from an assumption about the world. If you don’t agree with the assumption, whatever follows will be harder to grasp. Start reading survey books, find the arguments or ideas that catch your eye, and start exploring the literature there. Hopefully, you will be given some of the tools to start exploring more complex philosophy and perhaps even writing some of your own!
I would also recommend getting a general overview first before diving into specific authors/schools of thought
@@preasidium13 Nah, Philosophy is not like history; you can't just read anything that interests you. It's more like math, where ideas build on other ideas, you can't understand Hegel without reading Kant and it is an absolute necessity to read Descartes before Kant.
This is old but Im one of the ppl that needed to hear this lol
I love your channel please do a vid about paradaigm
I will get to it tomorrow hopefully! Thanks for stopping by!
So are you saying that the contemporary philosophers probably took around 2 months to read and object to the latest philosophy at the time, 2 months seems excessive 😢
It's which book of Foucault??
People always say this but ive cried most reading satre , Camus, Kafka , dostoevsky
One word. Quality.
All the ones apart from mine
Bro said you can read Göhte just for enjoyment💀💀
Philosophy books Aren't Meant To Be Enjoyed? stop reading foucault and read barthes
Nice
learn astrology.
some books are too heavy for me to pick up 😱
e