I started reading books almost 3 years ago, for the starter I borrowed 5 point someone by Chetan Bhagat from one of my friend, after that I had got into self-help and personal finance books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, Subtle art of not giving a ****, Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck, Do epic sh*t, get epic sh*t done etc.
For all this time I have used youtube and google searches as my source of book suggestion, while scrolling I got to know the concept of Ubermensch ( Super man ) by Fredrick Nietzsche, it caught my attention and interest and so I tried to read 'Thus spoke Zarathustra' but the book felt very confusing to me, I discussed it to one of my friend and he told me that I must start with some basic philosophy books before going to 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'.
I absolutely want to dive deeper into Philosophy but don't know where to start, please suggest me some simple starter books for philosophy.
by Pretty_Towel_6664
2 Comments
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
I think it is very difficult to give suggestions for books on philosophy because Philosophy is too vast a subject. The first thing you need to do is segregate every book you mentioned in your first paragraph from philosophy. I do not like saying that about books but those are absolute trash books (if one reads them and enjoys them, good for them).
The next best thing you can do is to not read philosophers directly at this stage, Nietzsche is an extremely complex writer that most with years of professional reading also struggle. Many giants like Russell are thought of as people who misunderstood him. But that goes for nearly all philosophers.
One of my uncles used to tell me that when he was young, he asked one of his professors on how and what to read philosophy and his answer was “go read history for 10 years and then come back and read philosophy”. While this advice is a little extreme and is said purely for a dramatic effect, it holds some truth. I would say it is almost always essential to understand philosophy in the context it was being said. Understand that context first, everything else comes later.
But if you want to skip all that, I would still recommend you look into branches of philosophy and see which one interests you the most. For instance, I have been reading for years, but I almost never read anything on ethics or for the most part even metaphysics. Think what interests you and then ask suggestions for those books. I am sure you will get better responses and suggestions.