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If in earnest, then in any way, without special education!
you need knowledge of ancient Greek, Latin and German, knowledge of the history of the church, the history of philosophy, and just world history, this knowledge will allow you to really understand what philosophers write about.
We should start with Parmenides and Heraclitus, running through the history of the origin of philosophy first, then think about Zeno. And then, if nothing confused you at all, or nothing seemed interesting, or you didn't see any problems… forget about philosophy, or think again, and again, and again. Repeat until you feel respect and hatred for Zeno.
Then-go to the store or library for Plato, it is advisable to find a publication with good comments, they will make reading incredibly easier and help in immersion.
When you think you understand something, spit it out and reread it. When you think that you are used to the style of writing-spit it out and forget it, everyone has their own style, although they may be similar. And not in style, as a rule, the case.
After a dozen approaches to Plato, continue with Aristotle. And then in chronological order.
I will repeat what I have already said many times: since there is an Internet connection in Russia, find someone who is also eager to read philosophical works, and even better, if it is a person with a philosophical education.
In the short version, the scheme is simple: historical reference-read – reread – discussed – reread-read criticism – reread – discussed. Repeat with the entire list of philosophers, returning as needed.
Read Justine Gorder's fiction novel “The World of Sofia”. In my opinion, it is a light version of Bertrand Russell's ” History of Western Philosophy.” It is read with interest.
No way.
If “appropriate education” means university education – then the answer depends on the level of understanding and knowledge of the material that the questioner is interested in.
If we are talking about general cultural knowledge, the level of “general understanding”, then self – education is quite possible here-starting with publicly available introductions and popular texts, such as Bertrand Russell's “History of Western Philosophy”, etc. If we are talking about a more independent, personal interest in philosophical problems, then it is more useful for self-education to read classical philosophical texts (Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc.), since they were also written for readers, checking their understanding with the most well-known interpretations (and in case of terminological difficulties, referring to philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias).
Such self-education has its limits – in fact, the peculiarity of university education is not only in its systematic nature (which, with proper discipline, can also be implemented within the framework of self-education), but also in communication about the problems under consideration: discussing the texts being studied and repeatedly returning to them from different angles makes it possible to compare one's understanding with another, justify it, etc. We are not necessarily talking about basic higher education itself, there are various forms of further education, with different requirements for the entrance level of knowledge (for example, master's programs, postgraduate studies, medium-and long-term internships and seminars, including installation and training ones – – but if the interest goes beyond the introductory one, then further study involves entering the relevant communities.
I do not agree with the opinion that this is impossible without a certain education. (And even more so if we talk about modern higher education and its necessity).
Three points with which all this can be done very realistically::
“History of Western Thinking”. The book is very accessible and understandable for the stage of familiarization. koob.ru
coursera.org Of course, I did not reveal the secret, but I will not tire of repeating that this site has a huge number of excellent explanations and discussions of philosophical works. (Here, for example, is a course on modernity and postmodernism coursera.org). Plus, you'll improve your English level.
Another source postnauka.ru (this is if you are really bad at English)
And yes, using all these methods and other charms of online education, believe me, in the same year of active training, your level of awareness in philosophical topics will be several orders of magnitude higher than that of people with a “crust”.
“Korochka” provides not only awareness of philosophical topics, but also guarantees a correct understanding of texts, at least within the academic tradition. It is not enough to dig through the primary sources and their criticism in a volume larger than the university one, and no hermeneutics will arise from this in the bowels of consciousness. Probably, only high-quality critical thinking will allow this method of familiarization not to become another “pop philosopher” who knows Nietzsche's quote about the whip.
And therefore, you can read and understand philosophical texts without special education only in a limited number, mostly cultural, historical, philosophical, semi-artistic, and partially ethical terms. It is not so easy to get into the wilds of the same aesthetics, metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of science, and so on.
I agree with ANDREY TESLYA – in general, no way, especially if we are talking about a specifically philosophical text. If these texts are popular and well-known, then you will understand exactly as much as you are ready in general education and humanities, but not deeper. That is, the surface layer of meaning is quite accessible to everyone who is more or less educated, but without philosophical training you will not guess that there is something else there. Sometimes there are even texts where the level of meaning “deeper” may not coincide with what is on the surface.
And in addition, an explanation of why” no way ” without philosophical training can not distinguish philosophical texts from imitation syg.ma
One article discussed the question of what philosophy should be. It said that there are two types of texts. Texts that are impossible to read without a philosophical education are probably not worth reading at all.
However, I personally have not read such texts that would be completely inaccessible to a person without a philosophical education.
There is another type of text that is also not easy to read – it is akin to reading mathematical texts. But at least this system of concepts can be understood without many years of getting used to some incomprehensible and vague terms.
Philosophical texts, fortunately, are not written by extraterrestrials, but by people like you and me, so there is no need to be afraid of them. In addition, they are written using one or another alphabet, and many of them are also translated into Russian. That is, if you can read in Russian, I dare say that you will be able to read any text in Russian.
But will you understand? Misunderstanding of philosophical texts is not always associated with the author's use of words unfamiliar to the uninitiated. This problem can be easily fixed by looking in the dictionary (use Google). More often, the reason for the thought ” what did I just read?” This is the style and manner of narration. Such a text should be reread several times in full, then in separate parts, divide for yourself what is clear from what is not clear, work out what is not clear, and then read it all again in full.
Also, a lack of understanding of the text may occur due to ignorance of the context in which it exists. For example, you are not well versed in world history, even worse in the history of philosophy, and the word “logic “for you always went along with the word”women's”. Basic university education addresses these problems (and many others, of course), so the average bachelor of philosophy can understand some of the philosophical texts. But you can safely study to become an engineer and fill in these gaps yourself.
I agree with MARIAM NAYEM – the Internet is now simply torn apart from all sorts of open educational platforms, even in Russian.
openedu.ru ; universarium.org (I recommend the course “Philosophy: the art of creating problems”); arzamas.academy; philosofaq.ru (15-minute lectures for undergraduate and graduate students) – it is only a small list, based on which we can seek on, also it should be added YouTube channels in Russian and in English language.
In general, yes, you can understand philosophical texts without special education. But, as ANDREY TESLYA noted earlier ,” if the interest goes beyond the introductory one, then further study involves joining the relevant communities.”
In the end, I can only add one thing: think. Analyze and ask questions, question everything you know – this is exactly what philosophers do, and this little life hack will help you understand them.
Philosophy describes the extremely general foundations of the world order. And to understand them, you can go different ways.
I. Kant argued that to know a person means to know the world. And I agree with the classic. I myself came to understand the world through self-knowledge. Not on purpose — I didn't have a goal to explore the world when I started working on myself, visiting a therapist. But in the process, I suddenly began to notice that I understand the nature of things that lie outside of me very well — because they exist according to the same laws as I do, and I understand myself better and better. Additionally, the university course “Concepts of Modern Natural Science” (CSE) contributed to understanding the world, which outlined the fundamental features of the world order (as opposed to philosophy, which seeks to describe general foundations).
But here, if you have a well-formed worldview base, that is, something to compare with, it is not difficult to read philosophical texts, correlate what is stated with what is ingrained in your head at the moment, agree or disagree, and understand why the author came to such conclusions.
The answer to this question depends on which texts you want to read and understand, and why exactly. Many philosophical texts are technically complex and require special professional training, and within the framework of any particular philosophical tradition. But such works are usually addressed to professionals who read them in order to use the experience of other iphlosophists to solve their professional problems. However, many philosophical texts have literally become part of the world literature and are quite accessible to those who are interested in them for some reason, but did not have the opportunity to receive special training. This requires, as a rule, some general level of education that allows at least some understanding of what was written by the author of another era for people of another era, and your attention. The core or basis of a philosophical text usually consists in reasoning, that is, making statements, finding evidence for them and refuting other people's positions, and in many cases this can be understood independently. Although, of course, this may take more time and effort than a person with special training. At the same time, commented publications provide great help, which explain not only incomprehensible terms and names, but also give interpretations of “dark places”.
In addition, many philosophical texts can be read for fun, like good literature. Historically, philosophical texts were “good literature”, entertaining reading for contemporaries (as, for example, such populist writers were once Michel Montaigne or Friedrich Nietzsche). Again, the choice of a philosophical text and how to read it depends on your goals. If you want to extract arguments and conclusions about some problem that concerns you from such a text, you may well be able to do this by carefully following the author's reasoning and using dictionaries and reference books to clarify incomprehensible places.