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Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Ayn Rand, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Bataille, Rene Girard. On the pages of their writings, you will find many references to other thinkers and their teachings that you may find interesting.
Everything that comes your way, but only in combination with your own sincere critical approach to studying yourself in the context of your attitude to these teachings and the real facts that are happening in your life. What should I do specifically? Nothing special. Live your daily life and follow every dictate of your mind and heart. Look carefully and feel subtly do the explanations of the laws of existence offered by these teachings and the people who create and interpret these teachings satisfy your true innermost aspirations and aspirations? Whether your contentment and understanding, or longing for something and misunderstanding, is a constant substance that you can rely on more than any limited period of time – a moment or ten years of your life.�
Rumi is said to have described a situation similar to yours. “I lost everything, but I found myself” Good luck!
Yes, many thinkers of the past and present can suggest some thoughts about the path that people should follow, but for a particular individual this may be useless information.
The fact is that each person has his own unique path that can fit into philosophical trends or even contradict it.
Each act-an individual's action-has both positive and negative meaning. An example of saving Churchill or a French soldier refusing to shoot a wounded German who turned out to be Hitler. There are still many examples of noble behavior, which later turned into a tragedy.
No one knows their purpose and only in the process of life can you understand it and then not always. In the course of life, if you deviate from your destiny, you will receive a slap in the face, which should return you to the true path. If the “student” does not listen, then the slap will be stronger.
The only thing you need to know is the need to avoid causing deliberate harm to another individual, because he is a part of the world that you shape yourself in accordance with your beliefs.
Gaudiya is a Vaishnava philosophy, also known as Krsna consciousness. This is the main subject that she considers-how to understand who I really am and what I should do to find myself.
It depends on what you are looking for in life.As far as I understand, this is not about religion.And if it does, then be interested in Christianity and Islam first.Just do not start reading the Bible or the Koran yourself. You won't understand anything. Find the most famous interpreters and read them right away,everything is laid out on the shelves.These religions will give you a path and help you understand yourself.If you're not drawn to religion,read Castaneda or Millman. They are good because they allow you to look at yourself in a detached and cold way, as at another person, only under your control. If you learn to look at yourself this way, you will solve a lot of problems in your life.Just don't eat cacti)))
Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Read The Virtue of Selfishness, for example.�
It's also about how to find yourself, why you need it, what it's worth living for (spoiler alert-yourself), how to choose values and achieve them, and what kind of attitude to live with. The corny question is “what is good and what is bad”, and the answer is not at all what the vast majority of other teachings give you.
I will allow myself to refer to the answer here:
https://thequestion.ru/questions/51872/zachem-chitat-ain-rend-v-rossii
I can't say that I don't have a 20-year-old crisis, that I got out of it, because there is still no certainty in life, which rarely depends on working on myself; but Viktor Frankl's works helped me to understand myself, my desires and opportunities, here are some of them: “Say Yes to life!”, “Doctor and Soul”, “Subconscious God”, I also advise you to watch his speeches on this topic:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7egwRoyao
Personally, when I once asked myself this question, I tried a lot of different philosophies, teachings, religions, etc. Until I got acquainted with the Vedic culture. Here you will find absolutely logical and understandable answers to all life's questions. This holistic knowledge covers all aspects of a person's life. To get acquainted with this ancient knowledge, it is enough to read just one book, “The Science of Self-awareness”.
I will still answer this way.
If you feel a craving for philosophy, then start reading Russian and Soviet philosophers (Peter Chaadaev, Vladimir Solovyov, Vasily Rozanov, Lev Shestov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Nikolai Lossky, Pavel Florensky, Alexey Losev, Merab Mamardashvili, Georgy Shchedrovitsky, Mikhail Gefter, Grigory Pomerants, Vitaly Kovalev, Absalom Podvodny).
The most recent works of the philosopher are usually considered the most relevant, although sometimes the flame of the highest-grade mental work of the spirit burns in the early works. Take into account that the philosopher himself and his life are always broader and deeper than his own philosophical teaching, and not everyone has formulated it, because not everyone considered it necessary to fix the formal side of the question. Because while the philosopher expounds his thoughts, they are already outdated even for him.
A true philosopher is always on the move.
And one more important point. It happens that, having been carried away by the development of an abstract concept, another thinker sometimes does not notice that he begins to increase the weight and significance of the concept being developed to the detriment of other abstract concepts that are no less significant for humanity. Perhaps none of the thinking minds can avoid this. This is natural and understandable. But at the same time, it makes sense to note that understanding the monopoly risks associated with excessive exploitation of a concept should warn spiritual seekers against the temptation to belittle the ontological value of other concepts. For a more balanced, gradual and calm spiritual growth, first of all, an internal preventive and regulatory spiritual policy is needed, similar to the policy of antimonopoly institutions in state structures.
There is no point in arguing which of the concepts is more ontological, the point is to use them for their intended purpose. As a cure for the disease. Spiritual illness is a deeply individual thing that can only be treated to a certain extent by standard means. Universal pills of “concepts” can only create a more favorable spiritual atmosphere, “reduce” the temperature of thinking, improve “well-being”. But the final recovery comes only in the case of qualified “medical” help. And here you can recommend great religious traditions as “general clinics”. But, please note, each tradition has historically and, I would even say, metahistorically, mostly succeeded in a fairly strictly defined “medical” specialization. None of the philosophical and religious traditions possess omniscience and omniscience.
Therefore, it is worth considering the philosophical teachings themselves as nothing more than”complex pills”. In other words, when reading a philosopher, you should eat it with water/tea/wine/vodka/coffee.
Max Scheler wrote that there are at least five ways to define a person's identity. And, accordingly, there was not a single universal one that would suit every person. Scheler drew his inspiration from his philosophical works
So: there is no such work that would clarify everything to everyone. If it had, it would have taken a pedestal and probably entered all school programs as mandatory literature. But philosophy is free and free to fight forever on the same firing line – this is its main advantage over science (according to Collins). And you, as a reader, can take one of the opposing sides or avoid the conflict altogether.�
Marcuse, Fromm, Sartre and Tolstoy helped me a lot. They helped, among other things, because they went in a certain sequence, which I indicated above. But they don't quite answer your question either
The point is that philosophers don't answer questions. They challenge themselves by asking more and more questions, thereby expanding their “mental domain”. People usually go to religion for answers to questions; everything is simple, categorical and peremptory. Here's a dogma for you – be kind, do it. If you have decided for yourself why you need to fulfill certain dogmas, then you can confidently say that you have understood yourself and found your way in life
But… Life is an eternal learning process, an eternal search. And it's cool! And this can also become a life path. And you'll never know what's waiting for you around the corner. If this path is completely satisfactory (for example, I am not), then feel free to dive into existential philosophy (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy (works of the 70s), Sartre, Camus, Barth, Cioran): it is readable, interesting, addressed to the inner ” I “and can help “clear” all ideological moods and influences of family, church, state, friends, and so on. Schizophrenia is also possible, but any search path is dangerous in itself. Go for it!
It seems to me that it depends on how detailed a picture of the world you would like. Everyone in this question has their own threshold – some of the respondents, for example, had enough “Dianetics”, and someone will not rest until they have read all the comments to Imanuel Kant. Anyway, reading philosophical books by non-specialists does not set out to say something radically new-it is rather an attempt to fill the well of ignorance, the depth of which is different for everyone.
I personally was greatly helped by my acquaintance with Hegel – only his views made the vision of the world complete for me. Schopenhauer's books, on the other hand, left more questions than answers, despite the undeniable beauty of his “World as…”.
But of course, I don't encourage everyone to read these books – I just say that everyone has their own threshold. For example, it seems to me that the recommendation with the “New Testament” was ignored undeservedly. It is clear that religious people have damaged the reputation of the Bible texts. But, among other things, they are really very beautiful.
Read Friedrich Nietzsche's “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, the doctrine of the superman, I liked it. The main essence is self-development and becoming on the “path of truth”.
“I am the Truth and the Life,” said Christ. The Gospels of John can be read in 30 to 40 minutes. And you can read all your life… Start with the primary sources.
Well, I'll put in my own 5 kopecks. as for “understanding yourself and finding your way in life”, you can read Kant and his categorical imperative, which, in a simple interpretation, sounds like this: in order to make a decision, you need to ask 2 questions. 1. would it be great if I did that? 2. would it be great if everyone started doing this? this is about the question of good and bad, how to act, but this is the light version.�
I can suggest reading Husserl and his “Cartesian Meditations” and “The Crisis of European Sciences”. there he describes in detail the attitude to the Other/Alien, to their experience, some interaction, writes a lot about the life world, about historicity and habitualization (this will help you understand where your doubts/opinions grow from, etc., if you accept this philosophy). You can read Landgrebe and Stein in the compartment, but that's all about Husserl.�
If you want something hard, I suggest Hegel's ” Phenomenology of Spirit “and Heidegger's” Being and Time ” (Heidegger here acts as a continuator). this is if you have a preference for radical problem solving, so that everything is clearly divided into right and wrong. they talk a lot about what a person should be like and what they shouldn't be like. by the way, there is just something like instructions (Husserl also has, but not so obvious) about smart/stupid, necessary/unnecessary people. That's something like this
[subjective opinion] No book will help you understand yourself. The reason is simple, books are written by people who did not know you, and following any writing will be an imitation. Man cannot find his way through imitation. Since you know yourself , no one else knows you, and the search for your path should begin with questions and answers to yourself. Books can help you expand the boundaries of your world and change the questions you ask yourself. Only you can determine what to read, too. Personally, I use the following method when selecting literature::
Recommendations from your closest friends (who know you well and are somewhat similar to you)
Random selection by reading short descriptions of books. If the book goes hard in terms of perception/understanding-we put it off for later, so it's either not grown up yet, or it's not yours.
I will probably not deviate from the tradition and advise you to try out the philosophy of existentialism in the person of Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Camus and Sartre. If you like “harder” try Heidegger or Husserl (these guys are not exactly existentialists, but they influenced this school of philosophy). At least the works of art known all over the world (such as “Outsider”, “Plague”, “Nausea”, “Demons”) should be read simply for self-development. Well, who knows, maybe they will become the starting point on your path of self-awareness and self-determination. I don't want to brag, but on my steel. So I recommend-S.�
P.S. Being is Being, and you don't need to keep up with life either. Therefore, something socio-political to study is also necessary. Personally, I think we need pure neo-Marxism here. It is not necessary to become a follower of it, but to get acquainted with the works of such people as Guy Debord or Herbert Marcuse – in my opinion, it is necessary. It's just that you'll start to see things around you differently.