5 Interesting Philosophy Books - Continental Edition

hello and welcome back to crash course crash course hello and welcome back to the video and due to popular demand this video is for all of you guys who want to get into philosophy but you have no idea where to start because well let's face it philosophy is one of these discipline status notoriously difficult to get right that is notoriously difficult to get into because there's such a high barrier of Entry you don't exactly know who to read first should you read Plato first or should you start with a thinker that you like or should you start with some of the recent philosophers and today I'm going to offer you a bit of that guidance that you need to get you out of this mess through recommending five books that I really really enjoyed my own philosophical Journey before you get started you have to understand that philosophy is not just some collection of thinking or a collection of systems that is just floating out bearing outer space more experienced students of philosophy are so so aware of the fact that philosophical concepts are intimately connected to history so without having a broad overview of the historical contexts of these philosophies or these theoretical foundations it is actually very difficult to understand what these thinkers are on about because well we don't live in a 19th century anymore we don't live in the 20th century anymore we're in a 21st century trying to understand something in the past so it really helps to get a bit of that history lesson going so all of the books on this recommendation list will have a lot of historical elements to it so put your history cap on and let's dive into book number one so book number one is lovers of Philosophy by Warren Ward a short this is a very very good introduction to the Continental School of thinking and this is written by a professor of Psychiatry living in Queensland Australia and in a very small volume here and this author Warren Ward actually charted out the love lives or lack thereof of seven Continental philosophers I'll let you discover who these philosophers are when you crack open this book but essentially there's a really big dividing philosophy between analytical philosophy and Continental philosophy in short analytical philosophy is more concerned with verifying truths through logic through various methods using even math mathematics or they have such a heavy emphasis on language which is um is we're going to get to that in a second whereas Continental philosophy is probably the image that pops up in your head whenever you think about philosophy the philosopher with a pipe thinking about what is reality what is metaphysics how do we live how do we be good people so if you're interested in Continental philosophy if you want some answers well there are really no concrete answers in Continental philosophy or if you want some answers to this entire debate of like um in the Continental tradition be sure to pick this one up it is very digestible it is actually quite an entertaining read and then also charts into the post-modern period of philosophy in France and keep in mind when I talk about philosophy in this video it's mainly going to be about modern philosophy instead of the pre-socratics and whatever they're concerned about but on this list I'm simply going to recommend some really good introductions to modern philosophy from Renee Descartes onward and speaking of the Continental versus the analytical divide I'm not going to leave analytical philosophy out of the shop here even though I don't particularly personally I don't particularly like analytical philosophy here's the second book titled wittgenstein's anti-philosophy written by probably the greatest living philosopher he's 85 right now Ellen bezu this very very short book barely 200 Pages charts out a very detailed account of summit Awards of Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein was the guy who was born at the very start of the 20th century and his concern was very much aligned with the analytical School of bringing Precision to philosophy and he's specific concern was language and in this guy's lifetime he published two volumes of work one is the trotatus logical philosophagus and the second one published after his death was called a philosophical investigations to say that Wittgenstein is difficult to raise properly on her statement because well some of the most advanced logicians in the field right now they're still debating over the constraint's conclusions in attractatus and the tractatus eventually went on to inspire one of the 20th century movement of logical positivism so if you're interested in that side of philosophy what language mathematics logic and bring Precision to philosophy and logical positivism even though it's a dead movement this will be a very very good introduction for you to understand wittgenstein's work and also later on in a book beds you also defined what anti-philosophy is and anti-philosophy is another can of worms but basically if you understand anti-philosophy that will prepare you to read the likes of lacan and Nietzsche parts of this book could get kind of technical but if you have a friend who studies mathematics or something if you need some clarification well hit them up but it's definitely definitely a worthwhile read and the next recommendation or actually two recommendations so here's an extra book on the list right here pertains to one of the most important movements in 20th century philosophy called phenomenology and here I'm going to recommend two books one is called at the existentialist Cafe and the other one is called Albert Camus and the human crisis if you set aside a month to finish these books it will give you a very very good introduction or very comprehensive understanding of what is going on in post-war Europe and we know that a post-war period gave rise to some of the most interesting schools of philosophical thinking like existentialism and existentialism had its grounding in something called phenomenology and that's a whole can of worms founding texts within the tradition of phenomenology are known to be very very difficult sometimes excessively difficult works like being in time works like I'm being a nothingness it's just a whole lot of beings floating around many historians believe that the founder of phenomenology Edmund hussarel even he did not understand what phenomenology was he was just writing a whole bunch of stuff on this thing that that's so difficult to grasp nevertheless this book at the existentialist Cafe it's kind of big it's like 300 Pages it will give you a very thorough understanding of phenomenology from hostile to the likes of Jean Paul sat to the likes of Simone and then moving on moving on moving on to Merlot Ponte to Martin Heidegger so anyone for the existentialist tradition um if you want to understand that they are included in this book and one of these right in particular was a very very very special writer and here is why I'm recommending a separate book just on this one writer called Albert Camus and the human crisis so if you're interested in Camus Canon I talked about Camus in a previous episode on the task of the translator but if you want a deeper dive into the works of kamu pick this one up now after you've traversed through the Continental tradition to the analytical tradition and after existentialism and post-war Europe you might be wondering what is next where's the next stop under a philosophical Journey here is another recommendation which is a fantastic introduction to postmodern philosophy which really reaches Bloom towards the end of the 20th century this book is an event perhaps a biography of Jacques deruda by Peter salmon love it or hate it post-modernism was one of the most important movements in philosophy in the 20th century and one of its key players Jacques Terra was the one who came up with this entire concept of deconstruction but the problem with dareda is that his work is so excessively difficult to read and and I know because I have to read them for my 30-year lip courses that sometimes people just would not bother to read the original texts and there were all kinds of misreadings of dareda and there are just so many misled commentaries in the academic circles on the works of derida but I personally think that this biography really charted out what derida was trying to do with his philosophy and this serves as a very good corrective for us to reorientate ourselves to treat this very special philosophical movement a little more seriously and this is not just a book on dareda himself Peter salmon actually went through a very detailed history of some of the movements in post-modern thinking or in this post-structuralist thinking and it also went back to structuralism and Define what structuralism was because without structuralism you basically cannot understand post-structuralism very entertaining read and if you're interested in French post-modern thought or French post-structuralist thinking and if you want to get into the likes of Michelle Foucault the loose leotard I think this might be a must read and the grand finale here might be the most difficult book on this entire list list which is what is philosophy by jealous and Felix guaderie Duluth was considered one of the most important philosophers in late 20th century and towards the end of his life he sat down with his friend and colleague Fela squattery and Dave decided to tackle the age-old question of what is philosophy so what what are we actually doing here with philosophy and the reason why this book is a little more difficult to read is actually because it involves the entire history of Western philosophy but I personally think if you do a little bit of that Wikipedia search if you do some fact checking on the side it shouldn't be too difficult of a book besides tackling the problem of what is philosophy what are we doing here with philosophy and why are thinkers so concerned about constructing systems of philosophical thoughts the later chapters also tackle the function of science and art in conjunction or in relation to philosophy so it's a very stimulating read and if you're interested in the ultimate question of what is philosophy for this is probably one of those books that will give you some kind of a some kind of a idea and so that concludes her a little Voyage via book recommendations of modern philosophy pick one of these books from the list and start reading it and tell me which one you've picked in the comments down below and also if you want to know what I'm reading currently and more book recommendations I'm actually running coffee Wednesday on patreon right now and on a weekly basis I'll show you what I've been reading I'll tell you what I've been thinking and also I publish behind the scene Vlogs on there so check it out if you want to support this Channel and get some extra tidbits in but nevertheless that's all I have for this video and I'll see you in the next one take care and goodbye [Music]

Channel: Robin Waldun

Views: 213,220

Keywords: philosophy for, philosophy for beginners, philosophy for life, introduction to philosophy, philosophy books, best philosophy books for beginners, best philosophy books, philosophy 101, rc waldun book recommendations

Id: TN2CdUGTmag

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2022