Is It Worth Reading Philosophy?

[ParanoidAndroid]

Is it worth reading philosophy classics such as Nietzsche, Sartre, Plato, Kierkegaard etc? A lot of their work is very dense and hard to read and the message is often buried in philosophical jargon. Obviously there is wisdom contained within (at least some of the time) but how much value do you actually get by reading these books? Is it a waste of time or will reading them actually grow you. I guess that the answer is somewhere in-between but I would be interested to hear what people think

[Leo Gura]

I find it of little value reading philosophers original works. Read a summary of their key ideas. Most of their ideas are quite bad and deeply misguided. You could spend a decade or more sifting through that dung pile and not come out of it any more developed than when you started.

[ParanoidAndroid]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I find it of little value reading philosophers original works. Read a summary of their key ideas. Most of their ideas are quite bad and deeply misguided. You could spend a decade or more sifting through that dung pile and not come out of it any more developed than when you started.

Cool, thanks! Although I think there are probably exceptions and there are more modern philosophers who are worth reading like Alan Watts.

[Leo Gura]

@ParanoidAndroid He's more of a mystic than a classic Western philosopher. So yeah, he's worthwhile.

[Shin]

Huge waste of time.

You will find more wisdom by listening and reading from spiritual master in 1 month than studying philosophy for the rest of your life.

Peter Ralston, Eckhart Tolle, and the Buddha (Siggarta) for example.

[Erlend K]

I agree with Leo. When I was around 25, I realized I was living my life in an irrational, unfufilling way. My first impusle was to start reading the "great" european philosophers, assuming they had figured out the keys to life, and could give me the answers to how I should live. It's amazing how little practical wisdom most of them offers, and how convoluted language they use, just to make their ideas sound more profound than they really are.

Philosophy can be incredebly intelectualy stimulating tho and help you challenge your exisiting beliefs. I agree with Leo tho about reading books about the philospher insted of the original works. Unlike the original texts, books about these texts are typicaly written to convey the ideas as effectively as possible. 

[ParanoidAndroid]

4 hours ago, Maxx said:

It is much better to read a summary of the key ideas like Leo said already. An exception that comes to my mind is Heraclitus Fragments. He wasn't that intellectual. And I think it's not bad to read some of Plato's dialogues (I haven't done it myself yet).

I'll check out Fragments and Plato's dialogues. Osho always mentions Heraclitus so I'm not surprised to hear that he's good. 

[Damir Elezi]

Just wondering.. Which philosophers exactly do you all find valuable and Which not?

[Joseph Maynor]

Absolutely.  I've spent my entire life studying, thinking about, and writing philosophy.  

Do you have a passion for it?

All of it is good.  I don't trust people who have too many opinions about Philosophy.  Most of them don't like Philosophy much, so keep that in mind.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[RichardY]

You can read philosophy, but are you doing philosophy or is it doing you? At any rate, it will alter the way you think, even if it is just packing on more brain cells devoted to verbal reasoning. I found that listening to philosophy, psychology and literature in the background is an effective way to ween myself off video games, a major addiction(no joke). 

 

"Because it has something... that you don't have, Max. It has a philosophy, and that is what makes it dangerous."

[ajasatya]

not for me. i'm a man of practice. my study is meditation.

[Prabhaker]

12 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I've spent my entire life studying, thinking about, and writing philosophy.