Yik Yak icon
Join communities on Yik Yak Download
Does anyone have any tips for reading and learning well from philosophy books? I just started politics by Aristotle and wanna know any advice to retaining the info
upvote 25 downvote

user profile icon
Anonymous 1d

Prob start by reading primers & watching lectures tbh. If you don't alr have a decent grasp of logic I'd def get a handle on that first. Then approach the text and play around with it in your notes, cross compare them to other ppl's commentaries (Reeve's translation has footnotes), figure out how you think abt it & why by tracking the actual arguments. Everyone is diff tho, so there’s trial & error in figuring out what works best specifically for you. Just some general advice

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous 21h

Lectures are good, honestly some works in the last few hundred years was what I started with and then did the Greeks, gave really good retrospective context, but I know that’s gonna trigger some people.😂

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous 20h

Tbh, I get not wanting to go through all the lectures and extraneous resources. When I want to learn/remember a book well, I just have a journal open when I’m reading (yes even if you annotate on the book) to write some key thoughts, topics, and points. Then after a long reading session I’ll go back and add to the pages and sometime even write a mini essay/journal about it.

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> benjamin.rush 1d

Ive got a textbook on logic coming should I read that first?

upvote 1 downvote
user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 1d

If you don’t alr have a grasp on it then yeah, which textbook?

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> benjamin.rush 1d

I prefer buying used books so this is what I got off ebay

post
upvote 1 downvote
user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 1d

Oh well this is a book for mathematical/symbolic logic, that’s great if you’re in math (I am) but it’s not going to help you much with Aristotelian frameworks. If you want something for that, Kreeft has a decent layman oriented intro with exercises for the reader that’s pretty approachable for ppl starting out

upvote 1 downvote
user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 23h

Also you don’t have to read Nicomachean ethics first imo, but it does rly help frame a lot of arguments better since Aristotle is building off what he said for the individual first in it and expanding it to the community at large in politics

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> benjamin.rush 23h

Oh ok thank u so much also didnt realize it was math I gotta do more research lol😭

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> benjamin.rush 23h

Also do you have any starter book recs

upvote 1 downvote
user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 22h

Hmm starter book recs for what?

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> benjamin.rush 22h

The primers you talked about

upvote 1 downvote
user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 22h

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is always a nice site to touch base with, there’s this series called a very short introduction to with a sort of bleed through color type of covers for various thinkers and there’s one on Aristotle, also a Cambridge companion is nice but I’d read that when engaging with the primary works as something to bounce ideas off of personally

upvote 1 downvote