Reddit reviews A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus

We found 11 Reddit comments about A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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11 Reddit comments about A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus:

u/[deleted] · 19 pointsr/philosophy

I'm not /u/hungrystegosaurus, but here are a few personal suggestions:

Philosophy on the whole -- Copleston is the standard and for good reason

Early Greek philosophy -- Nietzsche has a relatively accessible and worthwhile overview on many Greek sages that I found to be a supremely helpful, though controversial, introduction

Plato -- Very, very tough to recommend any good introduction to his work taken holistically, but I'll go out on a limb and recommend something Straussian, which is a little tough for a first-timer but grounds Platonic philosophy in living moral and political issues OP is likely more familiar with. Shorter dialogues like the Meno and the Apology might also be worth checking out

Aristotle -- Forget the abstruse metaphysics; stick with the ethics. The Cambridge intro is adequate

Renaissance / Enlightenment philosophy -- Not my primary interest, but rather than plunging into Kant, try something like the Novum Organum by Bacon, which is an admirably clear laying-out of the Enlightenment project, written without impenetrable jargon and in a digestible aphoristic style

Nietzsche -- Most anything by Kaufmann will do, but this is a nice piece

Heidegger -- Richard Polt's introduction

Existentialism in general -- Not a written reference, but this video lecture series by Solomon, an excellent UT philosophy professor, makes for a nice companion

Contemporary philosophy -- /u/ReallyNicole, one of this subreddit's moderators, would be able to offer a ton of great introductory material. She's sort of a pro at linking to articles

This is barely scratching the surface, but scratching the surface is more than enough. If OP can get through even half of this material in a year or two's time, he'll be well on his way to developing his philosophical faculties and familiarity.

To recommend motherfucking Being and Time or the Critique of Pure Reason (without supplemental aids, no less) to a 17-year-old novice is so egregiously, maddeningly, ball-shrivelingly stupid and such wholly, purely, offensively bad advice that I honestly wouldn't mind seeing /u/JamieHugo permanently banned from this subreddit for corrupting the youth.

u/Ibrey · 6 pointsr/AskHistorians

Socrates wrote no books himself, and our sources (dialogues by Plato and Xenophon, a comic play by Aristophanes, and some statements of Aristotle) diverge wildly, so the exact content of Socrates' teaching is disputed. Frederick Copleston discusses some different interpretations on pp. 99–104 of A History of Philosophy, vol. I—a work I recommend starting study of Plato and Socrates with, because I found it much easier to appreciate Plato's metaphysics once I understood how his predecessors had dealt with the same questions. For a more direct and in-depth answer to your question, see Terry Penner's chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Plato.

u/William_1 · 3 pointsr/askphilosophy

Frederick Copleston's history of philosophy is one of the most reputable histories of philosophy available, and the first volume covers ancient Greek philosophy.

I have a word of advice about this particular history of philosophy. I started off buying just the volume on the ancient Greeks, thinking that that would be all I needed. Well, over time, I gradually bought more and more volumes, each time thinking it would be nice to have this or that volume.

Long story short, I ended up buying each volume individually, which was more expensive than if I had just bought the newer editions which each contain three volumes in one book. I'm referring to these:

Book 1, Volumes 1-3

Book 2, Volumes 4-6

Book 3, Volumes 7-9

So, if you're the sort of person who buys a lot of philosophy books, like I am, you should probably just buy those three now and save yourself a bunch of money.

If you're sure you'll only buy the one book, on the other hand, you can go ahead and buy this, which will be cheaper in that case:

Volume 1: Greece and Rome

Let me know if you have any questions.

u/lulzmao · 2 pointsr/philosophy

It starts with why you are interested in philosophy. Begin with your personal areas of interest (looks like you have a head-start there).

Route 1: I like Routledge and Cambridge stuff for general surveys, which is really where most folks should start before moving on to heavy-duty original text, imho.
Route 2: Chronological study is ok too, getting a history of philosophy book or series of them, learning what the canon is and then knocking out original texts from era to era, it's just not for everyone.

Perhaps a mix of both...

While true that there is no substitute for original texts, a little mediation to provide context and framework (which you can later disregard if you so choose) isn't so bad. In fact, that's what you're doing by coming to Reddit!

u/KeenanW · 2 pointsr/philosophy

I prefer Frederick Copleston's History of Philosophy over Russell's. Copleston doesn't inject as much of himself in there as Russell does in his work.

u/pinkfluffychipmunk · 2 pointsr/CatholicPhilosophy

A good intro book is this. An author that might interest you is Philo, a 1st century Jewish philosopher, who tried to integrate Judaism and Platonism. The same book also has a section on early Jewish philosophy and talks about Philo.

The main thing about the Pre-Socratics is that they were for the most part materialists and tried to explain efficient causality in materialistic terms. Such a notion is entirely antithetical to the Judeo-Christian tradition since God created from nothing and cannot be identified with creation.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Apostles were not educated in general. John was an exception since he belonged to the priesthood. A lot of them probably didn't adopt Platonism precisely because they never learned about Plato. They were busy being tax collectors and fishermen. On the one hand, one can say the Apostles never held Platonism, but this is true even if they were ignorant of Platonism. The real question is whether there are tenants of Platonism which are compatible with Christianity; the Church Fathers answered affirmatively. Some parts are not, such as the neo-Platonic view of creation as emanation. St. Augustine is a good guide on this, since he adopts a lot of Platonism, especially from Plotinus (especially in the Confessions), while remaining highly critical of Platonism in City of God, like Apuleius and Porphyry. Some tenants of Platonism has even showed up in St. Thomas Aquinas with his use notions of exemplary forms, exemplarism, and participation.

St. Justin the Martyr is also a good resource to look into since he was a trained philosopher who converted.

u/HmanTheChicken · 2 pointsr/Catholicism

u/grrrrarrrr · 2 pointsr/askphilosophy

Another book that people recommend is Copleston’s History of Philosophy. The complete set consists of 9 volumes so it’s quite a long read tho.

https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Vol-Pre-Socratics-Plotinus/dp/0385468431

u/thinkPhilosophy · 1 pointr/askphilosophy

I second the suggestion of the Historical Introduction to Philosophy by Albert B. Hakim and there is also A Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Texts and Interactive Guides. I used the latter in an intro course and it worked really well. More detailed and thorough (and much less expensive per volume) are the Coplestone volumes, such as: A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus. My advice: go to the library (or bookstore, or online bookstore), look at the B72 C60 section, leaf through whatever history of philosophy books that they have, choose the one you like best in terms of language and lay out and what not, and get busy!

u/ZFGokuSSJ1 · 1 pointr/philosophy

The best way, I feel, is to read a summarization of the discourse. Read every volume in Frederick Copleston's A History of Western Philosophy. From there, delve into a specific philosopher—the obvious starting point is Plato, which is what I recommend.

u/thelukinat0r · 1 pointr/AcademicBiblical

I apologize for not having a substantive answer, but I have a related question, which I hope someone can come answer (both of our questions).

I wonder if there's any conceptual (or textual?) relationship between the λόγος of John and that of Heraclitus

I'm not super familiar with Heraclitus, but I read a bit about him in a summary text.