An idiots guide to philosophy needed...?

Question

Hi, I feel I need to expand my mind. Sounds hippy but I just want to read something that will inspire me and raise interesting conversations with my mates and make me think more widely about things. I don't want anything too heavy to start with. Can anyone recommend a good book for this?

Answer 1

Too broad a subject for that, I think. One book or viewpoint won't do it. If you want a basic idea of the thing, read the link at the bottom here, and just start going from there. There's everything from Existentialism to Humanism to the more religious Christian and whatnot thoughts, you just have to read up and go from there, reading on whatever interests you.

Answer 2

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's
The Screwtape Letters By C S Lewis
ThePeanuts Collection featuring Charlie Brown
By The Late Charles Schultz
The Mullah Nasrudin Stories by Idries Shah

Answer 3

Introducing Philosophy by Dave Robinson and Judy Groves. Published by Icon Books. The format of Icon Books is like a comic book but the content is serious so they are very accessible.

Oxford University Press do a series of small books in a series called `A Very Short Introduction To....' They are excellent. Try the`Philosophy' one.

Both series of books cover specific areas of philosophy and philosophers themselves if you want to expand into an area which you find interesting.

Answer 4

Conversations with God by Neale Walsch. It's not as religious as the title sounds. The author explores some interesting topics in an interesting and humorous way. Search Wikipedia for more info (below).

Answer 5

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton. It's a great introduction to the basic ideas of some of the most influential philosophers. Great book, a very easy intro to some very deep ideas.

Speak to your local bookseller. It should be very easy to find.

Answer 6

The Other Side and Back by Sylvia Brown.
Seriously makes you think about things going on around you and my copy has been well and truly thumbed by all my mates and some of their partners my parents and all my aunts and uncles. It has made an impression on us all. I hope you find what you are looking for.

Answer 7

Try picking up that new lemony snickets book. Its the 13th in the series and guess what! It came out today, Friday the 13th!

I personally haven't read any of them and fell asleep on the movie but hey! If its good enough to be made into film and get to the 13th chapter, then its got to be something magical about it!
~J3

Answer 8

Have I got a book for you:

Sophie's World

Sophie Amundsen (Sofie Amundsen in the Norwegian version) is a fifteen-year-old girl living in Norway in 1990. She lives with her many pets and her mother. Her father is a captain of an oil tanker, and is away for most of the year. He does not appear in the book.
Sophie's life is rattled as the book begins, when she receives two anonymous messages in her mailbox (Who are you? Where does the world come from?), as well as a post card addressed to 'Hilde Møller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen'. Shortly afterwards, she also receives a packet of papers of a course in philosophy.
With these mysterious communications, Sophie becomes the student of a fifty-year-old philosopher, Alberto Knox. He starts out as totally anonymous, but as the story unfolds he reveals more and more about himself. The papers and the packet both turn out to be from him, although the post card is not; it is addressed from someone called Albert Knag, who is in a United Nations peacekeeping unit stationed in Lebanon.
Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understable review from the Pre-Socratic Greeks through Jean-Paul Sartre. Along with the philosophy lessons, Sophie and Alberto try and outwit the mysterious Albert Knag, who appears to have God-like powers, which Alberto finds quite troubling.
Sophie learns about medieval philosophy while being lectured by Alberto, dressed as a monk, in an ancient church, and she learns about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in a French café. Various philosophical questions and methods of reasoning are put before Sophie, as she attempts to work them out on her own. Many of Knox's philosophic packets to her are preluded by more short questions, such as "Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?".
Alberto takes Sophie from Hellenism to the rise of Christianity and its interaction with Greek thought and on into the Middle Ages. Over the course of the book, he covers the Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment and Romantic periods, and the philosophies that stemmed from them.
Mixed in with the philosophy lessons is a plot rather more akin to normal teenage novels, in which Sophie interacts with her mother and her friends. This is not the focus of the story, however; it simply serves to move the plot along. As Albert Knag continues to meddle with Sophie's life, Alberto helps her fight back by teaching her everything he knows about philosophy. This, he explains, is the only way to understand her world."

P.S. Don't read beyond here on Wikipedia unless you want to spoil the ending.

Answer 9

start with why

why does
fill in the blank

pick something that has never seemed to make sence to you,
or one of your freinds,
discuss it.
( ps I loved hitchhikers! its funny! and it will give you some good ideas )
not the movie
it was candy compared to a meal next to the book.

and thats either the 1981 version, or the 2005 version.

Answer 10

Descartes become usual for his "cogito, ergo sum," "i think of, for this reason i'm" bring about his first meditation. He eventaully "proved: the existence of god using what's now properly-known because of fact the "Cartesian technique." Hume become greater or much less the 1st atheist or skeptical philsopher interior the Western custom. Him and Kant saved attempting to outdo one yet another. style of a philosophical boxing journey because it have been.