The best book for this is “How To Think About The Great Ideas” by Mortimer Adler. I studied philosophy undergrad and ran the philosophy club. We used a lot of material from this book to structure our meetings.
Many people have mentioned taking a class (I agree too) where you can engage in a conversation. This book’s content is transcribed from a series of TV shows with Adler, the host having a back and forth dialog with questions coming from audience. Adler speaks in a way that makes complicated ideas in a way a child could grasp. This book accomplishments the classroom setting.
The second reason is that the content is structured about ideas. Chapters are broken down into “How to think about law”, “How to think about freedom”, “How to think about love”, “How to think about philosophy”, etc. I find survey books with this organization much better say diving into a book by a major philosopher. This way you can jump around and read the chapters that interest you first, coming back to the others later.
I’ll close with two quotes from my favorite philosophy professor.
“I know how much you know not by the answers you give but by the questions you ask.”
“Philosophy is the subject that when ALL thinking is done, there’s still more thinking.”
Many people have mentioned taking a class (I agree too) where you can engage in a conversation. This book’s content is transcribed from a series of TV shows with Adler, the host having a back and forth dialog with questions coming from audience. Adler speaks in a way that makes complicated ideas in a way a child could grasp. This book accomplishments the classroom setting.
The second reason is that the content is structured about ideas. Chapters are broken down into “How to think about law”, “How to think about freedom”, “How to think about love”, “How to think about philosophy”, etc. I find survey books with this organization much better say diving into a book by a major philosopher. This way you can jump around and read the chapters that interest you first, coming back to the others later.
I’ll close with two quotes from my favorite philosophy professor.
“I know how much you know not by the answers you give but by the questions you ask.”
“Philosophy is the subject that when ALL thinking is done, there’s still more thinking.”