How to Read Philosophy
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
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How to Write Philosophy: • Guide for Writing a Ph...
What is Philosophy?: • What is Philosophy? - ...
This is a quick video lecture that provides six tips or pieces of advice for how to understand the papers or books or texts assigned in a college philosophy course. Some illustrations involve Rene Descartes, Barbara MacKinnon, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and Tommie Shelby. I want to get the keyword 'signposts' in here somewhere, so I am adding this sentence.
my right ear sure did enjoy this
my right earphone is not working, i barely hear
you are the first peroson that actually give me a concrete, not subjective or ambigues, advice of how to read philosophy. Thanks you for your videos.
Yes!! Vague advice or guidance is the worst. You are very welcome!
Advices
1. 0:32
2. 1:58
3. 6:08
4. 9:53
5. 14:22
6. 16:32
i like this guy. he's right about reading a text more than. I 've been reading philosophy for years, and i can tell you that not only does a text reveal more the second time round at the same sitting, but years later, perhaps especially years later, as both one's life experience and knowledge gleaned over the intervening years changes enables you to see with different "eyes" and understand with more understanding. Read, reread, read again!
Number 6 definitely works not just with philosophy but all texts. It is regularly practiced in school where the class has to read something then they study or enact it in class.
Quite so. Point number 1 as well. Understand something and you will better remember it.
I am amazed by how you have literally posted everything I need. I was having trouble understanding the book of ethics and I watched your video on it. It made me wonder if I could find something to help me read. AND here it is!
Glad I could help!
One good reason rereading works is that by the second read, you have an overall sense of where the arguments are going, so you can see them being developed as you read. Also, trying to explain an argument to someone who hasn't read the text can help you see where your own lack of understanding might be.
Excellent advice. I only learned these concepts through years of struggle. Certainly wish someone would’ve laid it out like this for me back then!
You seem like a great teacher!
For so many years I'd been cynical of philosophy, i thought it was writing overcomplicated texts about nothing meaningful. I'm so glad I came across your channel, because it made me realize nobody ever explained philosophy to me in an engaging and understandable way, like you do! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us :D
I just finished reading 'truth : shall set you free' by Aman Jain. A must read in my opinion.
You are correct my friend, a notable part of philosophy is actually about nothing. It is nothing masquerading as something but it is not something at all.
Wow. I didn’t think being taught to read philosophy was going to be this straightforward.
Thank you very much for this.
Professor, you've opened up my brain to think philosophical or even abstract level of thinking. Now, I don't receive anything as a truth but I need to observe, syinthesize it before its conclusion. Keep posting video like this prof
I’ve recently started a philosophy course and literally had no idea what went on in the lessons, let’s just say I struggled relatively hard and I thought my answers and beliefs were not plausible enough compared to the other students in my class but I now have a more broad and concrete understanding of philosophical texts and meanings, thank you : )
Hmm, could you elaborate on the implausible part?
I hold a doctorate in Sociology of Law but I have always had a keen interest in Philosophy. Naturally, I stumbled upon your videos. This is your third video I've watched in two days. Your videos are simple and elaborate. Excellent content, great examples and anecdotes. Keep up!
Oh my god!! Thank you so much for this! I've struggling for a long time to properly read and understand philosophy and answer questions accordingly! Thanks to you, I can pinpoint where I was lacking!
Jeff, this was a banger, thank you. Trying to self-study philosophy and your channel has been helping big time :)
This is such a great video, thank you, I like that you focus on distinguishing arguments from conclusions.
The last tip really works the best . And the rest is also very helpful. I’m reading spinoza’s ethics for the tenth time now, I am shocked how much I ve got from it . And it’s scary to think what I might have missed if I hadn’t done it.
I’m just about to start first year philosophy and your videos are super helpful!
Following you for a long time now!
You are amazing. The time and energy you spend teaching are really priceless. Lots of love from Pakistan!
Very nice to read these kind words. Thank you!
Blessed are the young! I wish we had this technology and kind professors like him in my youth!!
I love you, Professor!
You are such a great help.
I love the message of the video and you express it really entertainingly ❤
Your technique makes far more sense than the inadequate advice I usedto hear at university, to put things in your own words.
It wasn't the what to do that stumped you, it was The how to do it that created the big problems.
Your accessible methodology raises the curtain on years of doubt.
Thank you for your clear explanation.
This is a great set of instructions. 4, especially, will help a lot with trying to get through Jung's work
people that like a movie will watch it again. then tell you all the things they didn't notice the first time. btw, i just subscribed because i like the way you write on the transparent screen so that the viewer can read it that's just cool.
1. Understand the material.
2. Be aware of the author's reasoning.
3. Be aware of the writing's flow and structure.
4. Exemplify abstract concepts/ideas.
5. Look for counter-argument or limitations.
6. Re-read and apply methods 1-5 until comprehension is complete.
I've already unconsciously applied all of these methods in my self-learning, well I guess I'm on the right track.
Nice
I always feel scared to get back into studying and reading philosophy, especially being off-books for a year, but I return to this safe space and find hope again. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
Great video!! You have such a charming personality and it helped simplify things so much
Your videos are very helpful. Thank you.
For whatever reason I didn't expect much from this video but it's actually quite fantastic
This video was suggested to me when I took a little break to Descartes' The Passions of the Soul, and you're right, I was already rereading a lot of sentences and making my own arguments about ideas but yeah even if it's short, tough text and I'm trying to finish it in a day.
One trick I’ve started practicing is physically reformatting the text.
Books and print have this awful habit of trying to perfectly space out every line which means adding unnecessary hyphens to words which slow down reading flow and comprehension. It’s much easier to find a digital copy without the added hyphens.
A second tip is breaking up the sentences and adding an entire blank line between each one. There are online text editors that can assist with automating the task. It helps my brain “get ready” for a really long run on sentence full of abstract ideas so I can fully digest each sentence before moving onto the next.
This applies to programming as well. Technical books need to be read with understanding; you don't memorize what you see. Abstractions are key to understanding problems but you need concrete examples to make it stick in your mind and come up with a real-world/practical design.
The average person needs to read more than thrice to completely understand a book; above average people need less iteration.
"The average person needs to read more than thrice to completely understand a book; above average people need less iteration."
Facts.
That was refreshing. Thank you.
#4 was so effective in learning and teaching abstract idea like math.
#6 was so true, also re reading will truly test if you understand the overall idea. This is my most powerful tool in learning something. Sometime, after we learn something, we tend to think that we really understand the topic, but in fact, it is not. This phenomenon is called Illusion of Competence. To avoid this phenomenon, you must test your understanding by try to re read and understand the topic in your own words.
Remarkable! Quite instructive and entertaining. Thanks a lot!
This dude is good. Great content!
#6. Try reading 'it' from the end back to the beginning, like it's a detective novel that you need to understand quickly. If you know who did it, you'll be able to spot the clues real easily, and know why the clues are introduced. Works for Science and Engineering text books as well. You still have to read it forward. Also read the introduction three times - the authors hide a lot of nuggets in there!
It's all about getting ahead start on the 'understanding' (or avoiding the misunderstanding and confusions of ignorance), looping back to #1, read to understand.
Further, encourage others to think you know something about it, so they will explain to you (rubber duck style) the problem so far and you'll most likely already have the hidden/missing piece from your reading, and they'll have told you where the difficult to understand points are. Pair learning.
This video is a good example of the Stoic’s “practical wisdom” side of wisdom. Be well.
Thank you very much, you are so great!
People love ignoring signposts in Nietzsche lol. I have been reading philosophy for years and I have never heard an explanation how one should do so. Very good video!
Thanks for these videos! You're appreciated.
You're welcome. Glad the video is appreciated!
I really enjoy listening to your lectures here, I am glad I came across your videos. As a medical intern interested in philosophy without time for formal study, I'm grateful for your lectures. To independently gain an understanding of what's taught at the bachelor's level, could you recommend books to read in sequence? As an enthusiastic beginner seeking informal philosophy study, what order of reading would you suggest? I would love to hear a personal recommendation of yours and I will be happy to read them and follow along. Thank you again!
Found your channel through reddit. Love your content ^^
I'm happy that I already do all of those things when I read a philosophical text.
I just need to enroll now
On the concrete example, you just took some random piece of the argument and after I listen and read to it wow I can only just wow for few minutes.
Because I realised Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia just talking about Newton's Law before his discovery with Descartes.
And thankyou so much for making a guide vod like this, I have tried to read philosophy many years ago and nothing I can get, now will try it again.
I think you are the only person who recommended number 4. I think that will help me a lot. Its seems like another version of dumbing it down😁😁
Very helpful. Thank you so much!
You're welcome!
You make very well explained videos, I like your style.
Thank you for saying that!
You help me with understanding the philosophy of law and how to study it. Thank you!
Glad to help!
thank you professor !
This is very helpful. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
My new philosophy prof... I like the way you teach but still trying to process it
Really good video thanks
Good work...content and presentation. I wish my college prof. were more like you :-)
Point 4 changed everything for me
Inglês limpo de escutar mano consegui entender muita coisa quase tudo top demais seu conteúdo
The example you used for "the movement depends on impulse" explanation I did automatically while reading at first read. Although with a different metaphor.
do u want a medal ?
For tip #6, you can use movies as an analogy. Even pick something simple that most everyone should be familiar with, like "6th Sense" (or is it "Six Sense"?) with Bruce Willis and Haley Joe Osmond (what's his name, I'm not looking it up). If you never saw it before, there's clues throughout the film that Willis's character is dead and is a ghost, but you won't necessarily recognize it until you get near the end, when there's a twist. I think they even do a re-cap of some of the events, they're recontextualized with the new information at the end and things that didn't make sense before, now suddenly make sense. But the problem is, without the recap that they do, you forget a lot of those things and they're hard to recall. Another movie example that could be used is anything that's presented in non-chronological order like "Memento" or "21 Grams".
This may not be the best analogy, it's certainly not a 1:1 thing, like the movies may not need to be watched a second time to be understood as earlier stuff is clarified with the whole picture at the end. It's a less than ideal analogy, but there's some similarity.
And with philosophical texts, you could also reference a cliché such as "missing the forest for the trees". Because the lead up is so long, and there's so much focus on details, it can be easy to get lost without a roadmap. Or I suppose a better analogy might be that video commonly used to show how human memory and perception is faulty where the viewer is instructed to watch people playing basketball and to count the number of times the ball is passed or something, then at the end they'll be asked if they saw the dancing monkey in the background and they'll likely all have all missed it (assuming they're unfamiliar with the experiment), and re-watching reveals a detail they missed before.
If I would've found your channel a few years earlier, I must have been able to this day an addition to my name as philosopher.
Thank you so much
My right ear loved this.
Thank you
Dear professor JK, i just challenged myself and started reading a book by Bergsaun, time and fee will.....i hardly understood anything.
The suggestions in this video will surely help. Thank you sir
Hey can you please do a video on Ibn Rushd. HIs works where very influentil on philosophy
I am not contradicting. But the mind understand things based on prior learning, knowledge. So we need to pause, sometimes. For instance, my quick eyes read divisible. Yet my quicker brain interpreted it as visible. Body visible. Mind invisible. This is how we get ourselves entangled in a different kind of bramble. The bramble of over confidence :)
🇲🇾
Excellent thank you
Number 0) Texts are the result of the circumstances that prompted their writing: Be sure you understand that texts have historic contexts and ideas can be lost in translation, or acquire different meanings when they come from other places and times. Also, the text that you are about to read probably belongs to an already established framework, or starts a new framework in response to a previous one. Familiarize yourself with the history of those frameworks and the words used to synthesize its concepts, for some words might not have the same meaning as current vernacular texts. You can do a lot of this guesswork by using etymology and phylology, but if you want to be very precise a philosophy specialized dictionary or a syllabus is your best friend.
I decided to dive into Nietzsche without actually knowing how to read philosophy in general and now it feels like a dam was cleared and understanding flows freely now.
I'm impressed that you used written Hebrew instead of the printed variant
Imho shouldnt be surprised. Probably all hand writing nowadays, and much printed material, is in 'modern Hebrew' cursive / ktav rahut Ashkenazi. I'm just learning and wud prefer (that everybody just use English!🤬) 'printed' Ashuri or Sefardi solitreo but
Thanks Man!
A comment on your last point. My physics teacher in school said, whenever someone doesn't understand a problem from the book, he just reads the task to them without adding anything and then asks: do you understand now? Almost every time students understand😄
Great video
I'm a bit surprised this has to be brought up in a college course on philosophy. It might be the difference between reading something like a magizine or newspaper article, or even a set of directions for some as compared to a topic of interest. Interest might be a stretch and could possibly be replaced with purpose. Point being you can read, even memorize but not Know what you are reading, you can also know (little k) but not Know (big K). This is the purpose of the rock example, leading one to Know. More complicated than this I am sure, and there can be some hazards along the way depending on ones view of the topic in the text. I agree that resubstituting in concrete objects is very useful and should be kept very basic, to keep it all less confusing, possibly leading to misinterpretation. Great video content friend.
Thanks
I believe you, Sir
Thanks again, i got alot out of this video.
don't mind this comment, it was an attempt of me summarizing what I have watched in order for me to understand. something I just thought it would be fun to do
The first point, is that if you have formed a concept (otherwise interpreted concretely) based on what you've read, no memorization would be required. It's not the words, it's the idea you've gotten out of it.
The second point being that no claim would be meaningful on it's own, like a puzzle piece it needs to be connected with other ideas to form some complete image.
The third point pertains to either building their point with another one or arguing with/against (the latter essentially) their idea. These key premises seem subtle but they are what connects phrases (sometimes it could be a word you've passed by that would provide an another point or a message that this isn't their only idea, etc.)
The fourth point is when texts just start to feel like a slush of words, you may need to input something concrete and real and apply it there. In my own allegorical view, it's like an algebraic sentence. When you replace the variable 'x' with a number, you have a solvable equation.
The fifth point is it is there as an argument to be understood, whether agreeable or disagreeable. In order that an idea stands out more to you, you must try to argue against it, even something plausible as to see how the idea applies to different fields of other philosophy and or areas in life.
The sixth point is that philosophy deals with difficult and seemingly pretentious ideas at first read. In midst of forming concepts based on what you've understood, you may pass by a seemingly simple phrase when at the second read it comes up as a surprising statement of an idea. There can be many interpretations to a philosophical work, and they can change through experiences or gathering diverse ideas growing up and maturing in life.
תודה רבה, פשוט תענוג!!!!
Thanks for the tips! I thought I had lost the ability to read, turns out philosophical articles are just not an easy read 😅
This is a great video. Can you go back in time and give it to me 15 years ago?
This applies to movies too. When I watch a complex movie the first time, especially, a foreign movie it doesn't feel its telling me something. However, when I watch the same movie again I realize how much I have missed from the first time I saw it. I am reading my first novel from Nietzsche and I have to go back a second and even a third time to understand his highly complex syntax and metaphors. All you have said about retaining information it has worked for me even before watching your videos. I guess you and I have the same way of studying or retaining information.
Also, I was curious to know if you are Jewish because I am Jewish myself and we are very literature oriented.
Thanks bro
8:56 unless it's Hegel... Yeah you're gonna want a companion guide
I have studied Psychology and Philosophy.Philosophy will open your Minds
to everything in Life.(The Alpha is the Omega).Never forget that.
Wow great
Good lecture :-)
That's a nice trick, flipping the video so you can just write on the transparent surface as you normally would.
9:02 Well, I have never studied philosophy and therefore not a single philosopher till this day - but I do like philosophy and critical thinking, and related subjects.
😅 It happens to me all the time that I try to knock and break one objection that nobody might even think, but my chaotic mind does this all the time - and when I am speaking, I make it whole lot difficult for the listener to understand the my main points. Whereas, if I see other people, they just don't care about anything and can finish a talk in a minute or two that I might take 15 minutes to end.
Why is that guys? I feel difficulty communication - because my brain is thinking in a whole different spectrum and the listener can't catch up with that, and they losses interest - and I can't speak less because it feels to me that it's not enough, or just point isn't strong or I haven't said the right thing it might not the truth either.
Wtf is with this mind of mine?
I definitely agree with your last tip; so does Nietzsche! Here is his poem Invitation, the first one from The gay science:
Dare to taste, come try my fare!
It will grow on you, I swear;
Soon it will taste good to you.
If by then you still want more
All the things I've done before,
Will inspire things quite new.
Can say "thanks" enough, Professor JK!
findings:
1. Focus on Understanding rather than speed.
2. Relate the paragraph with ultimate truth, structure of mind and material world( ब्रह्म, अहम वृत्ति, प्रकृति).
3. Always dig into the real meaning which known as signpost here.
4. Read the same text again for better understanding.
I feel like this technique can be use in any academic readings eventhough I'm still at the beginning.
Hey, that's pretty much how I do things anyway! (Well, depending on temperament) Hell yeah!
Love❤️❤️
I will always read philosophy, no matter what I read.
14:31 So now we know how Peaky Blinders would end. Tommy Shelby will migrate to USA leaving his life of crime behind in England.
For suggestion 6), do you reread the paragraph, page or chapter at a time?
I am confused if you write on the glass that do you make words reversed😣
Maybe the video is mirrored
@@anise1016 omg you are so smart😂
His jacket has the breast pocket on the „wrong“ side, hence he writes with the right hand.
@@arnold2011 I was going to suggest that maybe he had a mirror off camera, but but I would say your jacket observation makes more sense. Incidentally, men's shirts and jackets have the buttons on the right and buttonholes on the left so that he unbutton his shirt or jacket while drawing his sword with his right.
@@arnold2011 also the ring is on the wrong hand