Comprehensive knowledge of philosophy

The major areas of contemporary analytical philosophy are:

Epistemology
major sub-categories include: Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics

Ethics
major sub-categories include: applied ethics in various categories (applied environmental ethics, medical ethics, business ethics, etc)

Political Philosophy

Metaphysics (which is arguably a sub-category of epistemology)

Aesthetics



Most work in contemporary philosophy is done in epistemology. There is some work being done in ethics and political philosophy. Metaphysics doesn't garner a bunch of work anymore, as its major questions often can't go answered until epistemological ones are answered first.


As far as planning your reading, you want to start with introductions to philosophy, with special care to read about the Socratic dialogs. Socrates embodies, in his intuitive way of going about, what philosophers strive to be. From this, you can start down one of two routes first, metaphysics/epistemology, or ethics (you can do both at the same time too, but they each have slightly different paths).

Metaphysics/Epistemology: After this understanding the metaphysics of Plato and then Aristotle is a good idea. I would then mostly skip the medieval time period and head into modern philosophy: understand Descartes and his epistemology/metaphysics very fully (modern philosophy is based around Descartes), leading into Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz. This group of philosophers were called the "rationalists." A small stop into the epistemology of Hobbes (he is mostly a political philosopher, but he has major contribution to epistemology as well) is then called for. After completing Hobbes, a dive into the "empiricists" is where you want to go: Locke, Berkeley, and then Hume in that order. Pay special attention to Hume, as he sets the entire stage for modern philosophy of science. Immanuel Kant comes next, and should also be given very special attention: knowing what a priori, a posteriori, analytic vs synthetic and a lot of Kant's ideas is vital to what is built on top of it. Kant is also widely regarded as the greatest philosopher to ever live. Study up on Hegel after Kant.

After Kant and Hegel you get into the more contemporary scene: understand the division between analytic and continental philosophy, and then laugh at the pitiful attempts of the continentals to do anything but pseudo-psychological babbling on about....

Sorry, I lost track there. Anyways, read Kierkegaard and Nietzche, but don't spend too much time on them. They have their ideas and they're important to understand, but they don't have all that much to say about epistemology. Your next real stop will be Frege and Russell, followed by understanding the Vienna Circle/Logical Positivism. Then you will hit the 20th century's biggest philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein. All of this should take you months, so I'll leave it off there.


Ethics: Luckily ethics isn't as broad, and to get a decent understanding of it, there are only a few key philosophers and ideas to really consider. First is Aristotle. Understanding Virtue Ethics is essential, as even today it is still alive and kicking. Next, study up on "divine command theory." There are really no exact philosophers associated with it, but it is a common theory. Psychological egoism and ethical egoism are important to understand. Utilitarianism: both rule utilitarianism and the classic utilitarianism are vital to understand Kant, and then Kant's categorical imperative is perhaps the greatest ethical thought in mankind's history. Really understand Kant and Aristotle...they're the two big names in ethics. Lastly, it's worthy to consider the ethical theories of Kierkegaard.

 

You sure know your philosophy Duty

Those were great beginnings though. Specially starting off with Plato and Aristotle.

 

You have the right idea, and so the best answer I can give you is what most philosophers think: that metaphysics (and metaphysics in philosophy deals with questions of "what exists" and "what is the true nature of things," it is of no specific reference to the supernatural) just isn't interesting because questions of epistemology overshadow it. "Can we even know the true nature of things?" is a good example of an epistemological question that shadows the subsequent metaphysical one.


As far as philosophy hinging on opinions: arguably this is true. However, many would argue that there are fundamental synthetic a priori facts about the world: "I exist," "anything is itself," and "the negation of a whole conjunction is logically equivalent to the negation of both variables of a disjunction" are examples (in various complexity) that are seemingly so intuitively true that they stand on their own/are undeniable...and we can build a lot of knowledge off these.

So while philosophy has had lots of diverging input from various people, most of them would argue it's not a subjective enterprise...that there is objective truth to be found in it.

 

To really understand a lot of philosophers, you have to understand the philosophies they were responding to...Wittgenstein builds a lot off the logical positivists and Frege/Russell, who build a lot off Hegel and Kant.


Plus, Sartre and Schopenhauer are continental philosophers. Continentals take their origins in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard...who reject Descarte's original program, whereas analytics continue Descarte's foundations. What continentals do is radically different from what analytics do, and many analytical philosophers would even say that continentals (at least the existentialists) are just pseudo-psychologists. They're interesting like Freud was interesting, but the ideas aren't grounded in the fundamentals of what philosophy truly is, as Freud wasn't grounded in what psychology, as a science, truly is about. However, again like Freud, there are some useful things we can take from them.

Honestly, an INFJ will probably identify a lot with the continentals...but reading them is more like reading literature then actual philosophy: you can take a lot of useful life lessons from it, but they feel (to me anyways) to be just outside what philosophy, as a study, is.

I guess it is what your goals are: do you want to understand philosophy as an academic study or do you just want to take some valuable "life lessons" from it? If the life lessons aspect is your deal, then you can skip epistemology altogether and focus on ethics, the continental philosophers, and political philosophy.

 

Kant is a genius. I can't express just how insanely good he is.

Marx and Confucius are political philosophers, and I'm not nearly as familiar with political philosophy as I am epistemology and ethics. Marx happens to be the most well-known name to the public, because of the communist movements, and that's why a poll would probably vote him as the "greatest philosopher ever." However, amongst philosophers, I would wager they would vote either Socrates or Kant in...Descartes would probably be up there too (he does have the most famous saying in philosophy!).

But that whole argument is really superfluous. Kant is an outright philosophical genius (as per his type I'd say INTJ), and after understanding what he was responding to, and then giving true thought to his philosophies, especially his ethics...it even brings my stoic INTPness to awe. That's all I can really say...who is "the greatest philosopher" is really a moot point in the end.

 

Well, if you're just going for basic knowledge and criteria above, then I could subscribe a personalized study plan:

Foundations: Socratic dialogs, Plato's main points (find an outline of the Republic, it's hard to read), Aristotle's metaphysics

Epistemology (you don't have to read the philosophers totally, just understand the main point listed): Descarte's evil demon and the significance of "I think, therefore I am," Locke (find brief outlines, Locke is looooong) and empiricism, Berkeley's idealism, Hume's argument against induction, Kant, understand the rise of formal logic (you may even want to learn a little of formal logic, but that's another subject, even though it is extremely integral to modern philosophy), Russell, the logical positivists, and then Wittgenstein's philosophy of language

Ethics: Aristotle and virtue ethics, divine command theory (and Socrates' objection to it in Euthyphro), psychological and ethical egoism, utilitarianism, then Kant's categorical imperative, and Kierkegaard's ethics.

Continentals: I can't advise well here, all I can say is understand Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as they're the foundation layers for existentialism.

Political Philosophy: Again I'm not the best adviser, but I can give some names: Confucius (for first putting ethics and politics together), Plato's Republic, Aristotle and democracy/monarchy/aristocracy (the different forms of government), Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Bentham and Mill Hegel before Marx, Rawls, Nozick, and Foucault.


This plan would have an emphasis on ethics and political philosophy, but give you the essentials of epistemology.

 

don't bother with ethics, waste of time.

 

INFJ

 

thought I'd add that Lacan and Žižekian political philosophy is worth looking at

 

any suggestions for aesthetics online?

 

Dear duty, I don't think I've ever read a post of that length in its entirity my whole stay here at the forum. Congratulations.

I'm going to keep on reading up in this thread.