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Eddie Hood
This week I want to talk about how to read philosophy books without actually going insane. This is a real problem I have. Sometimes I get into philosophical works and I feel like my brain is just boiling. It's not like reading a novel, which has a very clear narrative and a story that I can follow. It's definitely not like non fiction, which has a structure and an outline and makes sense. Philosophy seems to be this wandering sort of amorphous concept or conversation with a thinker can be very difficult to understand as a reader. But I've learned a few things along the way, and if you want to read philosophy, hopefully these will help you. Let's Get into it welcome to this week's episode of the Read well Podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm your host, where I believe it's more important to read well than to be well read. So grab your favorite book, open up your notes, and let's get ready to learn something fascinating. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Read well podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and today we're talking about philosophy, one of my favorite topics. And I hope the things that I share with you today will help you because they've helped me. Now, I'm doing this today because I had a conversation a few weeks ago with Emily over at Prose and Petticoats on YouTube. She's one of my favorite YouTubers. If you haven't checked her out, go look at her channel. One of my favorite videos she's posted is called How I Structure My Days for Reading, Writing, and Learning. She's got a beautiful aesthetic. She always shares really great information that has helped me become a better reader. And we got talking. We actually had our own little zoom meeting about the art of reading deeply. And she's going to be making her own video in response to this. But my commitment in that was to talk about what I love to read deeply, which is philosophy. And she's going to be talking about her own version of reading Deeply, and hopefully these videos will help you. So in terms of philosophy, there's several tips I want to share with you today, and I'm going to try and get into them succinctly. Number one is that philosophy comes with sort of a prepackaged set of vocabulary, and you're going to come across words that are going to show up again and again, and it really will help you if you take a minute to learn some of the more useful ones. Now, I'm not going to cover all of these. I listed several in my most recent newsletter. If you're not yet a member of my newsletter. It's absolutely free. There's a link down in the description below, but I put a lot of effort into that each week. It gets published on Wednesdays, and you can get information like this long list of words that are quite useful, but I'll share a few with you today. There are two words that sort of show up a lot in philosophy. One is a priori and the other one is a posteriori. So philosophers use these all of the time, and it really is trying to explain how you might know something. And so a priori means that you know something before the experience of it. You just have a. You have a knowledge of it before the experience. And a posteriori is the opposite. It means you know something after you've had an experience. Okay. Those kinds of concepts take a minute to chew on, but there are several terms like this that if you look them up and try to understand them when you're reading Nietzsche or Kant or Heidegger, whoever you're reading, and they're just throwing these words around like basic terminology, they're not going to take the time to explain them in their books. They're just assuming you know them. So one of the best things you can do is just go to Google and search up the most common philosophy terms. I should know. There will be hundreds of words. Don't memorize all of them, but go through and pick out a few that make sense to you or that you see a lot and start to learn those terms. Now, if we're talking about how to read philosophy deeply, I want to set your mind up for success here. What I have found, as I mentioned before, is, is that reading a philosophy book is not like reading a fictional book in fiction. We have a story that you can follow. There's a main character. This character goes on some sort of quest or adventure and changes throughout the course of the book. And as things happen and it gets more or less complicated, you can kind of follow along. You can even listen to it in audio form while you're driving and still get the gist of the story. Now, nonfiction is also typically easy to follow because there's a table of contents in the beginning. It's structured well, and the authors have done research, hopefully, and all of that makes sense. Philosophy, though, we've got this person sitting down at a desk, and they are sharing with you their philosophy, their worldview. And philosophy just means love of wisdom. So they're sharing with you their love of wisdom, which means that their writing can wander a little bit Sometimes some philosophers are more capable of putting their thoughts down in a succinct way, and others take hundreds and hundreds of pages to get to the point. That can be very frustrating. So to set your brain up for success, know what you're getting into with philosophy books. It's more like you're sitting down at a dinner table with somebody who's put a lot of thought into something and you're going to work through those thoughts together. This is important because a philosopher is a human being, just like you. He or she, as they get older and have more experiences and learn more, will change their minds or at least refine their ideas. This means that you might read a book from their earlier canon that will contradict something they've written later in life. That's because their ideas have changed, and that can be frustrating. That's another hard part about reading philosophy. You might be thinking, wait a minute, that's not what you said in the other book. In fact, that's very different. That's one of the reasons why I like philosophy. People change, people grow. And you get to sort of experience those changes in thought and pair them with your own. Here's a fun one, kids. Philosophers make up their own words. This is another problem with reading philosophy. And you don't always. You're never really prepared for it. So sometimes. Let me give you an example. So here's my book, the Republic. I love the Republic by Plato. He talks about something called the forms. Forms for him are this concept of the perfect version of something that exists sort of in the ephemeral, right? And anything in this world is just a copy of the perfect form. That's a term he made up to express his. His belief of how the world works. And if you're coming across anything related to Plato and somebody says, oh, yeah, the forms. If you don't know that, you're going to be completely lost. So he made that up. Let's see, we've got, yeah, Martin Heidegger, being in time. He uses a word called dazeen, which is just this funky way of talking about, like, being in this moment in time and being aware of your being and on and on and on, right? He's got hundreds of pages about dazeen, but it's a word that he uses to explain his ideas. One final example. I love Nietzsche. Nietzsche is just a fun kind of crazy philosopher, but he came up with the concept of the Ubermensch. Ubermensch is a word that is like his version of. People get it confused with, like, Superman. We're not talking about Superman, like Clark Kent kind of Superman. We're talking about the kind of person that is super or above the herd. You've probably heard of herd mentality or mob mentality, where we all just do what we are all going to do together to fit in. And it can be overwhelming. For Nietzsche, the Ubermensch is somebody who can rise above the herd and think for himself or for herself and live according to their own values, despite what everybody else is doing. Because you're reading along and you come across Ubermensch, you kind of have to learn that term if you're going to read Nietzsche. This next tip has really helped me in terms of reading philosophy deeply and understanding what I'm reading. And that is that pronouns are a friggin minefield. They drive me nutty. I mean, if you've ever had a conversation with me at work or in life in general and you're using pronouns, I will stop you and say, wait, wait, wait. Who is he? Or what is it? We throw pronouns around like they're just candy at a parade. I don't know. Now a pronoun is just a word that stands in place for a noun. So instead of saying Eddie, you might say he. Instead of talking about a car, you might say it, right, it was pretty. And I might say, what is it? Oh, that's my car. Gotcha. Because we use pronouns, we do that to be efficient. Because yes, it can be annoying to say Eddie every time we're referring to the person. He becomes a much more efficient way of talking. That's fine. If we're talking about fiction or nonfiction. We can use the context of the story or the table of contents to keep track of who he is or what it is and so on. But in philosophy, guys, gals, it gets a lot harder because we're talking about these fluid ideas and amorphous thoughts that just sometimes are really hard to understand. But the writer has thought so much much about them that they forget that you're still learning these concepts. And they'll throw in pronouns all throughout their work and just assume you're following along. So if you're ever reading philosophy and you're like, what is happening right now? I have no idea what's going on. It very likely has something to do with the pronouns. Go back to the beginning of that passage and anywhere you've got he or she or it or they or whatever, ask yourself, who's he? Who is she? What is it? And you'll see that passage start to gain some clarity in your mind. You'll understand it a little bit better. Words matter deeply to philosophers. Look, writers love words, Philosophers love words, but they, they use them differently. For a writer, words have texture, they have a sense of flow. They're poetic, right? They are designed to make you feel something. And writers of fiction and non fiction don't always consider the etymology of a word or the meaning of it, the real true meaning. And they often just sort of put in there what, what feels right in the moment. Now, yes, writers are very choosy about their words. Not in the way a philosopher is. A philosopher is very deliberate about the word that they're putting on page because they're using that word to make an argument about a worldview. So that word is a building block in an argument, right? And if you pull that word out and it doesn't make sense, the whole house of cards will fall. So it is really important that they pick the right words. And for you, if you're reading along and you come across a passage and you think, yeah, I think I know what that word means. I kind of got an idea. And you're going through the passage and then you realize this isn't making any sense. What is going on? It might be because you assigned a meaning to a word that actually wasn't correct. So make sure you understand the definition of the words. Don't just generalize them along the way. Okay, two more ideas to help you deep read your philosophy. And again, I want to remind you that after you're done with this, to go check out Emily's channel and the videos that she's going to post. Once she makes her video live on how to read deeply, I will add that in the description down below as well so that you can easily get to her page. Now let's jump into the next tip here. So for me, I run a book club and I'm sharing that with you because there's value in leading a book club. When you are reading on your own, it's okay if you don't understand things. You just kind of go to the next page, right? When you're attending a book club, you kind of have to like step up a little bit because you're going to be in discussions. So as you're reading, you put a little more effort into trying to understand the book because you don't want to look foolish in front of your friends. But if you're leading the book club discussion and you have to teach people about the concept, now you're all in. You are student, teacher, lifelong learner, whatever You've got to be to make sure you know this passage and you can share it with other people. So my tip for you is this. As you're reading a passage for each paragraph, stop and try to restate that thing in English, right? Can you put it in your own words simply so that you could stand up in front of your book club and teach it to all of the members and have them go, ah, that makes sense. Thank you for sharing that with me. If you can't do that, that's perfectly fine. Just go back and read the passage again, slow down and, and try again to get the thing in English. The last tip I had comes from the fact that when I first started reading philosophy, I was overwhelmed by the topic itself. It's so big. I mean, if you think about the topics that we have been talking about and studying as humans, philosophy is one of the older topics. We have one books upon books on this stuff, right? People have been writing philosophy for thousands of years and so it can be very overwhelming as somebody interested in the topic to know where to start or who to begin thinking about. Not only that, you know, you've heard of people like Aristotle or Plato, so you think maybe I should start there. But what happens is as you get in, you start to realize, oh, these philosophers are kind of grouped into kinds of thought. Maybe these specific philosophers over here are trying to understand what it means to be knowledgeable on something. They're trying to understand what knowledge is. These philosophers over here don't care at all about what knowledge is. They're trying to understand what God is and, and if God exists and how we relate to him. These philosophers over here don't care about any of that at all. All they care about is how to act morally on this earth. And they're trying to figure out what the right actions are for human beings to take on a day to day basis. So you get these clumps of thinkers everywhere and they sort of congregate together, right? And you might end up spending weeks reading a group of thinkers that are discussing a topic that you don't care about, right? You might not care about how moral action should be displayed in society. Maybe what you really care about are the existentialists who are trying to figure out the meaning of life itself. And if it's completely absurd and, or if there's any worth in going on, and if so, how do you go on? Right? Wherever your interests are, that is the group of thinkers you should probably begin with. Now, how do you find that? How do you even know what group to start with because they all have these weird names like deontologists and metaphysicists and all sorts of crazy things. So the best thing I can do or share with you is to turn to books that are all about the history of philosophy first. Now you can get them on audible and listen to them. They can be a little overwhelming because they're thick. But one of the great books that I love is Sophie's World. Sophie's World is written by Justine Garter and it is a story of a young girl who is, I think 15ish somewhere in there. And she is presented with questions by a mysterious writer. And these questions have to do about bigger things in life, like what is the purpose of life, Is there a God? And so on. As these questions are posed to her, we as the reader are presented with the history of philosophy. So you get to learn about everybody from Aristotle down to modern day thinkers in a fictional format. It's very easy to read. It's a lot of fun to read. And the reason why you could start there is because you get a page or two on a big thinker like Aristotle and then it moves on. And a few pages later maybe you're learning about Heraclitus or something, right? And you're being exposed to all of these people. And as you do, I would encourage you to have a little notebook next to you and you could just write down the names that sound interesting. Oh, okay. This person talks about X, Y or Z. I'm interested in that. I'm going to add that to my thinker list of people to go look at next time I visit edgewaterbookstore.com or go to Barnes and Noble or wherever I go. For the more ambitious people who want to do more than read Sophie's World, there are many history of philosophy books which I found odd at first, but now I get why. It's because of this. It's because of people don't know where to start. So you've got Bertrand Russell's the History of Western Philosophy. It's a minor book, right? Roughly 800 pages. It's a pretty big one. But I also like the History of Philosophy by A.C. grayling. This is actually quite a good book. I listened to this one on Audible the first time around and I liked it. It works well. It's less than Bertrand's tome over there coming in at roughly 600 pages. So these books are pretty hefty. But for somebody who's really getting into philosophy and wants to make sure they're spending their time on the thinkers that matter most. Books like that help. But look, if you're not trying to go crazy here and you just want to have some fun, Sophie's World is a good way to do that. Now, let's get into this week's book recommendation, which is not a philosophy book, but reads like one. And I wanted to do this book for a couple reasons. One, I just found it this week and I read it and I loved it and I can't wait to share it with you. But two, it has the approach of a philosophy book, so I feel like it's a good primer for anybody getting started in philosophy. It will get your brain thinking in an argumentative way. And by argumentative, I don't mean conflicting. Right. We're not here to have conflict in conversation. Philosophers see arguments as ways to present a point of view and to defend that point of view and to consider the other points of view and their validity. Right. So very good. The book, though, is called Art and Fear. The subtitle is Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art Making. It's by David Bales and Ted Orland. Now, this book is tiny. 118 pages, I think. Yeah. Somewhere in there. I was at New York last week for my birthday with my wife, and there's a wonderful bookstore there called the Strand Bookstore. If you're ever in New York, you've probably heard of it. Their tagline is 18 miles of books. It's just a massive bookstore, tons of fun. I could have spent weeks there, but on the table, just sitting quietly, waiting for me to pick it up, was this little book. Never heard of it before. The COVID honestly, is, like, not at all interesting, but I looked at it and I thought, art and Fear. That's interesting because I don't know if it's because I'm currently writing a novel myself or because I create so much content in a creative space that I battle with my own art and the fear of sharing that art every day. Like, right now, I'm making a podcast for you. It's not comfortable being on camera or on podcast. Right. You want to do great art. But this book is really good at explaining what I feel in my heart when I do that. That sort of the fear of being authentic, the fear of sharing yourself, the fear of getting it right, and so many things. And also the courage of finding your own voice and doing art your own way. So if you're creative in any way, shape, or form, go check out Art and Fear. Observations on the perils and rewards of Art Making by David Bales and Ted Orland. Very good stuff. Hey, that's it for this week's episode of the Readable Podcast. If you found it helpful at all, please do all the liking and subscribing and share with your friends Trying to grow the podcast here. And as always, remember to read slowly, take notes, and apply the ideas. Thanks everyone. If you'd like to take your reading to the next level, then head on over to thereadwellpodcast.com there you'll find daily posts on how to read well. You'll also get access to all of my book notes and tools for becoming a better reader. And as always, don't forget to read slowly, take notes, and apply the ideas. Thank you for listening to the Read well Podcast.