/lit/ - Literature

There are generally 4 approaches to getting into philosophy. They overlap somewhat.

1) Historical approach. Start with the oldest and read on. One can also read secondary literature e.g. Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, or some more impartial one like The Great Conversation by Norman Melchert.

2) Topical approach. Read about stuff that interests you. A good idea is using Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), and various papers on the subject, or lastly, entire books.

3) Textbook approach. Find a general introduction to philosophy textbook. E.g. Quine et al’s The Web of Belief or Russell’s Problems of Philosophy.

4) Book/philosopher approach. Start with some large book written by a particular philosopher that the person recommending likes.

I think the first approach is immensely boring and tend to just make people quit. Unfortunately, many people here recommend it with the predictable results. This is the approach I used back when I started.

The second approach that people generally recommend is the 4th which is by far the worst idea. No one should ever start philosophy with reading e.g. Kant’s Critique of whatever. Pretty much no one should ever read Hegel or the likes. It also has the same results as the 1st approach because the recommender typically picks some book that is very badly written and long.

As for the 2nd and 3rd approaches. I don’t know what is the best. They both have some advantages and disadvantages. One problem with the topical approach is that one might focus on the wrong things and thus miss things one should have learned about, e.g. critical thinking and logic, or language philosophy. However, one risks boring the reader as they might not care about some of the things in the book. The topical approach has the advantage of being about things that the reader cares about.

>>2756895
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLPDBGZiT54

>>2756771
>Because who the fuck is stupid enough to give away power to someone who will use it against you?

Men.

>>2756750
It is a not too clever way to deal with any disagreement.

It works for religion and racism as well.

For religion:
>criticism of religion
>because the devil is tempting u
>god is testing ur faith
>possessed by demons
>is a witch/wizard
>criticism is void

For racism:
>facts about differences between races
>thats racist.gif
>racists are all evil and wrong
>facts are void

>>2756502
>I should have guessed it was Charles Murray.

>That guy is a crypto-Nazi.
No.

>Everything he writes is gutter trash.
No.

>His target audience is white supremacists who are still bitter about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
No. This is just dumb. White supremacists wud not claim that east asians and jews are smarter than whites, u imbecile.

>>2754473
>[citation needed]

Women in Denmark are a net negative for the state, and men are a net positive. The numbers are +0.8 million DKK for men, and -2.4 million DKK for women.

Yes, women are parasites as a group.

Ref:
"Udover omfordelingen mellem forskellige alderstrin foretager velfærds-
samfundet omfordeling fra mænd til kvinder. Således kan en nyfødt pige
forvente at modtage 2,4 mio. kr. fra det offentlige, mens en nyfødt dreng
skal bidrage med 0,8 mio. kr. Dette skyldes, at kvinder har lavere
erhvervsfrekvens end mænd, får lavere løn, i højere grad end mænd
benytter barselsorlov, og lever længere end mændene. "

Fremtidens velfærd kommer ikke af sig selv,
Analyserapport. Maj 2004, p. 371.

>>2754442
http://www.menweb.org/paglsomm.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology

^ that is what u want to study

>>2755997
>we can't criticize if the authors don't provide the basis for generating the numbers

But he did. It is from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Accomplishment

Trash filosofy. Do not want.

>>2746414
~33%. Due to sex difference in g, there are more men the farther out we get. Ratio is ~2:1 @ Mensa level.

>>2746240
>I'm a 157.
>I call bullshit.

Probably just a liar. Base rate of >157 in white population is 0.000072348044.

>>2746245
>Explain WTF it's standardized against since it doesn't correlate with success and then lets drop the subject because it's pretty far off topic.

If u want to understand things, u have to study.

And intelligence does strongly correlate with various measures of success.

>>2746230
I'm apparently known to defend intelligence research to that guy.

>>2746219
The sad part is that IQ testing is the best thing to ever come out of psychology. Its the hands down most tested measurement of mental properties ever.

For those interested:
Gottfredson, Linda J. (1997), "Mainstream Science on Intelligence (editorial)", Intelligence 24: 13–23, DOI:10.1016/S0160-2896(97)90011-8
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdf

>>2745056
>I've been trying to figure this out, where does Wittgenstein fall into the spectrum? Was his work distinct from the 'continental' and 'analytic' schools? (although I'm given to understand that these categories are pretty loose and not precisely defined)

Wittgenstein is analytic, altho his writing style is horrible and in that way he is similar to continentals.

>>2744916
>I really want to understand, and I hope this doesn't just end up as a stupid shouting match, lets have some real discussion here to help each other finally get a grasp on this stuff.

>implying there is something to understand.

That is the problem.

Anyway, try things like Continental Philosophy, a very short introduction.

>>2740205
Actually intelligence is very heritable, just like fysical features, height, beauty etc.

Personality is also about ~50 heritable (five factor).

>>2739445
Use duolingo.com

More languages will be added, but does have french, spanish and german right now.

>>2737610
English as 2nd here.

Older books are annoying to read. I generally only read new stuff altho i've read Hume.

I almost only read books on the computer. In fact, i have begun giving away my paper books on the condition that i can find an online version.

Paper books are meh.

- Take up too much space -- difficult when moving and living in small rooms

- Cost too much money -- ebooks are normally free

- has no easy search function or quote function.

>>2733989
Money does not make people smarter in a lasting way. There is no lasting effect of SES on IQ scores.

Blacks have lower SES becus they are less smart on average.

"The culture-only (0% genetic–100% environmental) and the hereditarian (50%
genetic–50% environmental) models of the causes of mean Black–White differences
in cognitive ability are compared and contrasted across 10 categories of evidence:
the worldwide distribution of test scores, g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain
size and cognitive ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression, related
life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental vari-
ables. The new evidence reviewed here points to some genetic component in
Black–White differences in mean IQ. The implication for public policy is that the
discrimination model (i.e., Black–White differences in socially valued outcomes
will be equal barring discrimination) must be tempered by a distributional model
(i.e., Black–White outcomes reflect underlying group characteristics)."

"Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there has been no narrowing of the 15- to
18-point average IQ difference between Blacks and Whites (1.1 standard devia-
tions); the differences are as large today as they were when first measured nearly
100 years ago. They, and the concomitant difference in standard of living, level of
education, and related phenomena, lie in factors that are largely heritable, not
cultural. The IQ differences are attributable to differences in brain size more than to
racism, stereotype threat, item selection on tests, and all the other suggestions given
by the commentators. It is time to meet reality. It is time to stop committing the
“moralistic fallacy” that good science must conform to approved outcomes."

It is time to meet reality.

Start with SEP articles related to morality. I did a quick search:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/

I probably read some more as well. Just a quick search.

Then read a couple of books on the topics that u liked in those articles.

I mostly liked error theory (= there are no moral truths). So i read:
Ethics: inventing right and wrong (JL Mackie)
The myth of morality (R Joyce)
The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality and What To Do About It. (Joshua D Greene)

The last one was the best.

Opposite scenario seems more likely.

Anyway, probably society will breakdown to some degree with only women around. Generally, society is built and maintained by men.

>>2727542
>We get at least one of these threads a day, hilariously they're usually the only time Marxism, post-modernism and cosmopolitanism are mentioned on /lit/

Not true. Those are also mentioned in the meta-filosofy / analytic vs. continental threads.