Philosophy, Religion and Science in the 17th and 18th Centuries Book

In the class, I learned about metaphysics a little, especially about death. This triggered me to wonder about the philosophy. Thus, I chose this book to read because I thought it would be proper for me who is beginner of philosophy. As a result, I was satisfied with this book as it filled my intrigues about the philosophy.

I am pretty sure that this book is quite well written for its own purpose, which is the introduction to modern philosophy. If I read this book before reading other philosophical books, it would be quite helpful. Still, it was quite interesting especially about the writing philosophy as I teach myself how to analyse and read the books, not to write articles. Thanks to this book, I feel that it is clear how to write them. One of the most impressing sentences was “…remember that by illustrating your position and defining the key terms, you are only helping your readers to understand what you are arguing for, not why they should accept it.” I think it one of the commonest mistake in daily life. In chapter 2, the author said that philosopher is thinker in essentials, not doer. This sentence reminded me of a say of Karl Marx, which means that philosopher should change the world. About it, I think the attitude of Karl Marx is quite adequate, which means philosophy is related with the society and philosophers have obligation to change it. I think it is partially because I was born in Korea. In Korea, I learned about Confucianism since early of my age. In Confucianism, it emphasises the social change, improvement, engaging. As such philosophy, I think philosophy, at least people who study ethics should try to change the society.

The author said that it is better to read primary works preceding the secondary works. But, at least for me, it is quite hard to read the primary books first even with some supporting books like glossary. There exist some problems with reading the primary works. First, it is often too long to read whole books like “The Capital” by Marx. Even though it is fact that reading whole is important as it makes us to read far much longer and to understand better, I believe it is not suitable for beginners. Secondly the point of view of ancient people that analyse the world is quite different from that of modern people. It is one of the hardest works for me to understand it when I read ancient Greek philosophy such as Plato or Aristotle. Lastly, I think that to understand one’s thesis clearly we should read it by its own languages like Greek, Latin and etc. because there always exists the risk of distorting during translation. However, as you know it is quite had job for us to learn several languages which is not used today. For this reasons, I suggest that it is not bad ideas to begin with secondary books. Of course, it has risks as the author said, still, it is better than giving up doing philosophy because of its immensity. I personally recommend to start with some books which deal with overall philosophy as I did with “history of western philosophy” by Bertrand Russell. Then, it will be easier to approach more specific topics or thesis.

I would like to cast a doubt on the argument of the author that insists we shall write philosophical things in our own words on the last chapter. I believe that it would be quite beneficial to learn and understand other thesis. But, I believe that it is at risk of distorting the thesis by mistake.

Lastly, I want to mention that eastern philosophy, especially Chinese thesis, are a mixture of metaphysical theory, political ideology and religion. This distinction might confuse people who learn western philosophy first.