I was just thinking about this the other day.
It seems to me that philosophy in a very serious sense has become institutionalized and academized to the point where dogma and presupposition dominates. It seems that philosophy is often seen as legitimate only if it coincides with the conventional display of it, that academic paradigm of reference after reference after reference.

This seems to me to be incredibly anti-philosophical.

I picked up philosophy after questioning science as a teenager. Interestingly, Nietzsche's was the first philosophy I picked up. I knew about 10% of what he was talking about. I re read and had a dictionary next to me looking up words and cross referencing the ideas.

I developed my own philosophy based on my own experiences, not based on the explorations of previous philosopher. My philosophical reference is myself. I use other philosophies as a reference for my own references.

Getting the best out of it is through finding principles of philosophy and forming your own conceptions, with reference to what other philosophers have delimited.

Philosophy is true in the act of philosophy.

This seems to me to be incredibly anti-philosophical. — Blue Lux

Perhaps I'm voicing my influence by Wittgenstein, but, I fail to see how philosophy can be taught or learned if not practiced in everyday living or life. I used to be an avid Stoic wannabe, and feel most confident about talking about Stoicism due to trying to (unsuccessfully) implement it in my day to day way of living.

I might just be confusing ethics from the rest of philosophy here; but, what would philosophy be without ethics?

Pick up a work and plow through it. True philosophy is doing it in your own way. That is what the greatest philosophers did. They were radically themselves.

Nietzsche is a great example of this. He critiqued everything, and polemicized everything.

Well, Emmanuel Levinas asked that same question and wrote a book called Totality and Infinity claiming that ethics is first philosophy.

Well, Emmanuel Levinas asked that same question and wrote a book called Totality and Infinity claiming that ethics is first philosophy. — Blue Lux

Never read him. Care to elaborate on your own studies? Genuinely interested.

My thought began with science. I researched Spinoza because of Einstein. Then philosophy began with Nietzsche and that pushed me toward psychology. I studied Sigmund Freud intensely. Then I found Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan. I researched more psychologists like Kohlberg, Watson and Skinner. I researched Pavlov. I studied Jean Piaget and Jean Baudrillard. Then I studied Marxism. I researched Hegel and Kant and Descartes. I became seriously interested in existentialism and read Heidegger, Camus, Kierkegaard, Sartre and a little bit of Derrida, his idea of forgiveness. I am right now interested in phenomenology, specifically Husserl. Husserl is very interesting. I just now have got really into Simone De Beauvoir.

Anyway, there are many philosophers I have come into contact with, but only a few really resonated with me, the ones I listed.

If you want me to give you an overview of my own philosophy I can, with regard to all of those people.

If you want me to give you an overview of my own philosophy I can, with regard to all of those people. — Blue Lux

Sure, why not?

First, grab a piece of paper and write down the names of any philosophers you can think of. It ought to include these: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Pierce, James, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Godel, Heidegger, Gadamer, Collingwood, Sartre. If more, great - there are lots more! Next, write down their dates, what half-century they wrote in. No need to be precise. For example, Kant 1775, Heidegger 1930, and so on. Observe and be mindful of the gap between Aristotle and Descartes, and for that matter, before Socrates. The idea here is to just get in your head a rough chronology.

Your initial goal is to be able to write a sentence or two about each one of those on your list, a very quick and dirty ultra-summary of their thought. Don't worry too much about making any mistakes; whatever you write will be wrong in substance, but it's your good will in your effort that matters here.

This is preliminary orientation.

A caveat. You can spend a fortune on philosophy books. Try not to. There is no end of attractive obscure books on philosophy and philosophers. They're obscure for a reason, and they're attractive because publishers want to sell them! A good philosophy book is one you will return to over years, and write all kinds of notes in. You will eventually figure out which you'd like to own.

Next, a good multi-volume set on the history of philosophy (second-hand if possible). Will Durant and Frederick Copplestone are standards, but in my opinion they're both dated and not-so-easy to read, Copplestone SJ especially (although both write to an intelligent reader). I like W.T. Jones, a five-volume set. He's more modern and readable. Also, he understands his task is not to make a philosopher of you, but to introduce you to philosophers and their thought from the pre-Socratics through the 20th century. In my opinion you can leave modern philosophy strictly alone. In any case to make any headway there you will have to have some grounding in what came before them.

This set, maybe with a good dictionary of philosophical terms, isn't so much to be studied like a bible, but rather read as quickly as possible, with return as necessary. Unfortunately, there is no good history that is free enough of error in itself to be reliable.

This done, say a two-to-three year's effort, you will have a decent undergraduate grounding in philosophy. A good college course likely will push your nose far enough into some particular aspect so that you may actually know something about it - maybe!

Now you can attend almost any discussion and not get too lost. And you will be able to self direct yourself according to your own interests.

You can also attempt to triangulate on difficult philosopher and thought by reading good commentaries.

Warning. Some philosophers, like Plato or Descartes, seem so easy to read you will think you understand what they're saying and wonder what all the fuss was about. Others, like Hegel and some modern philosophers, will seem so outrageously difficult you may wonder if they're just language tricksters with nothing substantial hidden in the verbiage. In neither case do you, will you, understand. That's where good commentaries come in. And sometimes you learn serendipitously, and that's neat when it happens, because it means you've made a connection that the commentators haven't. (Example: the tension between scholastic realism and nominalism and their respective importance in the thinking of a lot of medieval philosophers, to the extent that the failure to account for it means that the thought is not properly understood.)

Mazel tov!

Thanks. Interesting approach.

There are those who argue that philosophy is the history of philosophy. This is understandable as most philosophy being at least in part a reaction to something. And it warrants the effort put into understanding something of that history. It is highly unlikely, for example, that Levinas can be correctly understood and appreciated absent the history. The trouble is that such a lack doesn't stop some people who in ignorance create their own idiosyncratic understanding, and present it as the thing itself. In a way, taking on Levinas without the preliminaries is like going to a ski resort and skiing the XXX courses because the beginner courses are too difficult!

hmmmmm.
Is it not true the Sartre interpreted Heidegger and created a whole system of thought from which some people say was a misinterpretation?

"There are no facts, only interpretations" -- from the letters of Nietzsche

I'm going to try and take some units of philosophy for fall and was wondering how do you go through getting the best out of it. — Posty McPostface

What courses are you thinking of taking? Have you done coursework before in philosophy?

I've always wondered how ancients and the great philosophers before us have studied philosophy. — Posty McPostface

It's a really great question! The ancient Greeks only left about 10,000 pages worth of extant works and of course very little work was done between antiquity and the Renaissance, so I think that it was actually possible until about 1800 or so to have read almost everything worth while by the time you were in your twenties, especially with much stricter and longer K-12 education.

As to habits, like when and how often did they do their thinking and writing....well gosh, now I am curious.

Is there some method to it? — Posty McPostface

Daily reading and writing? Trying to remain calm and joyful in your work? Engaging some secondary literature so you're not too far out on a limb?

But, in my free time, which I have an overabundance of, I was wondering how to follow through with studying philosophy out of academic constraints? — Posty McPostface

What are you looking for that you're not getting now? Your Wittgenstein thread is exemplary!

Sartre claimed to be an existentialist. Heidegger was also so described at first, but he rejected the idea that he was an existentialist, favoring instead hermeneutic phenomemology and fundamental ontology. I also have here: "Heidegger has specifically repudiated any similarity between his claim and that of Jean-Paul Sartre (in Letter on Humanism). As to exactly what you wrote, I wouldn't know, although it's no stretch to suppose there's always someone who will say anything

My own philosophy :

Identity
Personality
Sexuality
Language
Perception
Epistemology
Relationality

I don't want to go to deep into my own philosophy for fear of plagiarism, as it is not published, but I will give you an overview.

Basically, in terms of identity and sexuality, I have created an understanding based upon Lacan and Jung, which seems to be an unlikely combination.

My assertion, which is not 'mine,' is that identity is plural. There is no singular identity of the individual. But the way I explain it is my own.

The personality is ever changing. And this is the only singular 'identity,' but is not an identity but more of a psychological amalgamation of reference and identification.

Sexuality is not dual. Sexuality is not heterosexual or homosexual. Gender has nothing to do with sexuality, and nor does sex. Sexuality is also communication.

Language is abstraction. Language is furthermore, a connection. Language connects people together. This is not metaphorical: it serves a psychological purpose and is fundamental to human existence. It is not something we do or not do. It is a fundamental component of both identity, knowledge, sexuality and personality.

Perception is infinite. The finiteness of a perception is only with reference to the infinite. Furthermore, our understanding of our perceptions, and what things are, are dictated by a certain psychological process that I call Psychoconstance.

Knowledge is based on "personal paragons"... Philosophically it is kind of like Plato's forms.

Relationality is not based upon the subject object dualism.

In Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre interprets Heidegger and the concepts are extraordinarily similar. I read both books side by side.

Heidegger's letter on humanism is when he takes a step back from what is considered Existentialist. Being and Time is loaded with existential thought. It is one of the most important works of existentialism.

What courses are you thinking of taking? Have you done coursework before in philosophy? — John Doe

Just some community college courses. The classical mind, living and dying, and social and political philosophy. I'm really keen on the living and dying course.

It's a really great question! The ancient Greeks only left about 10,000 pages worth of extant works and of course very little work was done between antiquity and the Renaissance, so I think that it was actually possible until about 1800 or so to have read almost everything worth while by the time you were in your twenties, especially with much stricter and longer K-12 education.

As to habits, like when and how often did they do their thinking and writing....well gosh, now I am curious. — John Doe

I've always held that the art of philosophy entails the profession of the deep mood called contemplation, sincerity, and self-reflection. Some philosophers might differ, but, it takes a certain type of personality to be a good philosopher, in my humble opinion.

Daily reading and writing? Trying to remain calm and joyful in your work? Engaging some secondary literature so you're not too far out on a limb? — John Doe

Sounds like good advice. I definitely have a low tolerance for frustration; so, sometimes I just consult with explications of a philosopher or philosophy. I like to read as many interpretations of philosophers as I can so that I can gauge how far are differing views held about philosophy.

What are you looking for that you're not getting now? Your Wittgenstein thread is exemplary! — John Doe

I guess it's engagement that's my biggest enemy at the moment. I feel a slight decline in my philosophical 'deep mood' as I called it. Maybe I'm just tired of the mode of presentation of philosophy that I'm accustomed to, which pretty much entails doing everything dialectically, on this forum. The 9 units I'm taking should liven up my spirits a bit, I hope.

Thanks for the compliment. I really am sad that the thread died; but, I might return to it, and just post an elongated monologue and hope someone pikes their interest to participate in.

Problems. Find yourself a problem or set of problems that you're interested in, and read around those problems. A caveat here is that one also needs to treat authors as problems. An author is a set of problems that needs to be worked through, and one is only ever interested in an author to the extent that one comes to know and occupy the same problems that motivate that author. If you only know what an author has said without knowing why they've said it, one hasn't understood the problem that it responds to, nor concequently the author.

Do another Wittgenstein thread.

A caveat here is that one also needs to treat authors as problems. — StreetlightX

Interesting! I've always held that Wittgenstein was the epitome of what you are describing (a philosopher who treated the whole field of philosophy as one big problem), and hence the resolution of said problems was found in quietism. So, sometimes I feel that my questions are often ill-phrased or motivated due to the wrong perception of linguistic analysis.

If one goes about treating the very questions of philosophy as problems, per se, then how do you ever lift yourself out of that sorry predicament that philosophy imposes upon you?

Do another Wittgenstein thread. — Blue Lux

Not until that thread is completed. Heh.

As an animal, you have the simple problem of distinguishing between what's part of you and what isn't, what to approach and what to avoid, and the limits of your abilities and environment. Being the human animal though, doing this, distinguishing what's you and what isn't, what to approach and what to avoid, and the limits of your abilities and environment take on a whole new impossible complexity, which requires a whole new approach to it all.

The extension of the identity into a symbolic language. An, ancient spirit, capable of saying things through us beyond our own full comprehension. Beyond our individual intention. Live as a hero, as you're immortal in this realm, and forever resurrect. Approach what you should avoid, affront the most loved. Be everything and everyone. Absorb, wait and digest, absorb wait and digest. Take in anyone, anything, don't expect to understand it the very instant of absorption, just take it in, and let it stir. Practice your philosophy, attune your body to it. Then, some day, perhaps, the stars will align, the gods will smile upon you, and the information you've acquired, in conjunction with the practice of it, will give birth to a muse, a personification, and signification of your mastery, and you will then understand.

Sounds good. But how does one come to an understanding of philosophy? Supposedly through living a body of work or practicing it? This is where religion has the upper hand over philosophy, as it's applied ethics...

Yes, I think so, on both points.

Religion does not have the upper hand over philosophy.

Well, that's hard to say. Religion borrowed everything that it could from ancient philosophy and turned it into a living practice. There are astoundingly more worshipers of Christ than of Plato or Socrates. Just food for thought.

How to study philosophy for what purpose? — Πετροκότσυφας

I don't understand. Is a purpose required? To edify the mind, body, and spirit perhaps?

It means, living a good life.

The amount of people following something does not correlated to the truth or validity of that something. Good examples of this are Fascism, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Satanism, Medieval Christianity, ISIS, etc.

Plus, the number of people under the label 'Christian' does not mean that these people are united or even remotely similar. Look at what happened in Ireland. People murder each other because of small differences. Freud called this the narcissism of small differences

If you want to study philosophy to live a good life, it means you already know what a good life looks like. — Πετροκότσυφας

That can't be true. Actually, that makes little sense at all.

Specifically, "philosophies" that seem to teach how to enact that knowledge of the good life. Probably, though, you'll be better off with other disciplines teaching you that. — Πετροκότσυφας

Why do you say that? I feel as though philosophy guides one to a way of life. There are applied ethics in the field of philosophy, such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism, or deontological ethics. Those seem well apt at answering questions at/about how one should live their life.

If you don't already know what a good life looks like, it means you want to study philosophy to find out what a good life is. To know what a good life is, is different from being able to live that life. I also think that practice will teach you just as much, if not more, than theory, about the good life. — Πετροκότσυφας

See the above reference to applied ethics.

There must be bad for there to be good.