What is Reddit's opinion of The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View?

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Pragmatism means the idea that what is true is what is most useful. The investigation of metaphysical concepts is termed foundationalism and is a disease that has plagued philosophy since it's inception. I believe in pragmatism, but I try not to metaphysicalize it.

Now, this discussion is impossible to contain in book of infinite pages, but since you say you are new, il just say what I think would be the most useful for a non philosophy student. It is really difficult to investigate these concepts without a teacher but sadly many philosophers are extremely arrogant so it might be hard to find one.

You need to read a history of western philosophy to understand it's truth. This is itself a debatable proposition, because some say that philosophy is a progressive enterprise and that we march closer to the really real every day. From my perspective, I would start out with this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Passion-Western-Mind-Understanding/dp/0345368096

It is spectacular and will make you as knowledgable about the western tradition as most philosophy majors. It is profound and easy to read. Can't recommend enough.

Then, you should pick the ideas that grab you and start looking into them. There is a lot of stuff online about it, but tbh you need a book. Books are the western style of meditation, because they demand repeated return to the same idea, awareness of awareness.

I love the presocratics, my favorite is Pythagoras. There is a lot of really cool stuff on them, but it mostly comes from anthologies because their direct insights have been destroyed,

You already are enlightened, the idea is to become aware of this fact. Don't get turned off by the arrogance of philosophy, because it's really something that belongs to everyone.

Perhaps it would be easier for you to swallow that pill, which is in my view, a matter of very clear historical fact, not a matter of debate or of ideological rhetoric, if you heard it from a white man in a position of power and privilege?

https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Western-Mind-Understanding-Shaped/dp/0345368096

Or from a Japanese-American woman?

https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Power-Symbols-Jungian-Feminist-Perspective/dp/0892540435

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Further suggestion: perhaps rather than trying to summarily decide after only a few minutes of exploring a topic as vast as this, you might want to investigate the unconscious emotional forces which would spur you to both that hastiness of assimilation and the rejection of what its conclusions would represent.

In other words, look at yourself. Why is it emotionally challenging?

You may get further in your quest for knowledge with that on the table.

The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View