© Edvard Munch, Munch Museum, OsloCaricature of Friedrich Nietzsche (1905-06)
The first thing to remember is that the great philosophers were only human. Then you can start disagreeing with them.
Need to knowIt might seem daunting to read philosophy. Giants of thinking with names like Hegel, Plato, Marx, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard loom over us with imperious glares, asking if we are sure we are worthy. We might worry that we won't understand anything they are telling us; even if we do think we understand, we still might worry that we'll get it wrong somehow.
So, if we're going to read philosophy, we need to begin by
knocking those giants down to size. Every one of them tripped and burped and doodled. Some of them were real jerks. Here's
Arthur Schopenhauer on his fellow German philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, for instance:
'a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense.'
I'm not sure whether this paints Schopenhauer or Hegel as the bigger jerk.
The point is that
each giant of philosophy was a human being trying to figure out life by doing just what you do: reading, thinking, observing, writing. Don't let their big words intimidate you; we can insist that they make sense to us - or, at least, intrigue us - or are left behind in the discount book bin. They must prove
their worth to
us.
Comment: The author's analysis and conclusion, written last March, seems to be prophetic.
See: Biden signs executive order designed to unleash transhumanist hell