The First Step

The first step in learning philosophy, whether commonsense or something else, is to commit to learning it. It is not the same as learning scuba where you sign up and attend. It is more like AA and. If you don't fully commit, you'll fail.

In addition, everyone hates philosophy. So it's hard to get your bearings in a positive direction. Trust me, I tried. The best way is in a big university philosophy department. Sign up for a class just like an 18-year-old would. The warning: 80 percent of the teachers will teach it like a history class and you won't learn much.

You can join philosophy groups on Meetup, etc, and they will have people serious about the issues. The problem will be that it is mostly about hyper-critical hard-to-understand books that the leaders of the group themselves don't really understand because, in fact, there isn't that much to understand. The benefit will be to inspire you to find your way.

For me, and my advice to anyone over 21, is to find your own way. It's not easy because your mind will lie to you and try to make you believe you have reached a critical level when you have not. UNTIL you start to feel really stupid you have attained nothing. There is a reason Socrates wandered around throwing out more questions than answers.

To find your own way, don't read what you think what you should read. That's a recipe for disaster. You will end up with self-help. You will read Hume, get discouraged and then read Vegetable Soup for the Rectum, or whatever the latest fad book is.

Only listen to me. Read Ayn Rand to get into the early questions about 1. what is philosophy? and 2. why you have been lied to about philosophy. and 3. how is it different than simple commonsense belief. and 4. how to think for yourself. Read "For the New Intellectual" or "The Fountainhead." Academics will tell you not to read Rand, and that's fine, you can make fun of her serious attitude and smoking, but get started there. Also, once you see the difference between authoritative belief and your own belief, or what I call rote v. process, read Bertrand Russell. Read "The Problems of Philosophy" (1912). Keep reading this book until it sinks in. It may take a while and you may have to put it down and read Rand or Nietzsche, then pick it back up. Until it becomes obvious to you that the problems he wants to show you are assumed not as problems by everyone else, don't give up.

At that point, and only at that point, should you START your voyage into real critical thought. Then you can take Nietzsche seriously. Start with "On the Genealogy of Morality" (1887) by him.