How a Non-Philosopher can Start Learning About Philosophy

Somehow, as the year progresses, posts get more difficult to write for me. Parts of this one felt out of my depth as I researched and drafted. Yet, writing is the best way that I know of to think, learn, and (hopefully) communicate. If you've made it this far into the blogging year, I thank you for your companionship and invite you on this short journey on a formal (ish) introduction to philosophy--the study of wisdom--for non-philosophers, a.k.a., yours truly!

The Bibliovore: An Introduction

As the Bibliovore's Wife, I'd like to introduce you first to the Bibliovore's mind by way of academic background. The nickname came to him by way of his undergraduate academic advisor, who also taught most courses in one of his majors. His bibliographic contribution to our marriage was on the order of 900 books (to my ~300), and we have kept adding steadily to the home library to the point that our next major home improvement project will likely be installation of childproof floor-to-ceiling bookshelves around the main room.

Why the 900 books, you ask? He had divested himself of a good number to Goodwill before moving to be closer to me. He also spent 7 years completing a triple major of mathematics, philosophy, and computer science after a good portion of pre-seminary training including a lot of Greek. Suffice it to say, if there is knowledge worth writing about in any of these areas, chances are he has learned it or has a plan to learn it in the near future.

What sort of mind does a person have who studies that many subjects, those particular subjects, in the depth that he studied them in? Although he's likely a rare case, here are some traits:

• Extreme detail orientation to thereby see the big picture of how things fit together
• An orientation toward knowledge and thinkers as interconnected nodes
• An attitude that one cannot gain too much knowledge (though the practicalities of this vary!)
• Strong memory for historical sequences and where things fit into that
• Consistent moral and ethical standards that allow weighing of new and old knowledge
• A bias towards logical analysis and synthesis, against making assertions without defending them

By this point, I hope you can see at least hints of why it was inevitable that I would be exposed to philosophy from day one of our relationship! One final trait is that the Bibliovore not only organized our home library, but has its contents catalogued in his head, so that if I ask a question about anything, I will get not only a digest of his knowledge, but also a suggested reading list of at least 2 books for further learning about that question. This makes for some extensive dinner and post-dinner conversations.

My Philosophical Journey

Though the Bibliovore and I share a love of learning and a love of books, our journeys into philosophy were rather different. While he grew up thinking and processing information in a hyper-rational way, my focus was more on the visible and tangible "stuff" of the world around me. Thus, I didn't go as deep inside my own mind until much later in young adult life.

Pre-College and College

Like the Bibliovore, I was an "old soul" from early on. Although I didn't get into philosophy per se, I did get into a neighboring field, theology, by means of regular involvement in educational groups at my parents' church and elsewhere. One in particular that I remember is a weekly discussion of the Book of Concord. The discussion group contained, besides me and the the associate pastor, congregational elders aged 60-80. The pace was slow enough that we could dive into connections between sections, evidence for a particular interpretation of a given passage, and occasionally play Stump the Pastor (my favorite question to ask was whether Genesis 1:1 primarily contained Law or Gospel . . . more on that overly restrictive dichotomy another time).

Once in college, I declared a biology major and transferred almost all of my general-education credits from community college to 4-year university. This left some room for required core classes, to my delight including theology and philosophy. Philosophy-related courses I selected were Cosmogony and Apologetics.

Cosmogony was a 300-level class focused on evidences for the existence and character of God based on examination of the existing world. A cosmogony, in its most literal sense, is an account or story of the universe's origin. Because it is related so closely to theogony (origin of god[s]) in Greek thought, my impression is that cosmogony courses are more likely to be offered in Christian or at least theistic universities. Here is the home page for Regent University's 14 cosmogony courses. Why do I include this topic here? Because a key related area to cosmogony is the philosophy of science.

Apologetics, or the practice of giving reasonable justifications for one's faith to whomever has objections or questions, was taught in such a way that my passion for it was lit to match the Bibliovore's. My maturity, though, took a while and is still developing in the practice thereof. Here is a ~25-hour video course from the C. S. Lewis Institute that I would like to go through at some point, the outline of which is as good as any for showing how the material and ideas connect to philosophy.

1. Reasons for Faith
1. The Cosmological Argument. A key philosophical skill is the analysis and presentation of solid, rational arguments for a position or proposition.
2. The Argument From Desire
3. Who is the Real Jesus? This relates to history, in which philosophy is grounded.
4. Argument from Prophecy
5. Case for the Resurrection
2. Objections to Faith
1. Authority of Scripture. The stance one takes on this is grounded in one's philosophy of interpretation, a.k.a., hermeneutics.
2. The Problem of Evil
3. Is Christ the Only Way?
4. Understanding Atheism
5. Apologetics and the Ascension
3. Responding to Atheism
1. Reason and Imagination
2. Faith and Reason
3. Postmodernism
4. Relativism
5. Abolition of Man (consequences of relativism). C. S. Lewis wrote a book with this title, which I can't remember whether I've read.
4. Responding to New Age and Cults
1. Responding to the New Age
2. Neopaganism
3. What is a Cult
4. Dealing with Cults
5. Argument From Agape (love)

Dating Months

Due to COVID-enhanced exclusive (mutually inclusive?) social interaction, the Bibliovore and I spent a total of 13 months either dating or engaged. This didn't leave a lot of time for philosophical reading, since I was still working full-time in the clinic and part-time on my dissertation. However, I did have time to go through The Post-Christian Mind.

The author, Harry Blamires, was a student of C. S. Lewis (no surprise!), and wrote a pair of books exploring what cognitive worldview Christians should have, and what is likely to happen if they don't. The Christian Mind was written in 1963, claiming that Christians don't have a common mind when they think about and love God. Marks of such a mind are "(1) Supernatural Orientation; (2) Awareness of Evil; (3) A Unified and Concrete Conception of Truth; (4) Acceptance of Authority; (5) Concern for the Person; and (6) A Sacramental Outlook." These do not include a particular political orientation!

The Post-Christian Mind came out in 1999, furthering the claim that Christianity as a whole has given up its clear conceptualization of truth to let the secular conceptualization dominate dialogue and thought. The chapters here develop the argument that secular culture has had specific negative effects on what could be a Christian mind. Interestingly, expressive individualism is highlighted in chapter 1.

Married Years

I've heard it said that wives go into marriage expecting to change their husbands, but end up themselves changed. While the Bibliovore has himself changed to a degree as a result of our marriage too, I'd say that I have experienced a steep philosophical learning curve. What do my reading logs show to support this? Here are selections--I've included a few more theological/educational books because they assume working knowledge of philosophy and show how a philosophy of education or history/morality can be applied.

In 2021: 

• Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum (Laura Bergquist). More of applied philosophy, though the expectation is that families engaged in a classical curriculum for home education will be regularly pondering their own pedagogy and discussing thought questions along the way.
• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Moreland & Craig). This is basically a textbook, topically organized. Parts of it went deeper than my brain could handle on first read.
• Book of Concord: Reader's Edition (CPH). This ~600-page compendium of Lutheran theological documents has a distinctively 16th-century German way of approaching philosophical issues and questions related to theology.
• When Children Became People (O. M. Bakke). Before one can discuss philosophy of childhood, one must know its history. Good read!

In 2022: 

• Thinking, Fast and Slow (D. Kahneman). Philosophy and statistics require "slow" thinking.
• What Does This Mean: Principles of Biblical Interpretation in a Post-Modern World (J. W. Voelz). Hermeneutics, the science of interpretation, is a branch of philosophy.
• Teach Students How to Learn (McGuire & McGuire). Metacognition relates heavily to philosophical thinking!
• Hermeneutics: an Introduction (Thiselton). This one was a little deep for me, but comes highly recommended.
• The Well-Trained Mind (Susan Wise Bauer). Classical curriculum rationale for homeschoolers.
• The Trivium (Miriam Joseph). A Thomist breakdown of the classical tradition for education.
• Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (C. R. Trueman). History of the cultural phenomenon of viewing oneself as primarily psychological.

In 2023: 

• Structure of Scientific Revolutions (T. S. Kuhn). Thesis: scientific change doesn't happen incrementally, but builds up to paradigm shifts.
• After Virtue (A. MacIntyre). An analysis of Aristotle-in-modern-times from a Marxist-turned-Christian.
• Space Trilogy (C. S. Lewis). A grown-up novel version of The Abolition of Man.
• Where the Conflict Really Lies (A. Plantinga). Plantinga is in the analytic tradition of Christian philosophy and with this and other books has nearly singlehandedly transformed the landscape of academic philosophy.
• Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (M. Knoll). "There is no evangelical mind."
• Plato's Republic. Selected dialogues.
• A History of Western Philosophy (C. Stephen Evans, not the one by Bertrand Russel). Christian take on history.
• The Whimsical Christian (D. Sayers). Essays exploring philosophical questions mainly related to the arts.
• Educating for Shalom (N. Wolterstorff). Essays on Christian higher education, the goal of which should be faithfulness rather than mere difference.

Besides the individual reading, you may recall that we co-taught a Sunday school/catechetical discussion of chapters 1-10 of Surprised by Hope to extend the ideas in Rise and Triumph, particularly of expressive individualism. The core thesis: new creation matters more than the Platonic falsification of the idea of heaven. Each chapter introduced several big ideas, so we'd explore them with additional reference books ("the box" into which the Bibiliovore would pack 20-30 unique books per Sunday) for the theology, philosophy, and history around ideas and texts.

This discussion was truly philosophical enhanced by group members from highly diverse backgrounds, expressing the 3 streams of the ACNA's "tossed salad." As a reminder, these streams are Anglo-Catholic (primarily represented by us two), Reformed, and Holiness. Most group members fit in the Reformed/Evangelical stream due to background in Baptist or American Evangelical churches.

Philosophy 101: a Blog Version

Sources for this section: Notre Dame's 1st Courses and Intro to Philosophy; Philosophy Student; Zachary Fruhling; PhilosophyBasics. I'm also drawing on my background in course and syllabus development. While you should not take your recommendation for a basic course in philosophy from me, here are some things you might look for when trying to locate quality sources to wrap your head around the bare basics of philosophy.

How should class sessions be structured? Philosophy is a discussion-based topic. Thus, readings from ancient and modern philosophical texts should be paired with (1) dialogue with co-learners and (2) the instructor/professor as a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage."

How should the overall course be structured? There are a couple of ways to do this for, say, a 16-week semester-length Intro to Philosophy course. One way is to address a different "big question" in each session, week, or chunk of weeks. General areas of typical persistent philosophical questions include what things factor into a moral and meaningful life, whether God exists and what He's like, whether free will is possible, what morality is, how to respond to disagreement, and why suffering exists.

Another way is to work through a different classic text each week. In chronological order, these texts' authors and topics may include pre-Socratics, Plato (selected dialogues), Aristotle (selected writings which were basically lecture notes), Stoics (Marcus Aurelius and Seneca), medieval (Thomas Aquinas), early Continental tradition (Descartes), British empiricism (Hume, Locke), transcendentalism (Kant, Thoreau) and after (Nietsche) and after that (Foucault), later language exploration (Wittgenstein), German (Heidegger), existentialism (Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre), additional ethics (John Stuart Mill, Bentham, Peter Singer), postmodernism (Lyotard, Baudrillard), and philosophy of science (Kuhn).

Finally, three other ways to organize a general or subject-intersecting philosophy course could be by branch of philosophy (e.g., metaphysics), by historical period (ancient, medieval, or modern), or by movement or school (an ancient example is Epicureanism; a medieval example is Scholasticism, and a modern example is Logical Positivism). Such a course could stand alone or intersect with material on subjects like politics, science, mathematics/beauty, law, or art.

How should knowledge be assessed? Usually, a key skill as a result of philosophical training is the making of organized arguments. (This may be more prized in the analytic rather than the Continental tradition of philosophy, both of which have their strengths.) This is best done via essay writing.

Have you ever taken a philosophy course? What were your takeaways from it? Feel free to discuss in the comments!