Questions tagged [learning-methods]

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1 answer
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can the way a radically different idea is presented optimize the process of accommodation on the receiver's end? [closed]

when conveying a new idea known to be radically differ from the 'receivers' existing schemas, thus, more likely to be successfully processed by accommodation vs assimilation, are there certain ways to ...
4 votes
0 answers
92 views

Is Rule-Based Machine Learning an Example of Inductive Logic in the Philosophical Sense?

Human beings are capable of deciding upon rules based on intuitions and observations their neurons presumably provide (certainly metaphysical presumptuous). According to WP, this is inductive ...
5 votes
3 answers
331 views

How do we learn math and science?

I was wondering how we actually learn math and science (physics). Some people say that it is important to "understand" the formulas/equations. However, if anyone were asked what 5 divided by ...
1 vote
2 answers
180 views

Which discipline of philosophy is most interested and relevant to studying the nature of change?

Often as a beginner, I wonder: who studies this idea? Is there a body of literature on 'change', and if so, which discipline of philosophy is most interested in the nature of 'change' and truths ...
1 vote
1 answer
135 views

Flawed Thinking -> Thinking Clearly. Metacognitve approaches to change the way we we think?

Flawed thinking -> Flawed Understanding -> Flawed Conclusions (1) Flawed thinking -> Flawed application of concepts. (2) (1) and (2) -> Inability to solve a Novel problem even if you have ...
1 vote
1 answer
43 views

How to read philosophy papers and articles more efficiently (especially for research purposes)?

Very often philosophy papers/articles/essays by some influential contemporary philosophers do not have an abstract/introduction/synopsis. Some articles, such as a recorded talk given by the author at ...
3 votes
5 answers
593 views

Is Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy a good place for beginners?

I have always been told that SEP is good place to start for any unfamiliar philosophical topic. However, I feel that many of its articles are too academic and unfriendly. One entry always leads to ...
3 votes
1 answer
128 views

How to approach contemporary anarchist theories?

I have lately become very interested in anarchism. I have become especially interested in what is called Green Anarchism and Infoanarchism and I pretend to read more about them. I also agree with ...
0 votes
1 answer
192 views

Are there any materials for the self-teaching of mathematical logic?

I want to learn something about mathematical logic just for further analytical philosophy studying,then how far should I learn mathematical logic? Are there any study materials with great mathematical ...
3 votes
3 answers
316 views

How to make sense of philosophical text that might seem like "nonsense" but isn't?

I am reading the work of Jean Baudrillard. Some of his ideas "feels" right: they make sense to me in a weird way, but I can't get deeper because I can't understand most of what I read. Take ...
1 vote
3 answers
345 views

Where can I find good place to obtain philosophy articles, journals, and books for free?

Where can I find a good place to obtain philosophy articles, journals, and books for free?
2 votes
2 answers
3k views

What did Confucius mean by reflection and imitation?

Confucius said that there are 3 methods to learn wisdom: by imitation, experience and reflection. Experience is clear, what about imitation and the most unclear - reflection?
0 votes
1 answer
94 views

Why do people read the original works in some fields, such as political philosophy, but not in other fields, such as biology? [closed]

The more time I spent on this, the more I feel there isn't a simple answer to this question. In some fields, such as political philosophy, students are encouraged to read the original works such as ...
1 vote
0 answers
67 views

Review of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Content

Although it calls itself an encyclopedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a collection of articles in varying formats (expository, historical, literature reviews, lecture-style). I am ...
0 votes
2 answers
62 views

How do we learn a subject which we know nothing about? [closed]

Recently I wanted to report on a certain social issue which was going on in my community. The problem I encountered was that there was a mass load of information and I didn't understand how to ...
4 votes
2 answers
239 views

Why is a well-understood theory easier to understand, and does this answer the question "Why is older philosophy 'easier' to understand"?

I know the question sounds weird, so I'll bring an example coming from my field: mathematics. One of the greatest mathematicians of all time is Gauss. One of his results is the "Remarkable ...
5 votes
3 answers
492 views

Can it be shown that video games have in some way impacted philosophy or vice versa?

Video games are a quite recent invention and they became popular far after being invented, maybe by the 90s. However, I think video games somehow affected my worldview and produced some ideas. I will ...
2 votes
1 answer
345 views

Why do many attach great significance to having read the original writings by philosophers?

Many of my conversations go like this. I express an opinion on a philosopher, and my friends ask, have you read the original work? I say no, but I have read many discussions and interpretations by ...
15 votes
11 answers
7k views

Best way to start philosophy? [duplicate]

I'm a software engineer, have a passion for philosophy. But I have no background in human science, but I guess I'm good at logic. Can you provide a profound study path to philosophy? What are the best ...
0 votes
2 answers
236 views

Why do people argue in favor of IQs, while then encouraging people (of any IQ) to use hard work to obtain the same successes?

At the same time people will say (science included) that IQ is a very important thing -- while at the same time saying that people with lower IQs can do things that people with higher IQs can -- while ...
3 votes
3 answers
347 views

From Ignorant to Researcher in Modal Logic

I am a student in a French university in pure mathematics. I recently came across modal logic and more particularly doxastic logic. But, the only masters of logic offered are reserved for students of ...
1 vote
0 answers
324 views

Plato's method for reaching the truth?

I wonder about Plato and, in particular, about his method of reaching the truth. One can suppose that the method is based on the practice of his dualistic philosophy, which would aim to free the soul ...
11 votes
4 answers
2k views

Do machine learning algorithms have knowledge (if not justified true beliefs)?

By "machine learning algorithm" I'm referring to basic, primarily statistical, machine learning algorithms; for concrete examples consider simple classifier algorithms like SVM or Bayesian classifier ...
0 votes
1 answer
378 views

Where to start with the philosophy of mathematics?

This may be a duplicate question. What is the best way to get started with the philosophy of mathematics? Given that I know (from university) the basics that are discussed (Set theory, Russell's ...
3 votes
1 answer
581 views

How to dive into philosophy?

I'm a high school student with some basic knowledge of philosophy by far (I've taken an Intro to Philosophy course online, read Plato's Republic, some Camus, some Nietzsche and plenty of Marx), but ...
2 votes
0 answers
161 views

Thoughts on Open Logic Project?

I'm currently thinking about starting to expand my knowledge of logic beyond what I retain from my previous study of logic by making use of the materials available through: OpenLogicProject (https://...
1 vote
0 answers
59 views

This philosopher deliberately taught misinformation

I remember reading once about a philosopher (Kierkegaard? Schopenhauer? Aristotle?) who would deliberately supply their students with misinformation that they should learn better, seek the truth. ...
1 vote
1 answer
122 views

How did Ivan Illich reconcile his dislike of academia with having been the vice rector of a university for years?

Did Ivan Illich apologize for being part of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico or his subsequent teaching at different universities? At some point he formed the opinion that schools cannot not ...
14 votes
7 answers
20k views

What are some simple ways to start learning philosophy?

It is hard for me to read and understand philosophical texts or secondary literature - even with Wikipedia. I don't want to give up, I just need to start slowly and with very basic things. How can I ...
4 votes
1 answer
328 views

How to stay up-to-date on modern philosophy?

It is rather difficult to decide what to read, what is obsolete, and so forth. How does one stay up-to-date on modern philosophical thought? Are there journal apps which show new essays, articles, ...
2 votes
2 answers
114 views

What does it mean for philosophical texts to be also great literary works?

Source: Philosophy: The Basics (2012 5 ed), p. 2 Bottom. The history of philosophy is a fascinating and important subject in its own right, and many of the classic philosophical texts are also ...
4 votes
4 answers
3k views

Is it necessary to read philosophical texts in order?

What I mean by this is simple: does one necessarily need to read Plato in order to grasp his theory of forms before reading Aristotle; and further still, must one read the two of them in order to read ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

Which (European) Language(s) are recommended to learn for philosophy?

I am planning on learning a European language over the summer, probably German, Spanish or French. What is recommended both in terms of philosophy literature which is best understood in the original ...
1 vote
0 answers
128 views

Common argument against current level of AI

A common argument against the current level of AI I often hear is "A child can recognize a dog after seeing it once, whereas it takes a model thousands of images". This makes sense on the surface, ...
3 votes
1 answer
103 views

How do philosophers approach learning 'new' texts?

In the West, do most contemporary philosophy students and philosophers reads the entirety of Western philosopher? Do they, for instance, read every single thing written by Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche, ...
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Philosophers who wrote about limits of knowledge?

What if "the truth" about any concept (consciousness, reality, religion,physics, etc.), turns out to be a complex idea such that our brains can't simply process it in a single lifespan. For example, ...
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179 views

Why cannot anything in Plato be skipped, because you cannot skip a part of a play or poem?

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (Revised 1972 ed.), p. 284 Top.   Spinoza carried the conception even farther. His Ethics is written in strict mathematical form,...
2 votes
1 answer
313 views

How to start Philosophy and find the branches that are related to my questions?

From Wikipedia: Ontology: philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Epistemology: study of the nature ...
0 votes
0 answers
127 views

To learn philosophy, which famous philosophers favour starting with modern introductions over primary sources?

Source: p 211, Philosophy; The Classics (4 ed, 2014) by Nigel Warburton BA PhD (Philosophy) At the very end of his book [The Problems of Philosophy], Russell claims that students who want to ...
2 votes
3 answers
238 views

How does excelling in philosophy help shorten the learning curve on other subjects?

[Penultimate bullet:] Get really good at something totally different than philosophy (because being good at philosophy helps shorten the learning curve on everything [bold mine]). This question ...
12 votes
4 answers
8k views

Most effective ways to self-learn philosophy

I am interested in self-learning philosophy, but I am faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: being dyslexic (metaphorically speaking) while reading serious philosophical works (including ...
1 vote
1 answer
108 views

Why does A.R.C. Duncan opine that compared with science or history, only philosophy obliges students to philosophise for themselves?

Source: p 393 Bottom-394 Top, Introducing Philosophy for Canadians: A Text with Integrated Readings (2011 1 ed). Primary Source: Moral Philosophy, by A.R.C. Duncan   An important consequence of ...
1 vote
2 answers
440 views

Why can parts of masterworks in philosophy be skipped?

TL/DR: This question presumes reading of a philosophical work for fun and self-learning. How did philosophers err or underperform, and so enable or justify some skipping? Did they repeat themselves ...
2 votes
2 answers
188 views

How do you progress in self-learning Critical Thinking, after completing an introductory textbook?

The assertion♦ that Critical Thinking (hereafter CT) includes, but does not equal, Logic, implies the insufficiency of Logic to teach CT. I plan to read textbooks in both CT and Logic that ...
1 vote
1 answer
435 views

What exactly is a non-analytic method of thinking? Any examples of widely accepted ways of nonstructural thinking methods? [closed]

A.S. analytic and systemic definitions I mainly used from here, but there might be more general or specific meanings I am not aware of that is not covered in that link (Definition: A "chunk" ...
1 vote
4 answers
310 views

Do you need to learn the old dialects in which older philosophy is written?

(TL;DR) Abbreviate ED as earlier dialects of your modern first language(s). I desire to read philosophy written in only ED, and not in languages which must be learned from scratch; but I fail to ...
4 votes
1 answer
3k views

How to self study Plato?

I started to self study Plato but I am not sure how to arrange my knowledge. In general philosophy books, Plato's philosophy is separated by subject matter (metaphysics, language, ethics), but this ...
8 votes
7 answers
1k views

Should you read simpler paraphrases before the older original works of philosophy?

I'm self-learning philosophy, but am untrained in linguistics, and fear obscurantism. So I prefer and find more helpful 'paraphrases': (which I define to mean) other philosophers' rewrites and ...
5 votes
1 answer
288 views

What is the prerequisite knowledge for reading philosophers of the Enlightenment?

I want to read philosophical texts, however I have not done so because I am daunted by the prospect of it. I guess this stems from the nature of ideas, that is they are usually in dialogue with other ...
5 votes
4 answers
1k views

Understanding "Being and Time"

After reading a few books on introduction to philosophy, I was recommended to read "Being and Time" by Martin Heidegger as I found temporality very interesting. Knowing that this book is one that many ...