Advice

[Snic19]

Hello. I am a student majoring in Biblical Studies. I am very new to philosophy. I have read some Plato but not much else. I am taking a course on Church History this semester and have an assignment to write a research paper on one of a list of topics and how it affects church history. On the list are Kant, Descartes, and Kierkegaard. I am not familiar with any of thier work so I was looking for some advice on which to choose and possibly some books that I might be able to use in my research. Thanks for your help.

[NikolaiI]

A very good book, if you can find it, is "European philosophers, from Descartes to Nietzsche". It has Descartes, and Kant, as well as Fichte, who is a great one to read, and Schopenhaur, Leibniz, Pascal, etc...and has GOOD translations of Descartes, who has many, many BAD translations. If you get a bad translation of Descartes, you are completely screwed!! Because, it's simple enough to understand, but for some unknown reason certain translations have butchered it trying to make it simpler, using short words that lose soo much of the meaning...

Plato is wonderful, you would probably want to go back and read more of it after reading Descartes and Pascal, etc. Pascal is good, too, especially coming from the Christian perspective as he does. Good luck!

[Cafe Rob]

One of the best authors of philosophy books is Arthur Schopenhauer. His main work; 'The World as Will and Representation' is a very enlightening. One reason is because he talks about Kant's theory of transcendental idealism another is because he brings in so much general philosophical wisdom. His other books too, 'The Fourfold Root of the Principal of Sufficient Reason,' also another masterly work. Also 'On the Basis of Morality,' and another that he wrote about the freedom of the will.
When you've read those books you can then move onto Nietzsche, the best one is the Gay Science.

One point though that Schopenhauer talks about is the metaphysical 'Life Force' or 'Elan Vital,' Schopenhauer refers to it as Will, but I believe that this theory is no longer tenable. I understand the dominant theory in philosophy now is that the life force can now be explained by physics.

[blazeofglory]

Nietzsche is unbeatable and illuminating read him

[jgweed]

The easier reading for non-philosophy majors is certainly Descartes, who writes with grace and style. The Meditations and the Discourses are two major works that certainly have had a tremendous influence on philosophical thinking and by extension on later Christianity. These two shorter works can be read together much more quickly than Kierkegaard or Kant; the former would be a more contemporary author but one would have to read several works (since he was not a system creator) more to really understand his existentialist perspective, while the latter is extremely dry reading and, I suggest, presupposed some understanding of prior philosophers in a way that neither Descartes nor Kierkegaard do.
What others were on the list?
Once you decide on the philosopher, I am sure some of us could direct your attention to appropriate secondary sources.
Cheers,
John