There are so many posts to this thread that I could not possibly read them all so please excuse me if this has already been posted. I'm sort of new at dealing with the "search" database so I will just cut to the chase and state my point.
I have learned, painfully, that any attempt by a layman to read philosophy in the original text will prove to be an exercise in futility. When I was about 20 I stumbled into a bookstore simply to get out of a rainstorm. I pretended to be looking at books and absentmindedly picked up The Story Of Philosophy, by Will Durant. Having little previous experience with this topic at that time I just opened the book at random and began to read. I wound up buying the book and it quite literally changed my life.
Durant's prose style is exceptionally good, but more importantly his intent in writing this book was precisely to make the subject of philosophy accessible to the uninitiated, average reader. I now own three copies: 1. hardbound - collector quality, 2. unmarked paperback and 3. the original paperback that I purchased that day which is the only book in my 3000 volume library which is massively scored with a hiligher pens.
I would strongly recommend this book as a primer to the subject of philosophy.
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