How to prepare for Philosophy 101 (Your first philosophy course!)

First, I'd like to say congrats on your philosophical journey I hope you're as excited to start this journey as I was. Philosophy will teach you many lessons about yourselves as well as others and if you like knowledge and wisdom you are in for a treat. With philosophy being a very old discipline there are tons of things to learn and read about.

This leads me to my first point of emphasis which is a remarkably simple piece of advice that is getting ready to read. In philosophy, you will be doing a lot of reading and writing unlike any other reading and writing you have ever done before. Philosophical texts are extremely dense and tricky to read while I don’t want to scare you, this is just the reality of it. With philosophical texts, you need to be actively reading, trying to look for arguments and points made by the philosopher you're reading. It is important though to not get discouraged because there will always be at least one philosopher that you don’t understand on the first read-through. Quite frankly most philosophical texts you won't understand on the first read but you should let this motivate you because when you finally understand the arguments and points of emphasis of a text, you'll feel a profound sense of accomplishment. There are also many resources on the internet to help you understand what you're reading by just searching the book and analysis/summary but it's important to not always trust every source you will need to learn what sources are trustworthy and what ones aren't. My favorite resource is the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.

Next up we have a doozy which is that you should get ready to dissect your beliefs because everything you were ever taught and everything you ever believed in will be questioned. Dissecting your beliefs can be a scary thing but it shouldn’t off-put you from continuing down this philosophical path because once your beliefs change or solidify you will have produced more arguments and more philosophical backing to your beliefs so they can either become sound arguments or better-constructed arguments instead of the typical I believe whatever my parents believe ordeal. This from my experience has led me to find beauty in the madness that is this world; meaning that it's so hard for there to be any certainty within knowledge and this is maddening but there is a sense of beauty in this madness since we won't get the chance to have certainty and we can learn to appreciate the uncertainty. Dissecting your belief and existing in this realm of uncertainty can force us into an existential crisis but this shouldn’t be feared because while in the moment of an existential crisis it can feel like the world is caving in around you but having this existential crisis can force us to reevaluate our lives and values and lead us into some self-development and some growth as a human being.

My last tip for this post would be that you need to learn how to properly argue. This ability to argue and engage in the Socratic method is important so we can have a philosophical debate without people feeling offended and bringing emotion into things or one person trying to dominate the conversation over someone else. When everyone thinks of arguing they think of having an argument with their significant other or a family member or something of this sort where the argument isn't civil and people are getting offended and upset. In philosophy we want to avoid this completely, we can engage in philosophical arguing by asking questions about someone's belief and trying to dissect why they believe their argument, and try to find holes in it to try to get closer to the truth. But we need to completely avoid criticizing the person over their argument because all philosophers want to try to get to the truth, not just you. Remember the goal isn't to win the argument but to get as close to the truth as possible

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As always stay curious!