[pbradley]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i agree with a good chunk of your post, as you can see from something i wrote in a previous page, but i can imagine a different approach to philosophy: start with a PROBLEM. something that does not have an empirical solution and requires thought and speculation.

Well I think that is rather implied. What philosophy does not begin with a question? Philosophy, it seems to me, holds questions in a higher regard than answers. While this might frustrate less patient attentions, therein lies the love of wisdom.

attack the problem with your own devices, and then research who and how has addressed said problem before. take from your own post the question of "the good life", and you could go back to the existentialists, for example, or deep ecology, or marcuse, other more immediate ideas, before reaching back to the greeks. of course, since all of philosophy postulates or implies its own history, you do eventually end up back on plato and aristotle, except that you arrive at them from a different avenue, i.e., your own "vital" problem, the questions that you need to answer now, and a research into possible solutions.

part of the reason i think people find a hard time reading plato today is because they are not shown how it may be relevant to their own lives-- though i find aristotle more relevant anyway-- but that's besides the point. the point is that it is not just possible but also viable to approach philosophy from a "here and now" situation rather than by the accumulation of historical knowledge which may or may not apply, eventually, to one's life.

Plato is exceptionally easy for me to read so I don't know why anyone would have a hard time. The questions dealt with, such as pinpointing the definitions of courage, justice, piety, or friendship, are eternal questions. I especially suggest beginning with the early Socratic dialogues as these famously aren't resolved by the end of the dialogues. Thus, the reader is forced to further reflect upon the reading. It fosters the internal dialectic, which I think Kierkegaard refers to but that is beside the point.