Comment by rstefanic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rstefanic | Hacker News Reader

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It's an unpopular opinion depending on what you're recommending.

Telling someone "read the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle" will lead someone to just pick up any copy of the Nicomachean Ethics. There are a lot of translations of the Nicomachean Ethics and they are not all equal. They range from very good translations, to idiosyncratic readings of the text, to flat out bad translations.

Beyond poor translations, the ancients that you've recommended are good to start with and the recommendation to read the primary sources of them is just fine. Those texts are easy to digest without having a formal background in philosophy.

But for other philosophers (e.g. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Hegel), telling someone to just "pick up one of their primary texts" is a disaster. It will either (a.) be complete gibberish to the reader without any context and they may just give up, or worse, (b.) they think they'll understand something without the proper context and spew nonsense in regards to that philosopher (this is why there are so many bad readings of Nietzsche).

So depending on what you're recommending, primary sources can be good, but in my experience, primary sources aren't good most of the time. Moreover, if someone is interested in a specific field like the OP is, then having a good secondary source can be extremely helpful to give someone an overview and proper understanding of the topic.

"for other philosophers (e.g. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Hegel), telling someone to just "pick up one of their primary texts" is a disaster. It will either (a.) be complete gibberish to the reader without any context and they may just give up, or worse, (b.) they think they'll understand something without the proper context and spew nonsense in regards to that philosopher (this is why there are so many bad readings of Nietzsche)."

This is why you'll want to read those primary sources as part of a class, instead of just trying to go it alone.

But even that won't save you from "bad readings" of Nietzsche or any other philosopher, as plenty of experts disagree on what he meant. He, like some other philosophers, just wrote in a way that doesn't have one obvious meaning that everyone can agree on. With experience and study, you can make up your own mind, which will be better than swallowing some other person's pre-digested interpretation of him.

You might have an easier time understanding a secondary source's interpretation of Nietzsche, but that doesn't mean that you understand Nietzsche.

My post was mainly in regards to the recommendation of having someone just pick up a primary source and just start reading it. But I agree that, if you're taking a class and you have someone who can go through the text with you, then that's the best option instead of trying to go it alone. But that's different from just sending someone straight to the primary source alone.

And of course there are many interpretations of Nietzsche and there's reasonable disagreement on what he said. You're right that a secondary source or taking a class doesn't "save you from bad readings" of him, but it's still better than trying to go it alone.

There are many flat out wrong interpretations of him, and someone like a professor or a secondary source can definitely help avoid common misunderstandings and pitfalls when trying to read him.

"There are many flat out wrong interpretations of him, and someone like a professor or a secondary source can definitely help avoid common misunderstandings and pitfalls when trying to read him."

That really depends on who you read. If you read only a secondary source instead of the primary source, and that secondary source happens to have misinterpreted the primary, you're going to be misled.

If you read the primary source you're at least going to have the chance to make up your own mind, even if it's difficult to do so... and even if you can't, you might at least see that what the primary source actually says might not be as straightforward and obvious as the secondary source maintains.

But please don't think I'm against secondary sources altogether. They can be a useful adjunct to reading the primary sources. Ideally, though, you'd have multiple secondary sources (ones that disagree with one another), so you don't fall in to some one person's reality tunnel.

This is especially important in philosophy. I can't count the number of times I've read secondary sources which I consider to have completely misunderstood the primary sources they were commenting on, and how frequently secondary sources disagree with one another (especially on the more "difficult" philosophers).

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