Most difficult branch of Philosophy to grasp ?

MRnotlob606

I've been reading philosophy for a little while and I've noticed some branches of Philosophy can be quite confusing. I don't know if anybody else also feels this way, but I feel that some branches like Logic and Language can be quite esoteric and inaccessible to most people.Do any of you face any problems when trying to understand Philosophical concepts ?

I've read many introductory books on Philosophy to help me elucidate on some concepts that I read about.Being perplexed by it all brings me a sort of joy though because it really highlights the prowess of intellectual thinking.

Torakx

I was just wondering the other day about this question and what kind of things I don't know about that I should read.
I wonder if there are old college exams available so I can at least get an idea of where I am at and where to go next.


Deconstructionism was one area I found to be interesting and not what I had thought originally. That might be one area that is difficult to grasp.


Nietzsche on superficial knowledge. "He who speaks a bit of foriegn language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge."
So be sure not to learn too much

Black Swan

Post modern deconstructionist philosophy as advanced by Jacques Derrida is challenging. How does a deconstructionist construct a philosophy? Derrida had a useful method for the examination of philosophy, but a philosophy?

Mr.Saturn

Derrida is the perpetually academic haymaker. He makes sense, but articulates it in such a way that you can never hold him accountable for anything.

Black Swan

Mr.Saturn wrote: »

Derrida is the perpetually academic haymaker. He makes sense, but articulates it in such a way that you can never hold him accountable for anything.

I'll admit that Derrida was challenging to read, especially when he shifts between English and French cultural/language meanings and differences. Furthermore, he all too often assumes that his reader was highly versed in western philosophy, especially when he breezes through subtle and sometimes esoteric concepts, building one upon another to make his arguments. My approach is to quickly scan his writings first, noting my impressions, then go back and read him in detail, sometimes correcting my first thoughts.

Derrida has been often misunderstood. He does not have a formally constructed philosophy, so to observe that "you can never hold him accountable for anything" was misplaced. He was not a philosopher, rather an exemplary methodologist with the deconstruction of several philosophical positions. See Herman Rapaport (2001) The Theory Mess: Deconstruction in Eclipse, wherein it was concluded that Derrida has been misread by many, especially by the Anglo-American philosophical community.

Have you read Derrida's Of Grammatology (1967) wherein he specifically critiques the subordination of writing to speech (i.e., the logocentrism conceptualized by Ludwig Klages), and in general a criticism of the romantic noble savage myth attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Claude Lévi-Strauss using his deconstruction method?

For example, Derrida was very accountable and takes a clear position when he deconstructs Lévi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques (1955) "Writing Lesson." Derrida walks us through, step-by-step the poor methods used by Lévi-Strauss, as well as his logocentric bias, that distorted Lévi-Strauss's conclusions regarding the corruption of the noble savage (i.e., Nambikwara society) by the introduction of writing. Whereupon Lévi-Strauss contended that speech originated before writing, Derrida contends that both evolved together over thousands of years, consequently there was no merit to suggest that writing triggered corruption any more than speech did.

nealcassidy

logic is very hard to grasp