I stumbled into philosophy in the same manner that I discovered Twitter and Word Press; through Edith Cowan University while I was completing my arts degree. Considering I am now using Word Press and have developed a website, where I repost interesting articles that I find on Twitter says a lot about that school’s influence upon me.
My interest and near addiction to philosophy, is certainly not the lesser of the holy trinity when consuming idle time. The article does not cover my personal motivation and interest, but it does add a layer of explanation.
The most interesting part though, is that Nigel Warburton who posted this article on Twitter is a philosopher and an author of philosophy who greatly influenced my interest in philosophy. I have most of his books and a small collection of his podcasts stored on the bulging micro SD card in my phone.
The first two philosophers I was introduced to in my core humanities units was Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. But unknowingly I had also been reading philosophy for quite a while in the forms of Karl Marx, Sir Thomas Moore and Voltaire. The chronology of their existence might not be in order; it is though the order in which I discovered, read and appreciated their somewhat specialised writing styles. This, I was later to find out was called philosophy.
I will not go on too much further with my memories of reading great books because they were interesting, and not reading their work because someone else said it was great literature. Read the article and make up your own mind. Is philosophy the self help you need? Or like me you simply enjoy beautifully written literature that makes you think and appreciate how fascinating a universe we live in, for such a very short time.
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