A civil engineer in Sweden writes:
I am not a professional or academic philosopher, my interest in philosophy came to me rather lae in life, with family, house, daytime job already being factors in my life. I have read a lot in the 7 years since I took my initial course in "history of thought" evening time at Uppsala University. In my spare time, which is getting more substantial as my kids now are almost grown up--and unfortunately since the work situation for Swedish engineers in multinational companies is rather poor with the competition from low-salary countries--I read philosophy. Philosophy magazines, original works, internet forums et al.
Already having read a lot original works in philosophy(Sein und Zeit, Tractatus, much Nietzsche, Plato's dialogues...), I want to get in the business of reading academic papers. I've read a few, classical ones like "On Denoting", and some contemporary ones that I have found, but rather randomly and without knowing my way around. What I'm looking for, is there a place or an article that can suggest good papers for "beginners"? And "how to read academic papers"? Since I have no formal education in modal logic and the like, articles filled with such, looking like computer programming logic (which I know but not love) is not maybe my cup of tea. Papers on ethics, aestethics or other humanistic subjects seem to be more readable, and ethics, and political philosophy is of a great interest to me (I read ATOJ and ASU by Rawls/Nozick earlier this year, to get "background"). But I am also interested in logic and language. But are there some starting points for an amateur interested in the papers from the universities?
Any help would be appreciated!
Comments are open for suggestions.
