Reddit reviews The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View

I'm currently reading Peter Watson's Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Freud to Fire.

Although I have yet to read it, you could try Richard Tarnas' The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View

I also enjoyed The Passion Of The Western Mind by Richard Tarnas. Personally, I think that Tarnas did of better job than Russel at giving context to the philosophical frameworks that these guys were working within, but that's just my opinion (I've read both books). Russell comes across like a professor giving you his specific interpretation - hence the bias slant - where as Tanas seems able to give you a little more perspective - not that I'm attempting to claim that he is completely without bias, himself.

You might also what to look into Sophie's World.

Pragmatism means the idea that what is true is what is most useful. The investigation of metaphysical concepts is termed foundationalism and is a disease that has plagued philosophy since it's inception. I believe in pragmatism, but I try not to metaphysicalize it.

Now, this discussion is impossible to contain in book of infinite pages, but since you say you are new, il just say what I think would be the most useful for a non philosophy student. It is really difficult to investigate these concepts without a teacher but sadly many philosophers are extremely arrogant so it might be hard to find one.

You need to read a history of western philosophy to understand it's truth. This is itself a debatable proposition, because some say that philosophy is a progressive enterprise and that we march closer to the really real every day. From my perspective, I would start out with this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Passion-Western-Mind-Understanding/dp/0345368096

It is spectacular and will make you as knowledgable about the western tradition as most philosophy majors. It is profound and easy to read. Can't recommend enough.

Then, you should pick the ideas that grab you and start looking into them. There is a lot of stuff online about it, but tbh you need a book. Books are the western style of meditation, because they demand repeated return to the same idea, awareness of awareness.

I love the presocratics, my favorite is Pythagoras. There is a lot of really cool stuff on them, but it mostly comes from anthologies because their direct insights have been destroyed,

You already are enlightened, the idea is to become aware of this fact. Don't get turned off by the arrogance of philosophy, because it's really something that belongs to everyone.

The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View

The Passion of the Western Mind - Richard Tarnas
Amazon

The book starts with Plato and Socrates and travels through the evolution of western thought up to contemporary times. It touches on the major ideas of the major thinkers of each era. I found it to be a good base before getting into the primary literature I've read since then. Just try to ignore his own little discourse at the end... or don't.

BTW I'm an armchair philosopher.

The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

• My overall intention with my all of my podcasts is to learn through engaging conversations with subject matter experts from all different types of domains. I'm not trying to prosthelytize anyone. I happen to find the topics interesting and helpful, and so I share them far and wide for anyone with an open and curious mind.
  
• I'd say astrology is more like a language than a religion.
  
• People turn to astrology to find meaning in their lives when they're facing some sort of existential crisis as to who they are and what they're doing on this planet. Astrology can provide answers to those questions in a way that aren't always found elsewhere. As to whether or not those answers are "true" can't be really answered by anyone at this point other than each individual who did or did not find value in their astrological delineation. Astrology can provide a story and working theory that has the potential to additional context about their meaning and purpose in their lives. If astrological theory can help people align with things that make them feel fulfilled and happy, then it can be a worthwhile and helpful tool. There are plenty of charlatans out there no doubt, but I've met enough professional astrologers to be able to say that they're often some of the most insightful and interesting people I've ever met.
  
• I don't find strength from astrology like one might from Christianity. It's more like looking at a weather prediction, but on a time scale of weeks and months rather than for a single day. Would you go out sailing without looking at the weather? Probably not. Even if it's not 100% accurate, it can get you in the right ballpark as to what to expect and what to prepare for. Outer planet transits of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to a natal planet will last between a month to 18 months, and tend to carry a certain archetypal potential. I've felt it in my life, and I wrote a web app to be able to take a look at these in other people. My experience and the experience of dozens of others I've talked to personally over the last year is that outer planet transits can have a very distinct quality.
  
• Re: "deleterious to those getting the short end of the stick" - Astrology is not 100% deterministic. But most astrologers recognize that we do not have 100% free will and agency over every aspect of our lives. There are things beyond our control like we can't chose our parents or genetics, etc. So there are some things that are fated. The Hellenistic astrology movement has been bringing back in the perspective of fate into the discussion, and most astrologers realize that life falls somewhere in the middle between what's within our control and what's beyond our control.
  
• Re: "people born in the year of the pig" That's Chinese astrology. I practice Western psychological astrology, which is much more nuanced down to the minute someone one was born looking at their ascendant and midheaven. It also has a more sophisticated system of planets, signs and houses that can also change every couple of hours. Modern psychological astrology is much more complicated than you're portraying it.
  
• "everything in astrology is falsifiable" -- That's a ridiculous statement. I don't know if I'd be comfortable saying that about any topic. I'll falsify your statement with this article about the connection of certain mental disorders that are connected to seasons.
  
  > Many contemporary scientists are loath to admit to anything resembling astrology. “It seems absurd that the month you are born/conceived can affect your future life chances,” write neuroscientists Russell G. Foster and Till Roenneberg in a 2008 study. They then go on to then point out no fewer than 24 different health disorders connected to season of birth, and ultimately admit “despite human isolation from season changes in temperature, food, and photoperiod in the industrialized nations, the seasons still appear to have a small, but significant impact upon when individuals are born and many aspects of health.”
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  > The problem may be that there’s no clear underlying mechanism for the observed phenomena. Theories range from levels of maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy to seasonal viral and bacterial exposure.
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  > “We know that there is this weird connection between seasonal birth and certain disorders, but we don’t know why,” says Chris Ciarleglio, a neuroscientist currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University.
  
  
• "When you have no other means of discovery, you make shit up." -- Some bad astrologers do this. If it doesn't resonate with people, then they'll only go so far as a professional astrologer. Full-time, professional astrologers are grounded in a solid theoretical foundation, but they have personally observed astrological configurations over many years and gotten feedback for how those energies play out.
  
• "But to hold what people randomly made up as true" Astrology is an oral tradition of observation, and involves each archetypal complex is composed of many different facets like a diamond. These sets of correspondences have survived over 2000 years because they continue to find resonance in people's lives. But I wouldn't characterize that evolution of astrological correspondences as "random."
  
• "which has since been falsified by modern science is just plain odd" -- It's true that astrology doesn't follow the practices of most items on this checklist as to whether or not Astrology is scientific. There is a lack of rigor within the astrological community that people like Richard Tarnas has lectured about. But again, I would recommend checking into the work of Tarnas who has studied astrology for over 30 years and wrote a philosophical history of western thinking BECAUSE he found validity in astrology and wanted to write a book about the correlations between outer planet synodic cycles and patterns of culture. But he needed to trace how neo-Platonic thought lost favor since the Enlightenment period in an academic book called "The Passion of the Western Mind" that's used in college philosophy courses across the country. Tarnas is on the bleeding edge of cosmological thinking and argues that astrology is starting to point towards a new worldview within his epic Cosmos and Psyche. I think if you have an open mind and can read through those two books, then he provides the philosophical foundations and evidence for why astrology is relevant and worth consideration.