hello I’m Jack I’m a second year Philosophy student here at the
University of Birmingham and today I’m just going to be going through a few of
my recommended readings and activities and other things I’d
suggest to anyone who's looking to come study Philosophy at the University of
Birmingham so the first recommendation I have is a
book by Simon Blackburn and it is called Think: a Compelling Introduction
to Philosophy and this book is particularly
very recommended by members of the department and other students and
throughout my first year it was very much constantly told to me as a book I
need to be reading and I think there's a reason it's highly recommended and
that's because for a first year it is great for giving you that sort of
accessible access point into a lot of these deep philosophical issues that
you're going to be studying in second and third year Blackburn really
covers these issues in a very detailed yet easy to read way that
allows you to have sort of a base understanding of a lot of different
topics so he goes through in the book chapters on God chapters on free
will a chapter I particularly enjoyed on the soul and what the soul is made up of
but also there's some bits of technical philosophy skills in there so there's a
bit on logic which came in handy in one of my logic modules
and a few things like that that just let you
build your skills and your knowledge of philosophy and make it so that when you
move forward in second and third year you really know what you're doing at
least a little so I’d highly recommend it for that reason I think if
you're looking for a book to read over the summer that allows you to come to
university studies prepared at least for knowing what type of things
you'll encounter this is a great book for that the next recommendation I have
is an essay written by a very famous philosopher by the name of Peter Singer
who you may already come across before the title of this essay is Famine
Affluence and Morality the reason I’ve Chosen it is because partly because it is
quite a short yet dense essay something that you could easily
read through in a sitting but is going to sort of inspire thoughts that will
last much longer than you know the initial read but also because it's a
very much a nice delve into ethical philosophy and ethics as a sort of
topic which is very popular at the University and something you'll be
spending a fair bit of time discussing and thinking about but for me
personally it was an essay that very much challenged me and challenged my ideas
and made me sort of you know be a bit on the defensive in terms of trying to
argue back against certain arguments made because you often find
that if you read too much of things you easily agree with or find easy to refute
you're not honing those philosophical skills and I think Singer does a very
good job of creating what seems to be a very airtight but very
compelling and you know almost conflicting philosophical argument one
that we may not want to always agree with but we find compelled to agree with
and it means poking holes in it and finding your own voice in it is very
much difficult but I do think it's something that's
very helpful to read and challenge yourself on and something that you could
easily do in the summer that isn't going to take too much time out of you and
isn't going to be too strenuous but it's going to be quite a fun challenge to
read something like this when I read it in first year it was quite an
interesting experience and I’m sure you'll find the same
last but not least my final recommendation is kind of not a
recommendation at all but more a suggested activity that you do
that is that I suggest you find a piece of non-philosophical media and try and
analyse the issues it raises through a philosophical lens
so what I love about philosophy is that you can explore it in everyday life it
doesn't just exist in the classroom or the lecture hall it's beyond that it's
in the way you go about your daily life it's in the way you interact with other
people and I think that's a really valuable and important thing and I think
philosophy is most fun when you're applying it informally in your own ways
and I think that by taking a piece of content you enjoy and
searching what is it trying to say what does this say about reality what does it
say about me or people and trying to analyse the
philosophical consequences of its outlooks and its messages is a very nice
and very fun activity to do it's something that gets
you thinking philosophically before you've started university and sharpens
your mind to some philosophical issues without you even having to formally
study them because you're going to be spending a lot of time doing that if you
come here obviously and so I think it's just a fun way to
hone those philosophical skills and enjoy your time before university
before things start to become a bit more serious and so those are my
recommendations I hope you've enjoyed hearing about them and I appreciate you
listening and taking the time to listen so thank you very much