[biswaroop]

This is such a good point. Pretty much any human endeavor (philosophy, startups, physics, mathematics, literature, music, art, physical training, etc) can be much more fruitful when done in collaboration with others who are also trying hard. This is why cutting edge research continues to be done in universities, and why YC is so successful.

As a fan of both analytic and continental philosophy, I can also confirm that professionally trained analytic philosophers tend to be biased and limited in their arguments. But aren't we all.

I agree: it's essential to expose yourself to broader works of philosophy. I would extend this beyond Europe to Asian works of philosophy, and aboriginal and indigenous stories across the world. Outside the Eurocentric philosophy bubble, it can be harder to disentangle philosophy from religion, culture, and myth, but that's part of the fun.

How idiotic would it be if there was a book called "A Perfectly Complete and Eternally Correct Encyclopedia of Philosophy", and we all read it and called ourselves 'philosophers'.

[menssen]

Well, but we are all philosophers -- lovers of wisdom -- or at least all who begin to ask about it are. Sure, it would be idiotic to say that such a book is the end of philosophy, but actually such a book as the beginning of philosophy seems pretty valuable. You need a comprehensive starting point to tell you give you some Wikipedia (or SEP) rabbit holes to go down.

Here is one very specific recommendation for a place to start: Richard Rorty, and in particular, his book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature."

I've suffered through the tension between the Continental and Anglican worlds, and I think that Rorty is extremely valuable as a bridge between the two, and potentially an entry point to the one you're not familiar with (or both if you're familiar with neither).

Given the original question (about "mental models"), the Philosophy of the Mind is one of the more universal topics, that tends to be less controversial across the different schools of Philosophy. That Rorty book is a decent entry point to it, which will lead to things like...

A debate between Rorty and John Searle about consciousness (Searle is a mind-is-not-the-brain person):

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/425883

Correspondence between Searle and Dan Dennet about the mind (Dennet is a brain-is-a-computer person):

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/12/21/the-mystery-of-c...

[smhost]

> Outside the Eurocentric philosophy bubble, it can be harder to disentangle philosophy from religion, culture, and myth, but that's part of the fun.

maggie thatcher didn't say "all problems come from outside europe". she said "in my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland europe and all the solutions have come from the english-speaking nations of the world"

i think you're a bit mistaken about the nature of the analytic-continental divide

[biswaroop]

Sorry, when I say Eurocentric, I include the UK. Europe for most people still includes the British Isles, regardless of the preferences of certain conservatives.

Also, wow that's an ignorant quote. Let me rephrase it: "We have no internal problems. All of our external problems during a 60 year period have come from our neighboring countries, and all the solutions are the ones we and our allies came up with." Genius. (sorry for the snark). Is your argument that the analytic-continental divide is just Thatcherite Anglocentrism? Because I really don't think it is.

[smhost]

> Sorry, when I say Eurocentric, I include the UK.

That's my whole disagreement. The analytic-continental divide is a split within the western world. But you present it as if the non-eurocentric world is more conducive to the continental tradition, when even the concept of eurocentrism not only comes from europe, but it comes from the continental tradition through hegel's philosophy of history and his predecessors.

[rhizome31]

I'm sorry but you misread the comment you replied to. It was taking analytic and continental philosophy as a whole (western philosophy) and was encouraging philosophy students to go beyond it and also look into non-western philosophy.

[biswaroop]

> you present it as if the non-eurocentric world is more conducive to the continental tradition

Ah okay, I see the confusion: I mean "western philosophy".