Eighteen and on a gap year: should I read the philosophers themselves or an introduction first?

Question

I finished senior high school in Jakarta this year and I'm taking a gap year before university, which my parents call wasting time. Last month I read al-Ghazālī's Deliverance from Error, his account of his crisis of doubt, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. It was the first time a book felt like it was arguing with me.
Now I want to read more and I'm stuck at the start. Some people say: read the primary texts, Plato, Descartes, the Analects, and struggle. Others say: read a good introduction first, or you'll misunderstand everything and waste months. I've tried both. Plato's Republic lost me in Book I. An introduction I borrowed was clear but felt like reading the menu instead of eating.
Is there a right order? How do people who are good at this actually learn? I have about ten months and a library card.

Giulia Ferrante · Accepted Answer

I've taught Plato to teenagers for twenty years, so here's what I'd tell my own students.
Primary texts first, but the right ones. Start with short works that were written to be read by non-specialists and that argue with you, as al-Ghazālī did. Plato's Apology, Crito and Euthyphro (not the Republic: it's long and Book I is a trap). Descartes' Meditations. The Analects, a few passages a day. Epictetus' Handbook. You already found one; follow that feeling.
Use an introduction as a map, not a meal. When a primary text confuses you, read a short encyclopaedia entry or a chapter about it, then go back. The introduction answers ‘what's going on here?’; the text is where the thinking happens.
Read slowly and write. One page of notes for every ten pages read: what is the claim, what is the argument, what would someone say against it?
Find people. Reading groups here, a friend, a teacher. Philosophy was always a conversation.
And ten months with a library card is not wasting time. Socrates would call it the only use of time that isn't.

Fajar Nugroho · Answer

Thank you, Giulia. The Apology it is. I'll write my parents a note about Socrates.

Imam Bilal Hussain · Answer

Since you came in through al-Ghazālī: read his account of the philosophers' methods in the Deliverance again after you've read some Plato and Aristotle. It's a different book the second time. And try Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, a novel about a boy who reasons his way to God alone on an island. It's short and you won't put it down.

Hessa Al Mazrouei · Answer

I'm writing a doctorate on Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, so I endorse the Imam's suggestion with a warning: it's also a book about whether you can learn without teachers. Ḥayy can, almost. The rest of us need the conversation Giulia describes.

Ethan Mercer · Answer

Undergraduate here, two years ahead of you. The thing I wish I'd known: it's fine to not understand a primary text the first time. Nobody does. Understanding comes from the third reading and from arguing about it. Don't treat confusion as failure.

Serkan Aydoğdu · Answer

I'm a bus driver who started with lectures between stops two years ago. Audio helped me a lot when I was tired. Epictetus makes sense in traffic. Find the format that fits your day.

Eighteen and on a gap year: should I read the philosophers themselves or an introduction first?

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