A philosophical idea that changed your life

[Chewbie Chan]

You might have read it in a classical work of philosophy, heard someone else express it or came to it yourself quite unexpectedly or through reasoned argument - it doesn't matter.

Have you ever had an idea, "philosophical" in nature, that changed your life in a big way?

[SSY]

Solipsism, it basically ruined everything.

Sorry

[AlP]

I choose critical thinking. Basic baloney defense.

[curiosityandthecat]

Freire's concientización.

[Sophus]

It's a problem free Philosophy....

But on a serious, and yet related, note, Nietzsche's idea of Nobility is one of my favorites.

[elliebean]

http://www.literature.org/authors/descartes-rene/reason-discourse/

^ put together with my readings of various christian apologetics, set the foundation for my ability to think critically, thereby ultimately becoming an atheist.

also:

http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html

^ The ideas on this essay led to my early reading on anarchism, which I had to abandon due to my dwindling attention span and short-term memory deficit, but which still informs my political thinking.

[pinkocommie]

Zen FTW.  

[fdesilva]

Confessions of Augustine
 http://www.stoa.org/hippo/
This is the story of a man’s conversion based on philosophical thinking

summa theologica
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.html
The ultimate philosopher

Poems of the Man God  
See review by Yale University
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~rpl24/Glossol ... Klimek.pdf

[Sophus]

Confessions of Augustine

Ewww, Augustine.    Sorry, but he's one of my least favorite "thinkers" of all time.

[fdesilva]

Confessions of Augustine

Ewww, Augustine.    Sorry, but he's one of my least favorite "thinkers" of all time.

source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/

One of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition was the eventually widespread merging of the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural traditions. Augustine is one of the main figures through and by whom this merging was accomplished. He is, as well, one of the towering figures of medieval philosophy whose authority and thought came to exert a pervasive and enduring influence well into the modern period (e.g. Descartes and especially Malebranche),

[elliebean]

One of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition was the eventually widespread merging of the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural traditions. Augustine is one of the main figures through and by whom this merging was accomplished. He is, as well, one of the towering figures of medieval philosophy whose authority and thought came to exert a pervasive and enduring influence well into the modern period (e.g. Descartes and especially Malebranche),

Exactly.

[Ellainix]

Chaos Theory

[Tom62]

Murphy's Law

[philosoraptor]

Sartre's essay Existentialism is a Humanism.  I remember reading it at 15-16 and being blown away that someone else thought a lot of the same things I did.  I already considered myself an atheist at that point, but so much of what he said made sense and really helped me refine and define those beliefs.

[penfold]

Taking magic mushrooms one summers day. Suddenly realised how plastic our perception of reality was.

I plugged a molecule into my brain and changed my mind.


(that and reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling)