/// A BEGINNER'S FIELD GUIDE TO PHILOSOPHY ///
12 Branches ✦ 20 Thinkers ✦ 26 Books ✦ 42 Terms
Philosophy is not a subject you memorize. It is four questions, one tool, one game, and a habit. Here is the whole starter kit, hands on.
Every branch of philosophy grows out of one plain question. Tap a card to flip it, tap again to open the branch.
Philosophers do not fight with opinions. They build arguments: two starting claims, then a conclusion that must follow. That shape is called a syllogism.
YOUR TURN: TWO OF THESE ARE SOLID, TWO ARE BROKEN. JUDGE EACH ONE.
A runaway trolley is heading for five people. Grab the lever and drag it down to switch the track, or stand back and let it pass. Watch the highlighted route change as you pull.
Five deaths are worse than one, so pull. This is the answer of consequences: the right act is the one with the best result. It leads to thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
If you pull, you chose to harm that one person. Some duties, like do not kill, should not be traded away for numbers. This is the answer of duty, and it leads to Immanuel Kant.
The twist: most people pull the lever. But put the same choice on a bridge, where you must push one large man onto the track to stop the trolley, and most refuse. The math is identical. So why does it feel different? That gap between what you judge and what you feel is exactly where philosophy lives.
Fig. 1 · The trolley problem. Drag the lever, watch the route change, live with the outcome.
A wooden ship sails for a century. Whenever a plank rots, it is swapped for a new one. Tap the planks below to replace them yourself, and watch what is left of the original.
Fig. 2 · The ship of Theseus. Replace every plank, then answer the oldest question in metaphysics.
When thinkers answer the big questions in a similar style, that style gets a name: a school. Schools are not clubs. They are recipes for living that anyone can pick up. Tap any card to open its branch.
Control what you can, accept what you cannot, and do the right thing anyway. A two-thousand-year-old operating manual for a calm life.
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You were not born with a fixed purpose, and that is not a flaw. You are free, and you build meaning by the choices you make.
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Become a better person by honoring your roles: child, parent, friend, citizen. Character is built through daily ritual and respect.
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Stop pushing. Act with the grain of things, the way water finds its path downhill. Real strength is softness that does not break.
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Suffering comes from gripping: at things, at people, at who you think you are. See clearly, let go, and the grip loosens.
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Pleasure, done quietly: good friends, simple food, no fear of gods or death. Not an endless party. A garden with a fence around it.
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Philosophy splits into twelve neighborhoods. Seven grew out of ancient Greece, two are later schools with a huge following, and three come from classical China and India. Tap any card for the full tour.
Twenty people, twenty-five centuries, one conversation. Each one was answering the ones before. Start with the five below: the most read, the most quoted, and the easiest to find.
From Confucius and the Buddha in the 500s BC to Simone de Beauvoir in the 1900s. Tap any row for the full summary.
Twelve lines you have probably heard quoted. Tap a card to flip it over and get who said it and what it actually means, in plain words.
Philosophy is one long relay race. East lane on the left, West lane on the right, years down the middle spine. Ochre arrows show direct influence: a teacher shaping a student, or one thinker's books changing another's mind. Tap any card to open their summary. Era colors run through everything: the bands, the card chips, and the margin labels.
Fig. 3 · The relay. Twenty thinkers, eleven direct links, two and a half thousand years.
Twenty-six books that built the subject. Open the featured book and turn real pages: the famous line, why it matters, the key ideas, and the school it belongs to. Then pick any title from the shelf to load it into your hands.
Fig. 4 · Eight pages per book: cover, title page, two famous lines, why it matters, its school, the key ideas, and how to read it.
Forty-two words that come up again and again. Each card starts small: tap it and it opens up with the one-line gist and the full explanation. Search or filter by family.