tribdog said:
Give me a good definition and a quick tutorial on philosophy. I'll read it if you write it, but probably won't go look anything up, plus I figure everyone's world revolves around me so you shouldn't have anything else to do.
Lol. Quick eh? Okay, here's my personal little formula, which I am sure plenty of people won't agree with, but it works for me:
1. Understand your own nature as consciousness.
2. Believe only what you have experienced.
2b. Consider "credible" what you can be certain others have experienced.
3. Be willing to study subjects that help you understand and acquire facts about reality's key aspects (to me those aspects are physicalness, aliveness, and consciousness).
4. Study the history of world philosophies. You said you probably won't do that, but if you ever change your mind, I'll recommend three books with the idea of giving you the quickest overview of world philosophy. (The list is at the end of this post.)
5. Learn the rules of logic.
6. Look at the world with as big a perspective as you can manage, and try to see common threads running through creation's most important aspects.
7. Reason sincerely, with facts, and with impeccable logic while maintaining the largest perspective you can . . . all with the objective of getting at the truth of some particular situation.
Recommended Reading
There are three great philosophies: Western, Chinese, and Indian. All of them have several areas which are important, but studying all that would be a lot of work. So if I am to keep the list short and only suggest one book to read (
) for each, then I would choose the aspect of each philosophy which I consider the most important development. With that in mind, I might recommend the following (all of which can be found used at Amazon):
A. For Western philosophy I might recommend "Western Civilization - Ideas, Politics & Society" by Perry et al (fifth edition). It is a history book, but one which emphasizes the history of ideas. The one volume edition will take you from the earliest thinkers and show how that eventually led to the most important development of Western philosophy: empiricism. Interesting reading too.
B. For Chinese philosophy I'd recommend the "I Ching" by Wilhelm (translated by Baynes). Stumbling on the Chinese study of symmetry (sometimes referred to as
yin yang philosophy) was probably the greatest find of my philosophic career. It is very underappreciated in the West, mostly I think because of those who relate to it in occult ways, instead as a book of wisdom. I have about 18 different versions of the book, and Wilhelm's version is still tops in my opinion (plus it contains excellent supplimentary information).
C. The most important development of Indian philosophy, in my opinion, is the realization of a certain consciousness potential embodied in the idea of "enlightenment." Now, everybody and their uncle has concepts about this today, but the first person recognized to have achieved it through personal effort, and who taught methods (for forty years) to other on how to realize it for oneself was the Buddha. His words are probably better documented than any other teacher of enlightenment, so I would recommend reading him directly (i.e., rather than later interpreters). On of my favorite books is "Thus Have I heard - The long discourses of the Buddha" translated by Maurice Walshe.
Good luck!
Do you mind posting them? I would really like to know them. 
