But IMHO the best course of action would be to acquire logic proficiency first. And no, I'm not talking about the logic programmers usually know, but rather formal and informal philosophical logic.
Proficiency in logic is to philosophy like reading sheet music is to music. You can get by without it, but it will help you immensely.
I think non-academic people like me are served perfectly well by reading Spinoza's Ethics. Googling for more from there will cover almost all of post-dualism Western phil.
Wikipedia actually does a pretty good job of this. They have a section on the side bar for "Influences" (who influenced this philosopher and "Influenced" (who this philosopher influenced.)
Aristotle has this epic entry:
Influences: Plato
Influenced: Virtually all subsequent Western philosophy, Christian philosophy and pre-Enlightenment science (see List of writers influenced by Aristotle)
When I was in my first Philosophy seminar, our professor started off by saying, "all of western philosophy is a footnote to Aristotle."
He was a real one.
You could also google for philosophy course syllabi, but it's not always easy to know _why_ one philosopher influenced another or the significance in political theory, ethics, etc.
Did your professor point to Whitehead’s original quote?
“So far as concerns philosophy only a selected group can be explicitly mentioned. There is no point in endeavouring to force the interpretations of divergent philosophers into a vague agreement. What is important is that the scheme of interpretation here adopted can claim for each of its main positions the express authority of one, or the other, of some supreme master of thought - Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant. But ultimately nothing rests on authority; the final court of appeal is intrinsic reasonableness.
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writing an inexhaustible mine of suggestion.”
The Book of Bad Arguments[1] is a great way for a total beginner to get familiar with informal fallacies.
After that, I recommend jumping to basic symbolic logic. I tried several books on the subject, and found an excellent free resource that is not well know: Introduction to Logic[2], by professor Gary Hardegree. I was so grateful for this material that I even sent him an email to thank him for it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Now you'll have acquired have a firmer grasp of how arguments work, and will also be able to understand at least some of the logical notation used in the SEP, Wikipedia, etc. Unless you wish to acquire comprehensive philosophical knowledge (something that takes many years of continuous effort), browsing IEP[3] and SEP[4] for subjects you're interested in can be a rewarding experience. SEPs search feature may not be Google, but it's pretty good. I tend to use IEP or Wikipedia to get an overview, and only go to SEP if I'm feeling fancy.
Here's an opinionated list of articles in semi-random order that might be adequate for a beginner (logic training will help, but it's frequently possible to get some understanding even without it):
But IMHO the best course of action would be to acquire logic proficiency first. And no, I'm not talking about the logic programmers usually know, but rather formal and informal philosophical logic.
Proficiency in logic is to philosophy like reading sheet music is to music. You can get by without it, but it will help you immensely.