How to Read Philosophy

  "All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine." - Socrates
  "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." - Occam
  "Woman does not exist." - Jacques Lacan
  
  Philosophy has always been a confusing art. At one point in history, it was the most noble endeavour, in ours, a unpragmatic science. When we think about philosophy and philosophers, most of us imagine bald ancient Greeks with long beards, 3000 years ago. However, the art, or science, of philosophy has expanded since then, believe it or not. It's now much more convoluted, contains hundreds of fields of study, and is increasingly in-demand with new technologies. How can we, as individuals, parse the thousands of books, essays, and articles written about moral, existential, aesthetic philosophies? More importantly: How do we find what interests <i>us</i>, and utilize it in <i>our</i> lives? To venture into philosophy and exit with knowledge both interesting and beneficial, we have to first gain an overview of field. Luckily for us, metaphilosophers have already done much analysis as to the eras and schools of philosophy as well as their underlying systems-of-thought.  
  Michel Foucault, a modern French philosopher, gives a sharp example of the progession of science in his debate with Noam Chomsky. He dissects the concept of "life" in biology, one that he claims was almost never used in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was understood that there was a distinction between minerals and plants, plants and animals, animals and man. The notion of life simply wasn't needed, and Foucault claims that its growing prevalence was as an indicator of an emerging field of study. The specifics bare, for us, little importance, but the idea that concepts and categories can historically shift shows an ever-present need to study contemporary and past methods of understanding. One must "stay afloat" in order to understand the world today, as well as historical practices. Foucault uses the same historical analysis pragmatically in study of prison systems, hospitals, schools, etc. Public understanding of things such as mental illness, justice, akjslbdf were dictated through common thought at the time. How did they come to these conclusions?