J
JonW
Guest
Reading the history of thought, from ancient Greece to now, will help you understand better why modern thought is the way it is. It also makes it much easier to see how much poppy-cock there is in modern thought (as well as some ancient thought). Perhaps most importantly, it will show you how the modern world takes for granted as axiomatic so much of the nonsense that it does. This in turn will help you to situate your world view more cohesively and powerfully among competing strands of thought, and you will be better able to defend yourself and the Church, even among so-called “scholarly” people (who more often than not simply take for granted the same things the modern world does without knowing that much more than anyone else about it).
Modern philosophy is generally regarded as having been inaugurated by Descartes. He published his first great work in 1637. By the way, he was a devout Catholic who thought he was really working in that vein. The trouble was his whole radical doubt method. He had a version of Anselm’s ontological proof for God’s existence which wasn’t terribly successful in my opinion. But I still love Descartes and would recommend everyone with an interest to read him. But do not neglect the ancients and medievals. In fact, read them first. I think some people put the modern movement with Francis Bacon and his Novum Organum in 1620 in which he explicitly tries to replace Aristotelean thought with his own. I think Descartes was on the whole more interesting, and more influential, so he is the historical designation marker for modern thought. By the way, contemporary philosophy is very complex and representative of a lot of world-views. There are some great Christian/Catholic philosophers today as well. I like analytic philosophy. Some people go the Continental route, but I think that tradition swallowed itself a while back. There are analytic Thomists now, so don’t discount philosophy or faith. Incidentally, I’ve been studying philosophy for about 18 years now. My conversion took place about a year and a half ago, and I came into the Church on March 22nd of this year. You do the math. No, I would say that far from hindering or “contradicting” one’s faith, philosophy can be a great boon to one’s faith. In fact, as Catholics, I think we have a duty to know as much as we are capable of the great truths, or even the little ones.
God Bless
Jon Winterburn
I guess a lot has happened between now and then. 
It isn’t short, nor is it necessarily a “light read”, but it is well worth reading.