answer:What’s the course? As a general reference, Routledge’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a nice tome. For something lucid and readable which covers the basics very well, you might want to look up Bertrand Russel’s History of Western Philosophy – it’s not a textbook per se, but it is clear and accessible. I graduated with a BA Philosophy, and must admit I found my first year epistemology and metaphysics courses very confusing initially. I went the route of going to the primary source and grabbing a commentary for each work we studied. That ultimately made things much simpler. I would suggest that the problem you’re having is just that of entering a new field, however; I felt very much the same as you (i.e. confused) for about three months, then the common themes started to emerge and the practice of philosophy became much easier. Ultimately, philosophy is not declarative—it is performative, which means that you need to build the processes up, much like exercise.