Reading Philosophy

[bgmnts]

I'm sick of being thick and an uneducated dick, so I am hoping to parallel classic fiction reading with a selection of foundational, influential or seminal philosophical texts, in chronological order.

I've split it into eras and so far I've got:

Classical
Plato - Apology, The Republic
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics

Medieval
Thomas Aquinus - Summa Theologiae

Augustine of Hippo - The City of God

Early Modern

Descartes - Principles of Philosophy
Hobbes - Leviathan
Locke - Two Treatises of Government

18th Century

Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
Voltaire - Candide
Rousseau - Emile
Smith - Wealth of Nations
Kant - Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Bentham - An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Paine - Rights of Man
Wollstonecraft - A Vindication on the Rights of Women

19th Century

Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation
Hegel - The Phenomonology of Spirit
Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism
Marx - CAPITAL
Nietszche - On the Geneology of Morals

Contemporary(?)

I'm thinking Russell, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Popper. Maybe Zizek and Freud I dunno.

Obviously it is incredibly Eurocentric so if there are any Asian or African individual works that are must-read, I'd be happy to know.

[Vodkafone]

I have a philosophy degree and if you read all that you'll have done better than I did. I never read Descartes' Principles but did read his Meditations closely - that is good but hard going though, I don't think I'd stand a chance with that now. The Hume and Locke Concerning Human Understanding companion pieces are a good one-two of empiricism and skepticism.

If you can't be arsed with Kapital when you get to it, you could always sack it off and read the 1844 Manuscripts instead, they're considerably more palatable.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

please read Confessions first not City of God

and im not expert but i'd read some Islamic or Jewish theology before the Summa. absolutely Maimonides should be on your list

knock some of the anglo off your list and replace with Auguste Comte

Contemporary(?)

I'm thinking Russell, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Popper. Maybe Zizek and Freud I dunno.

some 20th century stuff that'll be more directly readable than big slabs

Austin - How to do Things with Words
Anscombe - Intention
Bachelard - The Philosophy of No
Badiou - Conditions
Cavailles - On the Logic and Theory of Science
Davidson - Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective
Debeauvoir - Ethics of Ambiguity
Sellars - Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind with Brandom's study guide in it
Quine - Word and Object
Fanon - Black Skin, White Masks
Laruelle - Philosophies of Difference
Ricoeur - The Conflict of Interpretations
Meillassoux - After Finitude
any Deleuze that's dedicated to another writer or philosopher, Nietzsche, Foucault, Proust, Spinoza, whoever they're all bangers
Williams - Culture and Materialism
Wittig - The Straight Mind

listen to Foucault and Zizek more than read them, dont bother with Popper except if you find someone to MAKE PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT HE IS WRONG. for Wittgenstein i was up a creek before i had Anthony Kenny's book. im not sure if its worth reading Wittgenstein directly or whether its best to refer back to him from more easy to understand books on language and thought.

you'll need some pre-linguistic turn Heidegger to understand any continental thought, imo. getting to know the basics of division 1 of being and time is more important than Freud (although Freud is a better writer, and more importantly not a nazi). it helps when you read frenchies so you'll be able to go "ah i know where ive seen this absolute bullshit before" when someone claims you need to understand historical context to know what a magnet is. and once you can follow that you can understand what's so bloody special about Adorno and Levinas and others like them

[popcorn]

check out Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion".

[convulsivespace]

I'm far from an expert, but you could dip further into Plato if you're interested in a general history of Western thought. The degree to which he continued to directly influence thinkers for thousands of years after his death is insane. Apology and Republic are the popular picks for first-year students but aside from being frequently misunderstood I'm not sure they provide a good representation of his broader corpus.

[Noodle Lizard]

Don't sleep on the Romans; yer Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Less heady than Plato and "proper" philosophers, but valuable and practical nevertheless.

You might want to include Georges Bataille for a modern one, Inner Experience is probably the best place to start with him. Deleuze and Guttari's books are great, but very dense and assume familiarity with a lot of other works (which I didn't have, but you might by the time you're done!)

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Don't sleep on the Romans; yer Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Less heady than Plato and "proper" philosophers, but valuable and practical nevertheless.

and De rerum natura (on the less practical side)

[thenoise]

Russell

Start off with Booky Wook

History of Western Philosophy, then see which ideas you want to explore more.

[Ferris]

History of Western Philosophy, then see which ideas you want to explore more.

This is great advice. Russell is very readable and thorough, and this approach is how I shaped my philosophy degree.

[bgmnts]

I have a philosophy degree and if you read all that you'll have done better than I did.

To be fair, this is a lifelong pursuit innit, I have at least a decade (fingers crossed) to see if I can gleam anything from these!

Don't sleep on the Romans; yer Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Less heady than Plato and "proper" philosophers, but valuable and practical nevertheless.

Sorry yeah to re-clarify I have read Seneca's works and Aurelius's Meditations, and did find them quite practical and interesting. I was thinking of Epictetus (maybe he's more Greek?), Zeno and Cicero, but I was unsure if they added enough beyond the Greeks and Stoicism. Will add them. I will also add Bataille. I saw a thumbnail for a youtube video on Bataille in relation to the Hellraiser franchise and something to do with the limits of pain or experience, so I didn't know what to make of it.

Start off with Booky Wook

History of Western Philosophy, then see which ideas you want to explore more.

Added! (Not Bookywook)

please read Confessions first not City of God

and im not expert but i'd read some Islamic or Jewish theology before the Summa. absolutely Maimonides should be on your list

Adding Maimonides then. I definitely did think of Avicenna before the Christians, but I've only read him in the context of medicine, but I'll give that a looksie.

I'll have a look at that 20th century list if I ever get that far. The fewer monolithic tomes, the better.

[Cuellar]

My Reading philosophy is... Get out as soon as possible!!!

[Shaxberd]

The Prince by Machiavelli is pretty short and readable, as much political as philosophical but worth a look.

As for non-Western sources, the Tao Te Ching and the Analects of Confucius spring to mind, although do some checking first on what the best translation is.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I'll have a look at that 20th century list if I ever get that far. The fewer monolithic tomes, the better.

Spinoza's Ethics then

and if you're serious about Marx and idealism, pick up shorter works by and about Schelling and (especially) Feuerbach rather than dive straight into Kant and Hegel. I don't know what the best is in English translation (I've mostly used French) but I think maybe The Essence of Christianity and Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature are what you're after for shorter idealist, post-romantic works. For Hegel, Charles Taylor's shorter book (Hegel and Modern Society) counts as its own thing, and although you'll probably find it a bit conservative its a good place to get a handle on it. Then hopefully you'll be reading Hyppolite, Kojeve, Brandom and Adorno in the years after.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

As for non-Western sources, the Tao Te Ching and the Analects of Confucius spring to mind, although do some checking first on what the best translation is.

the book of tea
in praise of shadows

[madhair60]

I'm sick of being thick and an uneducated dick, so I am hoping to parallel classic fiction reading with a selection of foundational, influential or seminal philosophical texts, in chronological order.

I've split it into eras and so far I've got:

Classical
Plato - Apology, The Republic
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics

Medieval
Thomas Aquinus - Summa Theologiae

Augustine of Hippo - The City of God

Early Modern

Descartes - Principles of Philosophy
Hobbes - Leviathan
Locke - Two Treatises of Government

18th Century

Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
Voltaire - Candide
Rousseau - Emile
Smith - Wealth of Nations
Kant - Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Bentham - An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Paine - Rights of Man
Wollstonecraft - A Vindication on the Rights of Women

19th Century

Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation
Hegel - The Phenomonology of Spirit
Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism
Marx - CAPITAL
Nietszche - On the Geneology of Morals

Contemporary(?)

I'm thinking Russell, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Popper. Maybe Zizek and Freud I dunno.

Obviously it is incredibly Eurocentric so if there are any Asian or African individual works that are must-read, I'd be happy to know.

read em all mate, boring as fuck. i'd just leave it. forged my own philosophy anyway: get paid and get puss.

[bgmnts]

That probably is the sensible option!

[Vodkafone]

One of the things you'll discover @bgmnts is that being a great thinker and a good, clear writer are very different things.

[bgmnts]

Yes this is obviously the biggest obstacle: actually understanding the texts as well as the abstraction.

It's probably much easier to find secondary works that can explain these philosophies to me but I've only ever been interested in the primary texts myself, and to see if I can understand it from the source.

[Vodkafone]

Yes this is obviously the biggest obstacle: actually understanding the texts as well as the abstraction.

It's probably much easier to find secondary works that can explain these philosophies to me but I've only ever been interested in the primary texts myself, and to see if I can understand it from the source.

Yeah it's very satisfying when you find you can untangle it, there's a lot to be said for that.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Oi mate you dropped your Descartes (gay card)

[All Surrogate]

de Selby - Golden Hours

[Video Game Fan 2000]

One of the things you'll discover @bgmnts is that being a great thinker and a good, clear writer are very different things.

maybe a different topic ... but philosophers and theorists who are also good writers.

augustine
bachelard
kristeva
bataille
lewis
foucault
russell
kierkegaard
aurelius
sartre
debeauvoir
benjamin
weil

all come to mind

[Ferris]

Seem to remember Karl Popper writes well.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Seem to remember Karl Popper writes well.

go back toAMERICA

[Vodkafone]

Yeah, +1 for Kierkegaard as a writer. Also an interesting philosopher.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

fear and trembling especially, either/or probably needs a or summary or a combination of commentary and one of those abridged english versions you can get (which is what i used...  couldnt be fucked with original + annotation)

philosophers who are shit writers include hegel who writes like dave bowman is pulling out his brain chips and fails to conclude some of his most important arguments, and rorty who writes everything in the tone of the AHAHA ostrich from family guy

[touchingcloth]

I like reading about misosophy.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Quickly go through the lyrics of Monty Python's Philosopher's Song in your head and you can answer a surprising number of philosophy questions on University Challenge by picking the one that sounds German or French or Scottish or whatever nationality is mentioned in the question.

For example:

Q: Name the German philosopher who.....

"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable"

A: Immanuel Kant

[FeederFan500]

You can generally have a good stab on UC based on nationality and age, there will only be about three German 19th century writers and so on. You might get laughed at if you guess "Beckenbauer" however, and there are far too many French philosophers from the 20th century.


I had a very short window of thinking I could read some philosophy before giving up on that idea and reading something I might like instead. However I have seen Russell's History of Western Philosophy recommended a number of times and I read some 700 page collection of his writing which was pretty easy to read and entertaining.

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious—for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious.

[touchingcloth]

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious—for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious.

They wear endless layers to help save god from himself. Did Russell have anything to say about infinite undresses? It's turtlenecks all the way down.