top ten philosophy books

[literaturerocks]

hello everyone. as you may have read my other thread asking you to recommend stuff for me to read you know what im doing. im asking you again.
in this thread please post any number of titles in philosophy (ten if you can) or even just post authors and other suggestions. i love reading and philosophy intrests me so please, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. thank you

[grace86]

Well, from the philosophy I am familiar with, I would recommend:

The Prince - by Machiavelli
Utopia - Thomas More

I would also recommend (authors): Plato, Montaigne, and Descartes

I love Montaigne's essay called "Of Cannibals" it basically discusses civilization and its definition...cannibalism in the moral idea...thought provoking.

I hope this helps, it is all I am recalling at the moment.

[Charles Darnay]

mine has some similarities with the above:

1. The Republic - Plato
2. The Trial and Death of Socrates - Plato
3. Utopia - Thomas Moore
4. Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx and Fred Engles
5. Candide - Voltaire (yes this is a philosophical text)
6. Social Contract - Jean Jacques Rousseau
7. The Poetics - Aristotle (Haven't read it myself, heard it was tough to get through but very interesting)
8. Beyond Good and Evil - Nietche (I'm spelling that horribly wrong)

My final reccomondation would be "Sophie's World" - a narrative which serves as an overview of Western Philosophy - very informative

[literaturerocks]

The Prince - by Machiavelli

would this author be the founder of Maciavellianism? The emotionally distant pragmatic end justifying means life degree or the autocratic government? which one was created by machiavelli? in the this or that forum Mono posted fascism vs. Maciavellianism and it is interesting to find that this form of government or way of life was created by a philosophical author. very interesting grace thank you. and thank you charles as well. please if anyone has more suggestions they will be very greatly appreciated.

[grace86]

Well, they keyed the term "Machiavellianism" in the 1970's. They actually use it to define the personality of a person. I am guessing that the statements that Machiavelli makes about the traits of a ruler / prince and what he defines in the morals of a prince play out in people...so they actually developed a test. I think it is like twenty questions to define your personality based on your responses to certain questions. I had actually never heard of "Machiavellianism" until now. But here is what wikipedia says.

You are very welcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism

[literaturerocks]

i was given a different definition on googles dictionary but the wiki is much more helpful. i totally understand it now.

thank you grace.

[bhekti]

Just information: There are great downloadable philosophy texts in marxists.org. Some of them are full texts, some excerpts (but right on great points).

My top ten list so far:

Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament of the Bible
Confessions by Augustine
Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche
Purity of the Heart Is to Will One Thing by Kierkegaard
Song of Solomon from The Old Testament of the Bible
Modern Man In Search of a Soul by Carl Gustav Jung
The Dialogic Imagination by Mikhail Bakhtin
Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida (yeah I take it as a philosophy book)
Being and Time by Heidegger
Truth and Method by Gadamer

[arrrvee]

either/or - soren kierkegaard
complete essays - michel de montagine
meditations - marcus aurelius
on the suffering of the world - arhtur schopenhauer
the myth of sysphus and other essays - albert camus

i've only come up with five but these are my favourites. i would definitely recommend kierkegaard if your into literature. he has a very distinct literary style. or just go with the book titles, it says pretty much what treasures you'll discover for yourself..

[byquist]

Oration on the Dignity of Man - Mirandola
In Praise of Folly - Erasmus
Elizabethan World Picture - Tillyard
Love Your Enemies - Mary Eddy
Tolstoy must have something big-time that's pleasant to read as well.

[thevintagepiper]

7. The Poetics - Aristotle (Haven't read it myself, heard it was tough to get through but very interesting)

I would not agree...personally (but this may be just me) I found The Poetics to be a collection of Aristotles presumptions, written in a rather conceited manner. The first part is very interesting, as he talks about the form of plays and theatre, but much of the rest is otherwise.

[literaturerocks]

i forgot to mention initially that if you wish you may post more than ten books. but if you cannot that is fine too.im just getting some ideas for works in philosophy as i wish to read them because i am interested.

[Charles Darnay]

You should check out this site: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html

It's full of ancient Greek/Roman texts and some others as well.... very good stuff (nothing compared to this site!)

[genoveva]

Don't forget Dostoevsky! And Sarte. And Marx.

[Union Jack]

No order...

1) The Analects- Kun Fu Tsu
2) The Plague- Camus
3) Critique of Pure Reason- Kant
4) Beyond Good and Evil- Nietzsche
5) The Book of the Tao- Lao Se Dun
6) Critique of Religion and Philosophy- Kaufmann
7) The Republic- Plato
8) If Aristotle Ran General Motors- Morris
9) The Upanishads- Authorless Hindu Philosophy
10) Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre- Kauffman
11) Thus Spake Zarathustra- Nietzsche
12) Utopia- More
13) Candide- Voltaire
14) Bushido- Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Famous rendition "The Hagakure"
15) Philosophy is for Everyman- Jaspers
16) Existenzphilosophe- Jaspers
17) Genesis- The Old Testament
18) Being and Nothingness- Sartre

Plenty more, but these are the ones which I repeatedly remove from my bookshelves for a re-read.

Keep in mind that the criteria of the selection of these works is important, top ten based upon which factors?

Soundness of logical aurgument?
Readability?
Originality?

The list I presented includes a book or two from each of those categories, it is up to you to discern the divisions.

Philosophy is above all a love of knowledge, and sound rational knowledge. A great phillosophic work must...

1) present an original take on questions hailing from antedilluvium
2) present sound logical, or rational reasoning
3) present its material in a manner which ensures lasting appeal and relevance
4) present alternative viewpoints, and attempt to vanquish them through sound aurgument

And, above all else, the "greatness" of a work is subective. Each work speaks different truths to every person who reads them.

A work as simple as a child's book (The Hobbit being my all-time favourite novel) can change someone's entire outlook on life, and have a lasting effect on their personal philosophy.

Whereas other works, "of intellectual merit" while presenting their aurguments in a scalable fashion, may fail to leave an imprint on one's psyche, eg "The Communist Mannifesto" in my opinion an overrated, rhetoric filled lot of nonsense, save the time of reading it, and just read a definition of communism.

A work must be understood, it does no good to merely read a text, one must deconstruct and examine not only what the author means, but why the author is taking the time to attempt to express it to you, what did the author "see."

[mono]

Very difficult to narrow down, but I will try (finally), in no specific order, of course . . .

1. Critique Of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant,
2. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle,
3. The Republic by Plato,
4. The Joyful Wisdom by Friedrich Nietzsche,
5. Being And Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre,
6. The World As Will And Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer,
7. Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill,
8. Collected essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
9. Collected essays of Michel de Montaigne,
10. A Treatise Of Human Nature by David Hume.

Others worth mentioning . . .
11. The Nature Of The Gods by Cicero,
12. Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley,
13. Dialogues Concering Natural Religion by David Hume,
14. Groundwork For The Metaphysic Of Morals by Immanuel Kant,
15. Phaedrus by Plato,
16. Metaphysics by Aristotle,
17. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke,
18. De Rerum Natura by Lucretius,
19. Anything by Pythagoras.