top ten philosophy books

[Red-Headed]

I highly recommend Kant by S. (Stephan) Körner. It is a minor classic, I am not sure if it is still in print & there have been many versions of it. There are quite a few second-hand copies around. I found a Pelican copy of it a few years ago which was older than I am. I paid 99p (UK currency) for it but according to the cover when it was printed it was 3/6! (17 & a half pence in decimal).

It is probably the best introduction to Kant's often puzzling concepts I have ever read. I have read it several times.

[blazeofglory]

Here, I of course, I suggest J Krishnamurti, a spiritualist. He is unbeatable. While the rest of philosophers, thinkers tangle our mind with so many dogmas, superstitions and the like he kind of disengages our minds with all kinds of gibberish philosophical notions.

He tries to arrive at truth through a different mechanism, of course by questioning. And he famously said- answer lies in the question.

Of course he was greatly honest, and never ever he kind of stuffed our minds with rubbish ideas.

He was always honest to all.

I suggest read Krishnamurti. His ideas transform us finally.

[Red-Headed]

I suggest read Krishnamurti. His ideas transform us finally.

Maybe.

Maybe the Theosophists have a lot to answer for. I have nothing against spirituality & admire Indian works like the Bhagavad Gita, but I think a distinction has to be made between philosophy & mysticism. Otherwise you will be forever bogged down by the quagmire of pseudo-religion.

'In any event faith & knowledge are totally different things which for their mutual benefit have to be kept strictly separate, so that each goes its own way without paying the slightest bit of attention to the other.'

~ Arthur Schopenhauer APHORISMS: 'On Religion'

Schopenhauer's 'Essays & Aphorisms' are highly recommended as well.

[MrDzyan]

In regards to Theosophists I would have to say

Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
However, thats a dangerous road to go down because apparently its been said that some of her predecessors have distorted her teachings (Intentionally or Unintentionally is a controversial issue) in their interpretations
So I bought the unedited versions written by her in 1890's but her style is a bit difficult to understand without all the complex things that accompany philosophy. I've yet to finish Isis Unveiled and won't start The Secret Doctrine until I finish.All in all, in my opinion Theosophy readings should start here and in a nutshell it's concepts are unlike any other philosophical concepts introduced anywhere else.

[korky8097]

Thank you all for the book ideas, my list of books-I'm-too-busy-to-read-currently is definitely growing exponentially. I recently took a philosophy course in college, which really made me question my philosophic beliefs that I held on to for some time. The professor was a fantastic motivator, as no matter what belief got proposed by the students in class, he had an unbelievable knack for stripping down the theory to it's essential, bare-bones argument and subsequently questioning the reasoning behind any belief (even if he believed strongly in what was being proposed). I had already read and been interested in the existentialist writers such as Sartre, and other great thinkers of history years before ever taking this class, but now I can understand some of the more difficult concepts due, in large part, to the way in which the class was taught.

But enough about that, I signed up to these forums to recommend the book, "The Grasshopper" by Bernard Suits to someone looking for a great book that is not only humorous in many respects, but is well written for those who are not familiar with modern philosophy terminology. However, it is not so watered down that it doesn't contain valuable ideas; and truly caused me to reshape my beliefs in game-theory. The Grasshopper deals with the philosophy of games, and does so in a fun sort of way. Even the more well read among us here would surely enjoy the unique and engaging nature of The Grasshopper. In the Intro to Philosophy course that I took at Fort Hays, we read The Republic, The Grasshopper, and Dialogues About God by Charles Taliaferro (another great starter book that involves well thought out ideas regarding the idea of God, quite a good read overall, it is about three characters, a theist, an atheist, and an agnostic sort of person). So if you are looking for thought-provoking books to start you on the path of ultimate knowledge, perhaps these are the books for you. And if you find yourself in western Kansas with affordable college in mind, Professor Drabkin teaches a mean philosophy class.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Well, to the making of books there is no end, and there are many suggestions here; however, some of them are of lesser importance. Withal, the 10 sine qua non:

1) Plato: Symposium, Phaedrus, Phaedo.
2) Kant: Critique of Pure Reason.
3) Hegel: Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics.
4) Schopenhauer: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, The World as Will and Representation.
5) Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morality, Beyond Good and Evil.
6) Marx: Capital.
7) de Saussure: Course in General Linguistics.
8) Bergson: Time and Free Will.
9) Debord: Society of the Spectacle.
10) Baudrillard: The System of Objects, Symbolic Exchange and Death.

[mal4mac]

I think there should be an order here.. It`s hard to grasp the essence of this if you just read randomly.. But I`m no trained in reading philosophy, so I need an easy start.. Guess some of the recomendations are pretty hard to understand?

Most are difficult to understand. I recommend starting with "Confessions of a Philosopher" by Bryan Magee. He talks about most of the "hard to understand" philosophers mentioned in this thread and makes suggestions on how to tackle them.

[RaoulDuke]

"The safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." - Alfred North Whitehead.

That's about as helpful and constructive as I can be in this debate, as the only two pure philosophy books I have read are Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics. For what it's worth, they would definitely be in my top two!

[Nietzsche]

1. Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
2. On the Geneaology of Morals - Nietzsche
3. Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche
4. Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
5. World and Will as Representation ( Idea in my translation ) - Arthur Schopenhauer
6. Essays and Aphorisms ( An abridged version of Parerga and Paralipomena ) - Schopenhauer
7. Selected Essays - David Hume ( Oxford Press, this is a compilation work by him but all I have read and enjoyed it )
8. Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Daniel Dennet
9. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
10. I don't really have one I say for 10th place, but the Very Short Introdoction/Past masters book on Hobbes is a great read.

[Cunninglinguist]

In my experience if you want a good autodidactic philosophical education, you ought to start with secondary resources first. Although they are by no means as good as the primary ones (secondary resources are generally tainted with some reader's opinions and sometimes bad interpretations) they are a much easier and more efficient means to understand the general philosophical topics. In my experience understanding the topic before you read the book enables you to critically think and understand (its shortcomings and its strengths) the work for all it's worth. I might suggest starting at Plato.Stanford.edu or even Wikipedia and from there discover what topics interest you and decide what to read from there. If you ask people for a list of the "best" you're going to most likely end up with a list of their personal favorites (see Nietzsche's post). Of course in general there are some philosophers that are considered better than others. FYI Kant, Plato, and Aristotle are considered the greatest philosophers by academics. Also for any philosopher the Republic by Plato is a must-read. I've seen a few people mention Plato's work Phaedrus, but I dont see how Phaedrus is even worth studying unless you're looking for some bad argumentation to decipher.

[Nietzsche]

In my experience if you want a good autodidactic philosophical education, you ought to start with secondary resources first. Although they are by no means as good as the primary ones (secondary resources are generally tainted with some reader's opinions and sometimes bad interpretations) they are a much easier and more efficient means to understand the general philosophical topics. In my experience understanding the topic before you read the book enables you to critically think and understand (its shortcomings and its strengths) the work for all it's worth. I might suggest starting at Plato.Stanford.edu or even Wikipedia and from there discover what topics interest you and decide what to read from there. If you ask people for a list of the "best" you're going to most likely end up with a list of their personal favorites (see Nietzsche's post). Of course in general there are some philosophers that are considered better than others. FYI Kant, Plato, and Aristotle are considered the greatest philosophers by academics. Also for any philosopher the Republic by Plato is a must-read. I've seen a few people mention Plato's work Phaedrus, but I dont see how Phaedrus is even worth studying unless you're looking for some bad argumentation to decipher.

I agree. yes, those are my personal favorites.

I think the best way to start with philosophy really is to read ABOUT the people first. THe Very Short Introduction series ( previously titled past masters ) from Oxford press series are great. Also, the pop culture & philosophy series is a good way to acquaint yourself with philosophy. While these books sometimes may distort arguments or not be the best way to read philosophy, they are pretty enjoyable when reading about your interests and some of the books in my opinion are pretty cool reads. I have them for south park, the matrix, house MD, and star wars.

That's a good way to get a taste of philosophical thinking, then if a thinker's idea appeals to you in one of those books, go find an introductory text. As I said, the VSI series is great but there are many texts such as those. Then, find a book by the author being discussed and read it. This way, you will be reading someone you have interest in in the first place, then you will know a bit about the person and their overall philosophical framework to place the book by them you are reading in context.

This is a slight alternative to Cunninglinguist's post, with which again, I agree.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

While the atheists' anti-messiah Richard Dawkins is utterly irrelevant, here's a thing: someone mentioned a schemata for their philosophical reading, i.e., a goal of comprehensive understanding.

With that in mind, we have to begin with the ancient Greeks--the first great Western civilization, hence Plato. Someone could argue the Republic, but certainly it has to include the Symposium and Phaedo.

Now, there are many philosophers in the Renaissance and Enlightment, but all pale before Kant: his Critique of Pure Reason is essential.

After Kant, the three majors are Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. One should know some Hegel especially for his influence on Marx; however, Hegel is notoriously unreadable: therefore I suggest his Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics wherein he employs his dialectical methodology with brevity.

Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche are amongst the most readable of the great philosophers, so take your pick; nevertheless, the World as Will and Representation (his magnum opus) was founded on his Four-Fold Root in response to Kant.

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality opens the door to postmodernism: and here is the gist of the goal: to apprehend a critique of the modern and postmodern world of hypercapitalism via an understanding of the critique of capital and the society of the spectacle.
For this we follow Nietzsche to Marx (skirting structuralism via Saussure) to Derrida, Lachan, Deleuze, and Baudrillard, and one could make a side-trip via Adorno, Benjamin, Habermas, while remembering McLuhan, Chomsky, and Zizek.

Violà! We arrive at an understanding of post-postmodern hypercapitalism and Orwellian deception of the spectacle of reproduced simulacra: this is where we are now with the global political-economic and ecological catastrophe.

[rabid reader]

A book that I have found absolutely captivating is "On Social Contract" Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I have re-read a half a trillion times. Then one that I also have found quite interesting "Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith, then of course Marx "Capitalism" and the "Communist Manifesto" Marx and Engels.

But I am specializing in Contract/Game Theory so most of these books are foundational.

[mal4mac]

I'm reading Seneca's dialogues at the moment, great reading and highly influential. I read Montaigne recently - really good stuff - top literature as well as top philosophy.

[BasDirks]

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

If you ask for a top ten, you don't yet know how to select your philosophical readings. I know, because when I was young, I made threads such as this. Go to iTunes U, and listen to a couple of lectures that seem interesting to you, but don't be too selective, you don't yet know enough to know what you like. Look for topics that interest you based on the kind of discourse of a given way of thinking, and select some readings from the syllabus that comes with the course.

From my own collection of books, I would recommend Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations very much, because his philosophical approach will get you out of the mud when you get stuck on another philosopher's nonsense, which is very important. A great deal of philosophical prowess comes from being able to move around freely, unobstructed, playfully and free of worry among all the big ideas.