Get Your Smart On
These are my pick for the top fifteen, most readable works in the History of Western Philosophy. Let this list inspire you in your pursuit of wisdom, and that you will get some good ideas about what you’d like to read next.
Before I leave you to it, I thought I’d mention that I’ve marked these entries with the following symbols: [] and [#]. *
The first symbol [*] indicates a work in normative philosophy — works primarily dealing with ethical, moral, or political questions like: What should we do and how should we act? What is virtue? How can we achieve happiness? How should we organize ourselves politically to maximize justice and human flourishing?
The second symbol [#] indicates a work that focuses on issues in epistemology, logic, and metaphysics (or ontology), such as: What is the structure of reality? What is existence or Being? Where do existing things come from? What can we know and how can we know it? What is the deep structure of language and/or correct thinking?
For a few works that I felt dealt with both substantially, I went wild and marked them twice, using both symbols [*][#].
In my experience, people come to philosophy with a set of questions falling mainly in one or the other category (it’s kind of like the Coke/Pepsi, Paris/London or Mac/PC divide), so if you can figure out where your interests lie, then this will also help you to narrow your focus and decide where to begin. If you’re still unsure where to start or where to go next, please message me and I’ll try to hook you up with a good starting point!
From one smart donkey to the next, ENJOY!
1. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo by Plato [*][#]
These dialogues offer the best introduction to Socrates’ teachings as written down by his student, Plato, and really, it is the best of introductions to Philosophy *period. *The Apology, Crito, and *Phaedo *tell the story of Socrates’ trial for "corrupting the youth" (Apology), incarceration (Crito), and execution (Phaedo). Moving and witty, these dialogues contain principled discussions on everything from the question of knowledge (what do we know and how do we know it); to civil disobedience (should Socrates evade his fate by escaping from prison, as his friends are urging him to do?); to Socrates’ story of the journey of the soul after death and his famous argument as to why we should not fear death, both in the Phaedo.
Of the remaining two dialogues in this collection, the *Euthyphro *takes place in the weeks leading up to Socrates' trial, when Socrates bumps into Euthyphro who is just coming from the court house where he is prosecuting his own father for the death of one of his father’s slaves through negligence. Euthyphro claims to know what is right according to the Gods, leading Socrates to question him over the nature of piety.
The *Meno *is arguably one of the most important and perfect examples of a Socratic dialogue. In it, we find Socrates questioning one of Meno's slaves over some mathematical theorems, in the course of which he presents his theory of knowledge as recollection - that we are born with formal knowledge and that learning is remembering that knowledge. It is also a perfect example of an *aporetic *dialogue that typifies Socrates' claim to ignorance and his approach to philosophy - this is where the philosophical exploration ends not in knowledge, but in aporia, a recognition of the limits of our knowledge. We also see him using his hallmark dialectic question-asking approach.
If you read these dialogues in your youth or in college, I highly recommend you take them out for another spin - you might be well surprised at what these works have to offer us at all ages.
2. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle [*][#]
Fearing he might not be around to raise his sons to maturity, Aristotle wrote the *Nicomachean Ethics *as a guide for his sons on how to become excellent, virtuous men. In it you will find Aristotle's practical guide to instilling human virtues leading to human flourishing or happiness. There are very interesting discussions on the rational, non-rational (emotive, affective), and appetitive parts of the soul (or psyche); on weakness of the will (what we might now diagnose as a lack of motivation), where we “know” what we should do but end up, for various reasons considered, doing something else; on the nature of true friendship; and on the role that fate or chance/luck plays in achieving a good life.
Only lecture and student notes of Aristotle's works remain, so sometimes his works are difficult to read, but this is one of Aristotle's most approachable works. It is a great place for the new philosophy student to begin reading Aristotle, the man who was called "*The *Philosopher" long after his death.
One of the most prolific of philosophers even to this day, Aristotle has been credited with creating many of our current disciplines — psychology with this particular work, but also including biology, political science, and rhetoric. Arguably, this is the first ever self-help or self-improvement book, although it is much better than most of these genres! Finally, much of what we know about the teachings of philosophers who came before him, like the Presocratic Philosophers (see Kirk and Raven's excellent Presocratic Philosophers), comes from his texts, since he likes reviewing past arguments before presenting his own positions.
Terrence Irwin's translation and annotated edition of Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics *is hands-down the best translation and edition of this work, for beginners and more advanced students alike. Especially helpful are the summaries of each chapter and the extended introduction to Aristotle and his work.
3.** Meditations on First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated by René Descartes [#]**
René Descartes is known as the father of Modern Philosophy, with the start of the European Enlightenment marked by the publication of his Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641. Descartes begins this foundational work in epistemology (the study of knowledge) with the question: What can I know with absolute certainty? Henceforth all hell breaks loose, metaphorically speaking.
Along the way, he encounters an evil genie, the problem of the brain in a vat (to use a more contemporary turn of phrase), and lays the groundwork for the phenomenological method of "reduction" (revisited by Edmond Husserl in his Cartesian Meditations as the phenomenological *epoché *(or bracketting), a radicalization of the skeptical reduction in Descartes).
How does he answer this question, the first and fundamental question of knowledge? *Cogito Ergo Sum *- popularly translated as "I think therefore I am." You have to read the Cartesian *Meditations *to find out what this really means.
Written as a stream of consciousness dialogue, this is one of the most readable and enjoyable works of Philosophy, and is one of the best entry points into the Western tradition (second only to Plato’s Socratic dialogues in the linked Five Dialogues above).
4. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau [*]
One of the most important works in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s prolific career, *The Social Contract *begins with a rejection of Hobbes’ premise that civil society begins with individuals relinquishing power to a sovereign King. (See Hobbes’ Leviathan.) No one has a “natural right” to rule over others, Rousseau argues, but all men are born equal and free. Unfortunately, as he notes: “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.”
Although men are born equal and free, the majority of men come to be enslaved to others, economically and politically. Given this problem, Rousseau takes up the question of how men might establish a free society, one in which man’s natural freedom and equality are preserved.
Rather than assuming that men are naturally selfish and motivated through self-interest (as Hobbes stipulates), Rousseau begins from the premise that men are naturally cooperative, and that it is on the basis of this cooperation that the best possible society can be established.
On his account, civil society is established through a pact made between equal, free citizens for the benefit of the greater good, and that this is what establishes the state and the government’s power. In such a society, justice would entail everyone getting their rightful share of common goods (distributive justice).
Interestingly, Rousseau’s *Social Contract *strongly influenced the founders of the American experiment called the United States, the founders of which saw themselves as establishing a society on the basis of Rousseau's ideas. A must read for those interested in political theory, liberalism, and the history of the United States. Then go deeper and bring current your knowledge of social contract theory with Charles Mill’s The Racial Contract, which according to the editor’s description:
“… puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "contract" has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence "whites" and "non-whites," full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state.”
5. A Vindications of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft [*]
One of the foundational texts of feminist philosophy, Mary Wollstonecraft’s *A Vindications of the Rights of Woman *argues for the co-equal education (in the same ways and in the same subjects) of young women and men. By being given access to education, Wollstonecraft argues, women (mostly in charge of the education of children) can become better mothers. Men too stand to gain from the education of women, for women can become better companions and life partners through their educations.
In sum, well-educated women can better fulfill their assigned gender roles. The fact that Wollstonecraft does not argue that it would benefit *women *directly, but rather how it would benefit children, spouses, and society at large, is evidence of a politically shrewd mind wanting to make the most persuasive, expedient argument possible.
It should also be noted that Wollstonecraft is arguing against Jean- Jacques Rousseau’s position that women should receive an education, but only in the subjects "appropriate" to their sex, such as homemaking and the arts; see Rousseau’s Emile: Or On Education. This was a common view even for the political liberal of the time, so Wollstonecraft’s views would have been quite radical. Her strength of character certainly comes across strong and loud in this work.
Readers might also be interested in knowing that Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley, author of the classic literary work Frankenstein.
6. An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume [#]
David Hume’s *An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding *is a more succinct and polemical version of his earlier work A Treatise of Human Nature. In this grand work of epistemology, Hume begins by making a key distinction between *impressions *(e.g., sensory, emotive, affective) and *ideas *(thoughts, beliefs, or memories) that are created through the operations of resemblance, contiguity, or cause and effect. Within this framework, he is able to give a complete epistemological account.
It is with the latter operation of cause and effect that Hume makes his most controversial argument. Matters of fact (such as those that science seeks to establish) are based on causal inferences - we see that the sun rises every morning and, therefore, believe the sun will again rise tomorrow. But certainty about this “fact” depends on the future being identical to the past, a premise that is not logically guaranteed in the inference itself -- it can only be established after the fact! In other words, we cannot make predictions about the future based on the past unless we agree that the future will be exactly like the past (but if this were the case, how is change possible?) Not being all-knowing beings, we must proceed with caution where it comes to making future predictions.
Hume thereby proves that matters of fact cannot be known with absolute certainty, and the link between ideas and impressions (hanging on the mind/body dualism) is never completely certain. Given this, Hume turns to examine how his epistemology impacts other areas of human understanding, engaging significantly in debates over free will and determinism where he develops a "compabilist account": we form beliefs and act in a way that allows us to get by in the world. That is, our beliefs need to be compatible with the world, for practical reasons.
Also notable in this work are his views on animals (that they have a analogous capacity for reason), and on the role that emotions play in making judgements, forming beliefs, and acting prudently in the world.
This Scottish philosopher is considered one of the great three British Empiricists of his era - along with Locke and Berkeley -- see compilation titled The Empiricists. This work in particular will lead Immanuel Kant to “awaken” from his “dogmatic slumber - see Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason below. He was also known as a jolly man of good temperament who died quite cheerfully — quite an achievement for any philosopher. You can read my account of the most interesting death of philosophers, including Hume, in this here Substack post: “The Death of Philosophers.”
7. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant [#]
Immanuel Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason *is in the top ten philosophical works of all time and a key text in Modern Philosophy. In it, Kant methodically takes up the skeptical question of what (if anything) can be known through pure reason, as opposed to experiences that are grounded in the world of phenomena.
Kant begins by making a distinction between *a posteriori *knowledge gained through experience and *a priori *knowledge that is universal and seems independent from experience, such as mathematical truths (e.g., two plus two equals four).
He then divides judgments that can be made on the basis of either kind of knowledge as either *synthetic *or analytic. Analytic judgements are definitional, such as “bachelors are unmarried males,” which posits that one thing (bachelors) is another (unmarried males) by definition. Synthetic judgements are experiential: In the statement “all swans are white,” whiteness is not part of the concept of swan, so we can provisionally state that all swans are white on the basis of our experience - that is, until we encounter a non-white (I.e., a black) swan!
Given these four categories, Kant methodically explores each: *analytic a priori, analytic a posteriori, synthetic a priori, *and *synthetic a posteriori *knowledge. In the end, Kant argues that the fact that we can and do make synthetic a priori judgements (that is, knowledge that bridges the Cartesian mind/body dualism; see Rene Descartes’ Meditations) means that there are things about the world that *can *be known by pure reason.
Kant thereby re-establishes the metaphysical grounds previously lost to Hume’s skeptical epistemology in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In fact, Kant credits Hume with motivating his own *Critique *by awakening him from a “dogmatic slumber.” *The Critique of Pure Reason *is historically important because it (more or less) successfully brings together Rationalist (e.g., Descartes) and Empiricist (e.g., Hume) epistemologies that had been considered irreconcilable opposites.
The text is written with the goal of thoroughness and clarity, which can at times seem plodding and dry, but Kant rewards his readers with nothing less than securing the groundwork for scientific truth.
Readers interested in the questions entertained in Kant’s *Critique *should also read Descartes *Meditations *and Hume’s Inquiry, and looking forward, will be well prepared to read G. W. F. Hegel’s (difficult) *Phenomenology of Spirit *and Edmond Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations.
8. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One by Friedrich Nietzsche [*]
*Thus Spoke Zarathustra *is Friedrich Nietzsche’s most approachable and popular work. It is the story of Zarathustra, a Persian prophet who comes down from his mountain seclusion to speak of the death of God and the emergence of a super human successor. This superhuman man becomes the embodiment the divine, embracing his own desires and the force of his own will. In doing so, he will lead mankind into the next stage of human flourishing. Nietzsche’s story celebrates the chaotic unleashing man’s passions and ecstatic freedom embodied in the Dionysian tradition. It is also a cutting critique of his fellow man, many of whom where content to submit to external forces asking them to conform to outdated social norms.
Although Nietzsche is not chronologically a part part of the Existentialist movement of the 20th Century, his writing is considered as developing the strain of Existentialism that begins with Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, also a precursor to 20th Century Existentialism. *Thus Spoke Zarathustra *in particular is a great primer for many of the ideas that will be further developed and disseminated through Existentialism.
Because it is lyrically written, inspired narrative (where works of philosophy usually take the form of an essay or treatise), *Thus Spoke Zarathustra *is a pleasure to read. Not only is it an astounding philosophical work, it is also a work of great literary merit. A key text for the social rebel, *Thus Spoke Zarathustra *is one of the best ways, along with Plato and Descartes, to enter into the history of Western Philosophy.
9. Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill [*]
John Stuart Mill’s most important contribution to Western Philosophy is Utilitarianism, wherein he outlines a moral theory premised on promoting the greatest good for the greatest number of people. We can decide what we should do and how we should act on the basis of a calculus mean to increase the overall happiness of people and the common good of all.
A deceptively simple and elegant theory, this work is a collection of magazine articles (in *Fraser’s Magazine *in 1861) that Mill wrote in defense of Utilitarianism first developed by Jeremy Bentham. Because *Utilitarianism *was written for an educated but non- specialized audience, it is a very approachable work written to entertain people’s thinking on moral issues as well as to persuade.
This edition is particularly good because of Colin Heydt’s substantial introduction and contextualization of the work, which emerges amidst much controversy. (Utilitarianism was a policy proposal, one that would significantly shape people’s everyday lives...)
Since Mill was popularizing Jeremy Bentham’s work developing a mathematical calculus for Utilitarianism, aficionados of this theory should next read Jeremy Bentham’s (more technical) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
10. Being and Time by Martin Heidegger [#]
It is hard to overstate the importance of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. It is a work that not only turned the world of philosophy upside down but it also inaugurated several new schools and movements - for example, existentialist phenomenology, popularized as Existentialism, philosophical hermeneutics, and deconstruction.
Although Heidegger published the manuscript prematurely (in order to be able to assume an academic position), and then abandoned the project before completing the ambitious plan outlined in this first volume, what we do have is a display of thinking unlike anything that came before him.
In *Being and Time, *Heidegger sets out to “destroy” (“deconstruction” comes from a French translation of the German word destruktion) traditional “metaphysics of presence,” and clear the ground anew for ontology. He proposes to study Being from the perspective of “that being for whom being is an issue,” or the untranslatable Dasein, providing an analysis of Being that takes it back to Ancient and Presocratic though.
His main problematic is how to discover the structure of Being, which begins with his analysis of Being as thrown-in-the-world and ends with an analysis of Being-towards-death and temporality as the essence of Dasein. This is the end point of much philosophizing, so understanding it requires some work.
This most recent edition with a fresh translation by Stambaugh incorporates Heidegger’s margin notes and tracks (more faithfully) his technical usage of German terms. It is quite readable, although new readers will want to approach *Being and Time *as they would a text written in a language that they are learning - start reading and keep reading even if it seems impenetrable -- meaning begins to emerge through repetition and persistence. We promise!
Readers interested in Heidegger’s influence should can Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Jacques Derrida Disseminations, Luce Irigaray’s The Forgetting of Air, and Alain Badiou’s Being and Event.
11. Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre [*]
Although Jean-Paul Sartre’s *Being and Nothingness *is his magnum opus, *Existentialism Is a Humanism *is a better place to begin. Written as a speech for an educated audience in order to dispel misconceptions about existentialism --that it is pessimistic and against Humanism -- this work is the best place to begin to understand his existentialist philosophy.
Here, Sartre discusses at length the existentialist idea of freedom: unique to humans is that we are not born with a predefined essence, but must labor to create meaning for our own lives. Where an acorn’s essence is to bloom into an acorn tree and produce more acorns, the end of human life (which produces culture, art, and science) cannot be reduced to simple reproduction of the species.
In sum, for humans “existence precedes essence.” An individual’s life meaning is not given, but is defined through the choices that they make -- what they choose to affirm and therefore value, and what they negate or discard. It is in living that individual people discover that which is essential and particular to them, which is to say, the meaning of their existence. No one else (nor any external force) can define someone’s life's meaning or purpose, and no one can accept another’s definition in good faith. (We can and do accept external definitions in bad faith, but this is the road to misery!)
Finally, this edition of the lecture includes a fresh translation, a record of the question and answer period that followed the lecture, and in introduction to Sartre’s life and works by his official biographer Annie Cohen-Solal.
Once readers have read this lecture essay, they will be better prepared to begin reading Being and Nothingness, which develops Sartre’s existential philosophy in more technical detail.
Check out our two part series on Sartre’s Existentialism Is a Humanism: “Fun Times at the Existentialist Cafe: Angst, Abandonment, and Despair.”
12. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir [*]
Simone de Beauvoir’s *The Second Sex *remains one of the most important texts for Second Wave Feminism and, more specifically, is a key text in establishing the philosophical grounds for a feminist analysis of sex and gender. I am tempted to swap this out for her highly underrated and nonetheless brilliant The Ethics of Ambiguity instead, but really the classic is the probably the place to start unless you are into existentialist ethics.
In the introduction to The Second Sex, Beauvoir asks the question “What is woman?” and she means this in the rigorously phenomenological way that Heidegger asks “What is being?” (see his Being and Time). It may seem an obvious question, but getting to an answer is anything but simple.
Famously, Beauvoir answers that one is not born but becomes a woman, and that woman is "Other" to man. Spelling out the meaning of this will take several hundred pages and an extended study of woman in every aspect - philosophically, psychologically, and socio- culturally in literature and myth. In this way, Beauvoir lays the foundations for the monumental distinction between sex and gender that will set the stage for second wave feminism.
Beauvoir was famously partnered with existential philosopher Jean- Paul Sartre, whose philosophical influence has tended to eclipse her work. However, the interests in radical Otherness and in intersubjectivity as a phenomenological project was one that Beauvoir developed from her earliest writings. Her study of sex and gender is one that she saw as related to other forms of otherness, such as racialized and religious otherness.
This long awaited translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier restores the philosophical rigor excised from the text in the 1950’s translation, and has been hailed as the translation that Beauvoir herself would have wanted by feminist philosopher (and former student of Beauvoir) Margaret Simons. Indeed, it is truly a joy to read this new translation. Both readers who have already read the earlier translation of *The Second Sex *and new readers alike will benefit from years of feminist work restoring Beauvoir’s philosophical legacy.
Those interested in continuing to read should definitely pick up Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, which establishes the basis for her work in existentialist ethics, and is arguably the best existentialism explainer.
13. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michael Foucault [*]
In *Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison *Michael Foucault traces the transition from a system of public punishment and torture to the privatization of punishment through the creation of institutions such as the prison and the psychiatric hospital at the turn of the century in France. Foucault uncovers how public punishment opened the sovereign power to some unintended consequences: for example, public punishment creates sympathy with the “criminal” being punished, and at times, this led to protests and revolts in the streets. Such effects could be forestalled through the privatization and institutionalization of said punishment.
The internalization of power was the second innovation made in the transition, driven through the increased use of surveillance that is exemplified in the new prison’s architecture - a pentagonal structure with a guard’s tower in the middle, from which position all inmates could be surveilled. The point here is that there need not be any guard posted to the tower; the mere intimation of being watched is internalized by the inmates and is sufficient to get them to self- monitor their behaviors. Even the threat of potential surveillance is coercive, which is why privacy is safeguarded in civil societies.
The emergence of psychiatry as a science, and the building of psychiatric hospitals was a second way in which surveillance is internalized. Authority passes from the priest to the psychologist to judge and instil conformity from the inside out, as those who fail to conform to society’s norms are either criminalized or institutionalized. (The history of sexuality provides a great case study, one that Foucault himself undertakes in the three volumes of his History of Sexuality. Sexual inverts — later called homosexuals, or LGBTQ folk in contemporary parlance —were often diagnosed as mentally ill and interned in mental hospitals.)
But the more salient point is that the difference between the imprisoned or institutionalized inmate and the citizen is a matter of degree, not of kind. An individual may not be in prison, but their movements and behaviors are constantly monitored, and with increasing technological precision, so as to produce social conformity and homogeneity in a way that is much more efficient and successful that public forms of shaming, punishment, or torture ever where.
The revelations made through Edward Snowden’s leaks about the mass surveillance of the public by the United States government are only the latest turn in a long story that goes back to the birth of the modern state. This is also a philosophical context for understanding what Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism speaks of in contemporary terms. If these are topics that interest you, Foucault is right up your alley.
14. Principia Ethica (Principles of Ethics) by G. E. Moore [*][#]
This is a key work by one of the founders of the contemporary Analytic tradition in Philosophy. In this best loved work, Principia Ethica, G. E. Moore argues for a common sense approach to ethics that is given the name of “ethical naturalism.”
In "ethical naturalism," ethical decisions are based not on idealized or abstract principles, like some notion of the “good” (which Moore argues is not definable), but by a number of objectively determined values that are context dependent. For example, one might make a decision in a given context based on what is good in terms of aesthetics or beauty; on social norms (for example, of friendship); or on what is known to be true.
In short, the right thing to do is what will produce the most good, but how goodness is determined varies.
His argument is as compelling as it is easy to follow and absorb, and his work has been very influential on the likes of 20th Century philosophers like Bertrand Russell and pragmatist Ludwig Wittgenstein.
15. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein [#]
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus *remains a gem of a work that breaks all the rules of how you “do” philosophy. Rebelling against the conventions of the American philosophical scene (dominated, at this point, by analytical approaches to philosophy), Wittgenstein declared the work of philosophy to be the logical clarification of terms or concepts - that is, linguistic analysis. In much the same way that Derrida’s work in linguistics and theories of writing led to a “linguistic turn” in Continental Philosophy (see his Of Grammatology), Wittgenstein’s work similarly inaugurates a linguistic turn in Anglo-American analytic schools. (Also, see Henry Staten's very readable Wittgenstein and Derrida.)
This edition includes an introduction by eminent American philosopher Bertrand Russell contextualizing this work and Wittgenstein’s own preface. But the work itself is quite approachable and filled with the bold imagination and wit for which Wittgenstein was well known.
As a figure, Wittgenstein has been storied as a charismatic fellow from a wealthy family who despised his wealth and felt it necessary to give it all away in order to pursue philosophy. Readers interested in this man’s rather fascinating story are directed to read Ray Monk’s wonderfully written biography, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius.
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