(Part 2) Top products from r/askphilosophy

I wouldn't worry too much right now about knowing everything perfectly; you're still finding your foundations and areas of interests. Sophie's World is sorta where I started too, and I'd recommend maybe going back and seeing if there are any philosophers that you found particularly interesting. That would be one way to start.

If you want to go deeper into general philosophy, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is like a much (much much much) denser and more intense version of Sophie's World. If you're not sure where to go next, this will give you a much more in-depth view of even more philosophers (although he skips Kierkegaard, which is my main gripe with the book, but oh well, still would recommend it). One thing I personally loves about this book though was how he connected philosophy to history, art, science, poetry, and so many other fields. It's really made me want to switch my major to...Everything! Philosophy's still at my core, but this book really got me interested in other fields as well.

To go further in recommendation, Plato's dialogues are generally considered to be pretty important to a foundation of philosophical understanding. The Apology is a pretty easy one; it's less of a philosophical text in the traditional sense and more a sort of kick-off for the field, where Socrates explains why philosophy is important, and why he pursues it. The Republic is also pretty important for understanding Plato's political ideas. All his dialogues, though, are generally pretty good reading, and I'd recommend reading some.

To go past that, Aristotle's often a good read, primarily his Nichomachean Ethics is a pretty good introduction to his philosophy, much of which is a response to Plato.

To move onto modern philosophy, it tends to get a bit more technical and tricky, but a great and very easy-to-read modern philosopher is Descartes. I'd recommend Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method in Discerning Truth in the Sciences as good introductions to modern philosophy, which tends to focus on slightly more technical forms of logic, rather than conclusions drawn from more vague observations.

(NOTE: found a book that combines both the Descartes writing mentions into one here).

Another important thinker who might not be hard to understand but who will definitely shake you is Nietzsche. This documentary is a pretty good introduction to him, but if you want more, I'd recommend this collection as a good overview of his philosophy. His works are quick reads, but they will stick with you, and I consider him to be one of the most important thinkers to understand the modern age.

Eventually though, you'll need to start taking on more challenging texts. Hopefully though, you'll be well informed enough by that time to have found a niche that you personally are interested in, which will make it much more interesting and fun! Never hesitate to come here with questions. Good luck!

The best intro I'm familiar with is Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith. That's what I use for introductory courses.

Other than that, here are a few other things that (depending on your interests) might be worth your time. These are probably best read after you've gotten some exposure to the basics, which Theory and Reality should more than suffice to achieve. In no particular order:

• Philip Kitcher's Science in a Democratic Society and/or Science, Truth, and Democracy both directly address how to reconcile the value of science with other things that we might also value. Kitcher's a naturalist through and through, but he's also quite pluralistic in his thinking. Both those books tackle the question of what science is good for, what it isn't good for, and how we might go about integrating scientific expertise into an egalitarian society.
  
  
• Nancy Cartwright's A Dappled World. This is a very, very widely-cited classic, and a must-read at some point. I don't agree with her thesis, but it's an excellent book and is very well presented.
  
  
• Bas van Fraassen's The Scientific Image. Another classic that's been very influential. Again, I disagree with a lot of what he says, but he writes clearly and makes many great points.
  
  
• Stathis Psillos' Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. A clear, cogent defense of scientific realism.
  
  
• James Ladyman and Don Ross' Every Thing Must Go. A spirited and unflinching defense of what philosophy as a whole should look like if it wants to take science seriously. It's not an easy book if you're not well-versed on physics, but it's one of my favorites.
  
  
• Eric Winsberg's Science in the Age of Computer Simulation. A great look at how advances in computation are changing what science looks like. This is a personal interest, but I still think it's a great book.
  
  
• Tim Maudlin's The Metaphysics Within Physics. A look at laws, explanation, and metaphysics from the perspective of physical theory.
  
  
• Michael Strevens' Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. One of the best books on scientific explanation (and what makes it distinctive) around. Long, but worth it.
  
  
• Oppenheim & Putnam's article "The Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis". Flawed, but on the right track. A good discussion of how the different sciences fit together.
  
  
• Jerry Fodor's article "Special Sciences (or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)" a counterpoint to Oppenhein & Putnam, and another very influential article. I don't like Fodor very much, but it's a good piece.
  
  I could go on indefinitely with this, but that's probably more than enough to keep you going for a few years. As an aside (and since you mentioned complexity already), I also recommend that anyone interested in the philosophy of science take a look at Cliff Hooker's anthology The Philosophy of Complex Systems Theory, which is (somehow) currently hanging out online for free. I paid something like $200 for the book, and while I think it was worth it, the fact that the PDF is right there is amazing. It's an incredibly wide-ranging look at some of the ways in which both philosophy and science are being shaped by complexity theory these days. It's really great.

Be forewarned, I am going to sketch this out very crudely. Okay, that being said...

I think there are three common answers in philosophy concerning the value of life which is a reflection of the general split in philosophy between three major ethical views -

• Kantian Deontology
  
  
• Consequentialist Utilitarianism
  
  
• Virtue Ethics.
  
  Consequentialist Utilitarianism - Life isn't valuable, not directly. What is directly valuable is pleasure (or maybe satisfied desire) and what is directly disvaluable is suffering (or maybe unfulfilled desire). Either way, destroying life often leads to more suffering and less pleasure for those left alive. Furthermore, destroying life destroys the only place pleasure (which is valuable) can exist. Alternatively: if desire is really what matters rather than pleasure, destroying life leaves a lot of people's desires unfulfilled as well as destroying the only place where fulfilled desires can exist.
  
  Kantian Deontology - Life isn't valuable, not directly. Free choice is the only thing that is directly valuable. But usually you can't go around destroying life without also violating free choice. If life didn't exist, it wouldn't be a big deal. When the Kantian says free choice is the only thing that is directly valuable, the Kantian doesn't mean we need to maximize the number of free choices or free choosers--rather the Kantian means we have to respect already existing people's choices. So if no one existed, then there wouldn't be anything bad about it because it wouldn't involve violating anyone's choices. BUT life does exist and in order for life to go out of existence you would probably have to act against people's choices to keep living (which is the one wrong according to Kantians like me).
  
  Virtue Ethics - Here is the only position were you might get someone close to saying life is valuable directly. The idea here is that morality concerns being a good instance of the type of thing you are. So good knives are sharp ones that cut well, good wolves can hunt and work well with their pack, etc. Human beings are living beings (reproduce, self-maintain, etc). and human life specifically takes the form of living through the human capacity for abstract reflective judgment (i.e. taking into consideration many conflicting reasons relevant to their situation/decision, and making the right decision). Presumably you are bad at human life if you don't value your own life. Furthermore, you would be pretty immature, childish in the development of you capacity for reflective judgment if you didn't recognize some intrinsic value to life itself. Why is that immature not to recognize? Sorry childish person, you'll need to just grow out of your blindness to the intrinsic value of life. (I am not insulting you, I am only stressing the way in which being able to recognize what is and isn't intrinsically valuable according to the virtue ethics comes with the mature, skilled judgment of a good human being; presumably someone's unwillingness to see the intrinsic value of life would--according to the Virtue Ethicist--be rooted in their childishness in some respect).
  
  ____
  
  Myself, I am a Kantian concerning morality. But here is a recent work on the topic by a Utilitarian -
  
  Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence Paperback – September 15, 2008
  by David Benatar (Author)
  http://www.amazon.com/Better-Never-Have-Been-Existence/dp/0199549265
  
  You might also look at some of Korsgaard's recent work on animal rights (where she tries to extend the Kantian position so that animal life is valuable in addition to free choice): http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/CMK.FellowCreatures.pdf
  
  
  

As /u/FreeHumanity has pointed out below, it makes it easier for us to help you if we know what you're interested in.

However, these are a couple of books on my bookshelf that I find interesting and are mentioned on here quite often:

The Pig that Wants to be Eaten, by Julian Baggin. It's 100 ethics-related thought experiments, laid out in a very easy-to-read way. Amazon link here.

If you're interested in something a little more academic and a little more comprehensive, The History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell, is one of the best one-volume histories of philosophy around. You have to be a little bit careful with him, though--he tends to put his own ideas about the philosophers into his text :) Again, Amazon link here.

If you would like more specialised help, please do clarify what your interests are so that we can recommend books, youtube clips, or other things that are tailored to your interests :)

Hope that helps :)

This is a good introductory essay by Nick Bostrom from The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence. And this is a relevant survey essay by Drew McDermott from The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness.

If folks aren't taking well to the background reading, they might at least do alright jumping to Section 5 from the Descartes' Discourse (they can use this accessible translation). One little snippet:

>I worked especially hard to show that if any such machines had the organs and outward shape of a monkey or of some other animal that doesn’t have reason, we couldn’t tell that they didn’t possess entirely the same nature as these animals; whereas if any such machines bore a resemblance to our bodies and imitated as many of our actions as was practically possible, we would still have two very sure signs that they were nevertheless not real men. (1) The first is that they could never use words or other constructed signs, as we do to declare our thoughts to others. We can easily conceive of a machine so constructed that it utters words, and even utters words that correspond to bodily actions that will cause a change in its organs (touch it in one spot and it asks ‘What do you mean?’, touch it in another and it cries out ‘That hurts!’, and so on); but not that such a machine should produce different sequences of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to whatever is said in its presence—which is something that the dullest of men can do. (2) Secondly, even though such machines might do some things as well as we do them, or perhaps even better, they would be bound to fail in others; and that would show us that they weren’t acting through understanding but only from the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need some particular disposition for each particular action; hence it is practically impossible for a machine to have enough different •organs to make •it act in all the contingencies of life in the way our •reason makes •us act. These two factors also tell us how men differ from beasts [= ‘non-human animals’].

That sets the stage for historically important essay from Turing of Turing-Test-fame. And that essay sets up nicely Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment. Scientific America has two accessible articles: Searle presents his argument here, and the Churchland's respond.

As always, the SEP and IEP are good resources for students, and they have entries with bibliographies on consciousness, the hard problem of consciousness, AI, computational theories of mind, and so on.

There are countless general introductions to philosophy of mind. Heil's Philosophy of Mind is good. Seager's introduction to theories of consciousness is also quite good, but maybe more challenging than some. Susan Blackmore's book Conversations on Consciousness was a very engaging read, and beginner friendly. She also has a more textbook-style Introduction that I have not read, but feel comfortable betting that it is also quite good.

Searle's, Dennett's and Chalmer's books on consciousness are all good and influential and somewhat partisan to their own approaches. And Kim's work is a personal favorite.

(sorry for the broad answer--it's a very broad question!)

Wow ... yes, with the caveat that I'm far from the best historian on these boards. Maybe /u/wokeupabug or /u/Son_of_Sophroniscus can do better. Many students find the Nicomachean Ethics clear, philosophically informative, and stimulating for advice about how to live your life. But there are accessible and interesting passages from most of his works. One good approach is to use an Aristotle reader, since the editor will have selected appropriate texts already. I read Ackrill's A new Aristotle reader as an undergraduate and liked it, but you should shop around for more informed suggestions.

I like the idea of reading Aristotle alongside contemporary commentary. Here I'm even more hesitant to make my own recommendations, but I found Lear's Aristotle: The desire to understand extremely interesting and easy to follow.

One thing to bear in mind is that there are many good contemporary philosophers from whom you can learn as well. David Lewis, Saul Kripke, Judy Thompson, and David Kaplan are a few known for admirable clarity and depth of thought. It's hard to go wrong with their articles, with the exception that some are on technical or esoteric topics, so if it looks foreboding just skip it.

I haven't read them myself but I have it on very good authority that the best two intro texts to Levinas' thought are two books by Adriaan Peperzak: Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and To The Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

A background in phenomenology and continental thought is also very helpful. For phenomenology if you need it Introduction to Phenomenology by Dermot Moran is pretty good. One thing to keep in mind while you read is that Levinas, rather than invent new terms, uses very familiar ones in very distinct ways. He is supposedly trying to radically depart from the general trajectory of western thought, or possibly even articulate something different altogether (partially as a result of his 'phenomenological reduction'). He does often define what he means by things like "religion", "metaphysics" and "ontology", for example, so be sure to flag any 'definitions' when you come across them. If possible it might be good to try to put together a reading group as it is the type of work that everyone will latch onto something different, so brining those points of contact together can be very fruitful.

I've seen Levinas come up on this sub a few times in the past little while so it might be worth it to even see if people around here want to read through with you, though face-to-face conversation might be better (that was a lame 'Levinas joke'!)

I haven't read it, but I can tell you that the consensus about it in the History of Philosophy community is that it's pretty bad. I've only seen it cited in history of philosophy journals as a foil. For a broad introduction, I've heard Kenny's new work is pretty good. And I rather like Copleston's History, though it's nine ~500 page volumes. I think your best bet, though, is just to read some philosophical classics. Perhaps Plato's Five Dialogues (https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Dialogues-Euthyphro-Apology-Classics/dp/0872206335/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069583&sr=8-1&keywords=five+dialogues), Descartes' Meditations (https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-First-Philosophy-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872201929/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069631&sr=8-1&keywords=meditations+descartes), Russel's Problems of Philosophy (https://www.amazon.com/Problems-Philosophy-Bertrand-Russell/dp/1613821875/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069667&sr=8-7&keywords=problems+of+philosophy), and maybe Searle's Brief Introduction to Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brief-Introduction-Fundamentals-Philosophy/dp/0195157346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467069693&sr=8-1&keywords=searle+mind).

There are better, more important, and more recent works than these, but I think these are good intros to philosophy as a whole for two reasons: 1) these are very representative of Ancient, Modern, Early Analytic, and contemporary philosophy of mind. And 2) these are all pretty easy. Philosophy's batshit complicated, at times; but none of these are more difficult than they have to be (and yet, they're not Idiot's Guides … )

Well, if you want a concentrated course of study you might consider looking for secondary sources that focus on particular areas of research in philosophy rather than trying to read very few (5-10) authors in real depth. I see Kant has been suggested, for example, and while I would never doubt his importance as a philosopher, if you set out with the intention of reading the bulk of his works as you say you might you would have to tackle a great deal of dry, technical material which I think would prove to be a lot more work than you could expect. Same could be said for Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Descartes, nearly anyone you really might care to list. I don't know if you've read much philosophy, but you might instead look at something like an introduction to philosophy, an intro to ethics, or an intro to the philosophy of mind. These are only some examples, there are books like this for pretty much any area of study that attracts your interest. I'm sure others could provide suggestions as well.

I think Oxford's Very Short Introduction series is a pretty good place to start as far as books go. You can pick a part of philosophy you are interested in and find the introduction to that, or just read the general Philosophy intro. My personal favourite is the VSI to Philosophy of Science by Samir Okasha.

Another good introductory book is Think by Simon Blackburn.

I have found these good introductions, they are written by experts, and directed to the general reader, but without dumbing it down.

As far as the classics of philosophy go, someone else suggested Plato's dialogues and I would add Descartes' Meditations to that. It is short and a pretty good example of how modern philosophy operates. In it Descartes tries to find out what we can know for sure. It is reasonably easy to read too.

Of course, books can be quite expensive (if you torrent you can usually find downloads of many VSIs, and Meditations is out of copyright), and you shouldn't feel you have to have read any of these if you can find cheap copies.

First off I think a good place to start is to try to isolate atleast some questions that strike you as particularly interesting. Simply starting at random in the midst of the endless mounds of philosophy done in the analytic style is a horrible and frustrating endeavour(speaking from experience).

That being said, two really good introductury anthologies that helped me alot are: Chalmer's The Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. It contains key essays by key thinkers in the field as well as some really helpful considerations by Chalmers who attempts to tie the different schools together and show similarities and differences.
And Martinich's The Philosophy of Language which contains a big chunk of classical and semi-contemporary essays in the subject. Both are a great place to start if you want to go directly to the source and read the actual essays as opposed to secondary litterature.

Seeing as you are already familiar with Husserl and the earlier phenomenology I think going through philosophy of language can be a good idea. As Frege was a central character in Husserls earlier writings, it sets an interesting background to some of the differences in interpretation we find in the early analytic philosophers who were, like Husserl, inspired by Frege but came to radically different conclusions and interpretations.
Morris has written a really neat introductory book called An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language that goes well with Martinich's anthology.

Hope this helps!

edit: spelling, links

Take a look at Jonathan Lear's introduction to Arsitotle, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand CLICK HERE. It is written in plain and claer langauge - there is no better intro imho and he has a chapter on A's ethics and a short but extreamly helpful section on "Happiness" or flourishing (eudaimonia is the Greek word). Having said that, you are very close; the only think I would say is that the virtuous person would do what is right, after much practice, without having to really think it through; and not out of fear of consequences, but because it is good/right in and of itself. Also, that little voice usually tells you then it would be wrong (Socrates said he had such a little voice, he called it his daimon), but that is not the same as knowing what is actually right. The practice of virtue is positive, meant to build up character in such a way that flourishing ("happiness") continues. Hope this helps!

This book, The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten, is a very easy read. Others can vouch for its readability (I know /u/TychoCelchuuu has mentioned this book in the past) alongside me, but in regards to me recommending something like this to you: I've been a native speaker for all my life so I may not be the best in determining how well a non-native reader can understand a foreign text. Hope someone can come along to recommend you some reading from a place of similar experience, good luck!

It depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a clear, intro-level overview of the subject, check out Shafer-Landau's Fundamental's of Ethics. It's a fantastic place to start, and it is the book I recommend if you really want to understand the subject and plan to read outside the context of a class.

If you want primary texts, I suggest that you get the book's companion, The Ethical Life.

If you want a textbook that is a little shorter and more engaging, check out Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy.

If you want an introduction that's informative and fun to read but less informative than the Rachels or the Shafer-Landau, check out Sandel's Justice. You can also watch his Justice lectures online. This book, as opposed to the other two, is written for a popular audience.

Good post. I must say i follow a similar train of thought considering most matters you have discussed. It seems scientific thought plays a big role, and hence would be wise to understand the philosophical stance of science, or at least the attempts that have been made to understand it. A book i haven't read yet, but will embark on soon is titled What is this thing called science which as far as i'm aware is the go to introduction to philosophy of science text, also among universities. Also there is a good series on youtube that i've watched which covers some of the main ideas in philosophy of science such as inductivism, deductivism, paradigm theory and systematicity. That's a good watch, ~ 12 lectures that go for about an hour or so each. I can give you the lecture slides if you want. Also in relation to philosophy of science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is also very popular in which Kuhn puts forth paradigm theory.

Here is a contemporary epistemology anthology by Robert Audi and Michael Huemer that's focused on the justification of knowledge. Preview the table of contents for a list of all the readings!

And, here is a brilliant list written up by /u/voltimand:

What is the value of knowledge?

• Ward Jones, “Why do we value knowledge?”
  
  Methodological questions
  
  
• Jennifer Nagel, “Epistemic intuitions.”
  
• Jennifer Nagel, “Intuitions and experiments: a defense of the case method in epistemology.”
  
  Is knowledge the norm of assertion? That is, should we assert p only if we know p?
  
  
• Timothy Williamson, “Assertion” (from Knowledge and Its Limits).
  
• Jessica Brown, “Knowledge and assertion.”
  
• Matthew Weiner, “Must we know what we say?”
  
  Is knowledge the norm of practical reason? That is, ought we only to act on facts we know, rather than believe?
  
  
• John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley, “Knowledge and action.”
  
• Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, “Knowledge norms and acting well.”
  
  Is the principle of epistemic closure right?
  
  
• Fred Dretske and John Hawthorne, “Is knowledge closed under known entailment?”
  
  Can knowledge ever be gained by inference from a false belief?
  
  
• Ted Warfield, “Knowledge from falsehood.”
  
• Branden Fitelson, “Strengthening the case for knowledge from falsehood.”
  

This book, "Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar" is very helpful for understanding basic philosophy concepts through jokes. I read it when I was younger and it was very entertaining to read, not overwhelming or intimidating, and pretty funny also.

https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Platypus-Walk-into-Understanding/dp/0143113879

Vetting "good" philosophy sources can be tricky. After my students get a basic idea of some topic from wiki, I usually sent them to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For basic terms you might try A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names. But keep in mind that sometimes people use terms rather oddly so sometimes it's best to just ask them to define how they are using them.

Then you might want to read some books related to the topics you are interested in. For example, if you are interested in the history or philosophy of science you might pick up The Structure of Scientific Revolutions or some other works in that area.

Basically dive in and start reading about the things that interests you, then try to bring that knowledge to the table...or use them to ask questions and get more help.

As /u/as-well notes, there are a number of possible interpretations of your question.

There's a bunch of work on whether philosophical methods can get you closer to the truth in the way that science does. This section from the SEP article on Naturalism will be helpful for you in that regard.

You might also be wondering about philosophers who attempt to use "scientific" methodologies in pursuing philosophical questions. There's a whole boatload of that sort of work, from Bayesians in epistemology to certain philosophers who work on semantics to "experimental philosophy" (which is, so far as I can tell, psychology done by philosophers). I'm not sure what a good introduction to this sort of work would be, but perhaps someone else can suggest some.

It seems like a number of other commentators have read you to be looking for "philosophy of science" broadly construed. That's a giant discipline, but it mostly deals with the nature of science and various issues surrounding it. If you're interested in that, I'd suggest starting out with a textbook like those by Peter Godfrey-Smith or Alan Chalmers. Under no circumstances would I recommend beginning with famous past philosophers of science like Kuhn, Popper, Carnap, or Lakatos: their discussions are both subtle and extremely opinionated, and are therefore likely to give you a really misleading picture of the discipline.

Hegel's really a fan of protestantism....which will shortly become apparent to you. He's also really interested in the french revolution...so that might give you some ideas. If you have any specific questions I can probably help. I found Peter Singer's introduction to Hegel pretty helpful and concise. You can probably find a pdf floating around somewhere on the internet.

I have a few suggestions.

The Philosophy Gym has 25 short philosophy things, with pictures and dialogues. Stephen Law also has a lot of other books of similar style that might be worth looking into.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a philosophy joke book, which might be a fun coffee table book.

The Philosophy Bites book has 25 interviews with leading contemporary philosophers.

The Stone Reader has articles by leading contemporary philosophers that were published in the New York Times philosophy column, The Stone.

Hope that helps!

I'd recommend reading a book on the history of philosophy. That way, you'll have a working understanding of all the major philosophers, and you will probably find someone's philosophy interesting enough to pursue them further. A classic is Samuel Enoch Stumpf's Socrates to Sarte. A friend of mine also recommended a more contemporary book that he said is becoming more standard today. A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny.

Other standards works many students start with include Rene Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy. Also, Plato is a good starting point. The Five Dialogues are some of his earlier works. These include the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo. I personally started with Plato's Republic, which a former professor informed me that you must read in order to consider yourself educated in today's world (Interestingly enough, he's only ever said that about books he's read).

Logic will help a lot, but as a math major it will probably come quite easily for you.

What are your texts for intro?

I think one of the best ways to start is to read the Hackett edition of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. Go slowly. Write out questions and comments. Re-read. Come back here and post your questions.

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

I really enjoy Justice by Michale Sandel. It's a series of riveting lectures that serve as a great entry into philosophy through ethics and justice.

You can also read his book.

It would be helpful if you were slightly more specific about what you mean by individuality, since the word can be used in a more technical way in which, say, my chair is an individual and then the way in which humans are individuals. It sounds like you're interested in various themes concerning the human self. That's a very broad area in philosophy. Two themes that might interest you are free will and personal identity. The first I don't know much about, but for the second, this volume is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Identity-Topics-Philosophy-Perry/dp/0520256425

If however you want to start with (comparatively) easy Aristotle text, you're best bet is probably the Nicomachean Ethics. (And if for some reason you want a comprehensible survey book on Aristotle's work this one is quite good: https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Desire-Understand-Jonathan-Lear/dp/0521347629 )

Do you have a specific interest? Otherwise a general introduction like Think, Problems of Philosophy, or Justice are all well regarded. Though, all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are tons of accessible introductions though and depending on your interests it might be better to use one rather than another. All of those are fairly general

If you want a more general introduction into philosophy there's a Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn and the older What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel. A more academic introduction (the last two books are more aimed at a general audience) is Fundamentals of Philosophy edited by John Shand. If you're willing to sit through it there also Russel's classic A History of Western Philosophy, which is a sort of introduction to philosophy through the history of the field (the audiobook is on youtube btw), and there also his Problems of Philosophy

I'm not that familiar with eastern philosophy, but a classic introduction to Existentialism is Walter Kaufmann's Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre and it should go nicely with Existentialism is a Humanism.

Hope this helps :)

Lee Braver's A Thing of This World reads a number of continental figures through the lens of the realism/anti-realism debate. As a result, it touches on a lot of epistemic issues. It's also really accessible and comprehensive. It might be a great starting point.

Husserl might be a good thinker to look at, since his concerns are more frequently directly epistemic in comparison to thinkers like Deleuze or Derrida. Unfortunately, I don't know of any good introductory textbooks to recommend though I'm sure there are some! I've heard good things about this one though: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Dermot-Moran/dp/0415183731/ref=pd_sim_b_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0D5CK2SXTC27T8HBQFE7

My introduction has been through Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger, but its main topic isn't epistemology and isn't always accessible.

I'm usually partial to the "explore fields to find out what you enjoy" sort of thing. One of the best books for this is The Pig That Wants to be Eaten. It's excellent because each of the puzzles it discusses contains an explanation of what problem in philosophy it is related to and what books to read if you want to explore that problem. Once you get a sense for the sorts of things you like thinking about, you know what fields (like epistemology, ethics, philosophy of law, etc.) to explore in more depth, at which point I would usually recommend either an introductory textbook in the field or reading the article + bibliography about the field on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

edit: actually I just read a review on the Amazon.com page, maybe that Pig book doesn't have much of a bibliography for each topic. Oh well. You can Google that shit because it at least tells you the key words.

I thumbed through the one on Aristotle. I thought it was entertaining, though not entirely accurate. Symposia, for example, would probably be better understood as "drinking parties," rather than "dinner parties."

I appreciate the joke-approach, e.g. Plato and a Platypus, though I suspect that these sorts of books are more entertaining for philosophers than they are to the general public.

John Perry’s book Personal Identity is an anthology that covers some of the most important work in the field. I think that would be a pretty good start!

This book is a good collection of essays regarding personal identity and a good number of them work through that thought experiment as well as other thought experiments one might think about in regards to personal identity.

John Rawls may be a good place for you to start for a "modern" perspective (look here first: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ )

Michael Sandel wrote a pretty readable book based off his popular harvard course on the topic. You can find the book here ( https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 ) or even just check out the course itself here ( http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ )

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Hope this helps! This isn't my area of interest but I have come across them along the way.

Baggini's The Pig That Wants to be eaten is an excellent and fun start for thinking about general philosophical problems, which is, naturally, an excellent introduction to philosophy.

If you're looking for something more rigorous, Russell's The Problems of Philosophy is a tiny and very well-written guide to philosophy almost up to the modern day by arguably the greatest thinker in analytical philosophy of the last century.

Read this book: [Jonathan Lear's The Desire to Understand] (http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Desire-Understand-Jonathan-Lear/dp/0521347629)

It is exactly what you want, and a great book.

As others have noted, there really is no essential reading list. What you'll have read by the time you finish your Ph.D. will depend on your coursework, transition requirement (comps, paper), and your dissertation. This will obviously vary widely from individual to individual. It will also vary from program to program. Essential metaphysics reading might include David Lewis in one program, but another program may completely ignore Lewis and have you read Heidegger instead.

I noticed that you said that you're interested in metaphysics and logic. If you're preparing for a Ph.D. and you're doing typical analytic metaphysics, then I recommend you check the following out.

Logic for Philosophy by Ted Sider

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology edited by Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler, and John Hawthorne.

The second book is really expensive, so if you don't have access to a good university library, then at least work through the one chapter called "Method in Analytic Metaphysics" by Daniel Nolan. You can find the chapter here

Check out The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It is a great book and would be sure to give you a few topics to write about.

Dermot Moran's Introduction to Phenomenology is excellent, with a chapter devoted to each of the major figures.

I recommend this to all beginners -- I like the Barwise & Etchemendy book because it's aimed at people with no background at all in logic or upper-level math, it's restricted to propositional and first-order logic (which I think logicians of all stripes should know), and it comes with proof-checker software so that you can check your own understanding instead of needing to find someone to give you feedback.

After that, you'll have some familiarity with the topic and can decide where you want to go. For a more mathematical route, I think Enderton (mentioned previously) or Boolos are good follow-ups. For a more philosophical route, I think Sider or Priest are good next steps.

Hopefully someone more versed in Sartre will be able to help you out. But based on my studying him at undergrad, the idea is that what's special about the for-itself is that it's able to think of things that don't exist (nothingness), and imagine possibilities for itself that aren't realised. So, I as a conscious human can imagine myself being other than I am, for example, as flying through the air even though I'm sitting. A stone, though, an in-itself, doesn't have this gap between what it is and what it can think itself as being.

So then I'd want to say 'nonself-identical' just means something like 'has consciousness and thus lacks any defined once for all essence because is able to contemplate alternate possibilities for itself' and 'internal negation' is the distance between oneself considered as in-itself and as for-itself brought about by this ability.

But I'm not a Sartre expert, and also personally I think looking too hard for precision here is a mistake. The textbook we used (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Dermot-Moran/dp/0415183731) wasn't too complimentary about Sartre's technical ontological skills, and I agreed with it, though you might check out https://www.amazon.com/Sartres-Being-Nothingness-Readers-Guides/dp/0826474691 and https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Jean-Paul-Sartres-Nothingness-Reprint/dp/0226096998/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JZ8S92AXKWP0FC21AAB7 for more sympathetic readings (I haven't read the former but guess it's good).

The Logic Book is a good text for FOL and the early theorems of meta-logic (soundness and completeness of propositional and first-order logics). It's somewhat slow going though.

A more mathematically inclined text is Herbert Enderton's Introduction to Mathematical Logic. Enderton goes into more of the meta-logic, including incompleteness, Lowenheim-Skolem, and computability. He also touches on second-order logic toward the end.

Along the lines of meta-logic, Boolos and Jeffrey's Computability and Logic is very good as well. (Er, and Burgess. I can only vouch for the 3rd edition, which is pre-Burgess.)

Given that you're already familiar with FOL, I'd lean toward Enderton or Boolos and Jeffrey with the caveat that The Logic Book has endless practice problems and, iirc, answers to many of them in the back of the book (the others have fewer (but more interesting) problems).

If you want to go beyond FOL, I second stoic9's suggestion of Priest's book.

The book you have linked is anthology of texts by various writers whereas Audi's book is a textbook by a single author. So I would imagine it would be easier to follow Audi's book for people that are new to epistemology. I also remember reading some chapters from Richard Feldman's Epistemology in an undergraduate course and they have been quite well written.

do you have any light reading philosphy books? So far all I've read is "The pig who loves to be eaten" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452287448/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_oXU0DbS4WCZ0F

I am by no means an expert, I admittedly know little on this subject.

When I was interested in this in high school, I read the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/Existentialism-Dostoevsky-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0452009308/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I thought the selections were quite good, but I would probably skip Kaufmann's commentary. I'm told his interpretations of these thinkers are controversial, to say the least.

If you read something you like from this book, I would read the texts the selections are from.

A few places you might think of starting with:
Gary Gutting has some fairly accessible stuff on french philosophy.

Peter Singer has written books on Hegel and Marx that might be helpful.

Philosophies of Mathematics offers a good historical look at the philosophy of math over the course of the 20th century.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic

Chalmers has also published a pretty accessible anthology of classic readings in the Philosophy of Mind.

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Classical-Contemporary-Readings/dp/019514581X

Read an intro to epistemology textbook. This will give you the basics of various theories of knowledge. I really liked this one.

A book that presents a cynical, nihilistic theory of knowledge or a critique of rationality won't be an introductory book for the study of knowledge. https://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Contemporary-Readings-Routledge-Philosophy/dp/0415259215 this book has some background info and essays from various authors that are relevant to most areas of the study of knowledge (origin of knowledge, structure of knowledge, skepticism). Bit dry but it's useful for getting a foundation on the subject.

Almost every translation of Descartes Meditations will be in modern English. I would recommend switching to a modern translation, such as one of these:

Cottingham translation:

https://www.amazon.com/Descartes-Meditations-Philosophy-Selections-Objections/dp/0521558182/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1505099147&sr=8-2&keywords=descartes+meditations

Cress translation:
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-First-Philosophy-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872201929/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505099160&sr=1-1&keywords=descartes+meditations+hackett

Ariew translation:
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Objections-Replies-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872207986/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505099160&sr=1-3&keywords=descartes+meditations+hackett

I think it would be good one.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

There are lots of introductions to epistemology, as a quick search on Amazon indicates:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=epistemology&sprefix=epist%2Cstripbooks

I haven't read most of them, but based on the authors and publishers, I expect these to be solid surveys:

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416622594&sr=1-1&keywords=epistemology

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Richard-Feldman/dp/0133416453/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NPT7RZ11R84R4WD6B1T

Peter Singer devotes a chapter to this in Hegel: A Very Short Introduction. If you don't have the book, go to the Amazon link here, open up the book by clicking on it, and go to page 32.

Here's a short list I made a while ago:

• SEP Articles
  
• Descartes – Meditations on First Philosophy
  
• Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  
• Locke – An Essay on Human Understanding
  
• Ayer – Language, Truth, and Logic
  
• Russell – The Problems of Philosophy
  
• Quine – Two Dogmas of Empiricism
  
• Sellars – Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
  
• Williams – The Problems of Knowledge
  
• Rorty – Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
  
  /u/LeeHyori's recommendation of Audi and Huemer's anthology is fantastic as well.

Really? Nolt's Logics? Besides the numerous errors, it's telling that the book has not come out in a second edition.

I think Quine's Methods of Logic remains a fantastic text, if it is a bit dated and filled with Quinean quirks. A more recent text, Ted Siders' Logic for Philosophy is also very good, although the exercises are sometimes quite difficult. I would combine Sider's text with a book on metalogic, since he skips over some of that. Kleene's Mathematical Logic is a classic text by a real giant in the history of 20th century logic. Those should keep someone busy for a good year of study. If you want to branch out, Graham Priest's Introduction to Non-classical Logics will get you started in modal, tense, epistemic, paraconsistent and dialethic logics, also by a contemporary giant in the field.

After that, I would go on to set theory, and stop when I had a grasp of forcing.

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy I hear this is a good place to start.

Thinking Through Philosophy: An Introduction I know this is good

David Benatar is pretty well known for explicitly arguing that having children is unethical (see his *Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence)

Peter Singer is phenomenal for his breadth of topics, he does discuss the ethics of overpopulation and consumption fairly regularly (see this little speech or his book The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty).

Other than that, as TychoCelchuuu suggests, the SEP is a good place to start.

One of these might suit what you're looking for:

• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Personal-Identity-Blackwell-Readings-Philosophy/dp/063123442X
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Identity-Topics-Philosophy-Perry/dp/0520256425

This what you're after. I can link a PDF if you need.

Feldman's Epistemology is one of the standard intro textbooks.

Duncan Pritchard has a book called What is this Thing Called Knowledge?. I've not read it, but that series is decent, from what I can tell, and Pritchard is one of the foremost epistemologists right now.

Peter Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality is a classic introductory text to every major issue in contemporary philosophy of science, including scientific realism.

Of course, you can always check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on scientific realism, and then look at the bibliography!

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophies-Mathematics-Alexander-George/dp/0631195440

the main proponent of dualism in contemporary philosophy is david chalmers. his defining work is "The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory," but you can also read all of his papers for free on his website. he has also at some points argued for panpsychism, but his core commitments still lie with dualism.

yes, he and his arguments are usually taken very seriously in academic philosophy. for example, here's a video of him at a conference on a boat, with other big name philosophers of mind such as dennett and the churchlands.

i guess i should also mention that the kind of dualism that chalmers argues for is not the classic cartesian substance dualism, but rather a weaker form of dualism called property dualism

here's a useful sep article about dualism

Better Never to have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benetar

It depends what you're trying to get out of it.

There are literally hundreds of introductory texts for first-order logic. Other posters can cover them. There's so much variety here that I would feel a bit silly recommending one.

For formal tools for philosophy, I would say David Papineau's Philosophical Devices. There's also Ted Sider's Logic for Philosophy but something about his style when it comes to formalism rubs me the wrong way, personally.

For a more mathematical approach to first-order logic, Peter Hinman's Fundamentals of Mathematical Logic springs to mind.

For a semi-mathematical text that is intermediate rather than introductory, Boolos, Burgess, and Jeffrey's Computability and Logic is the gold standard.

Finally, if you want to see some different ways of doing things, check out Graham Priest's An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic.

> What's does the "hard problem" consist of? From what I can tell,
> Chalmers thinks its a confounding problem that we can't understand
> what the experience of feeling pain is like, say, in terms of brain states.

It's more than simply that. But, because consciousness is such a slippery topic to talk clearly about, it's not easy to briefly describe it in a way that communicates the points clearly. Whether you agree with Chalmer's views or not, I think he does a pretty reasonable job of stating the "hard problem" (I read his The Conscious Mind), and his description is pretty lengthy.

> He seems to think that by looking at the brain of a person who's in pain, we should
> be able to know what their experience of feeling pain is actually like. I dont share
> this kind of concern

No he doesn't. It's more the opposite.

> And Chalmers leans toward consciousness being fundamental, I believe

It's not entirely clear what exactly should and shouldn't constitute "fundamental", but I don't think that's true. He's say that it's not something "physical", basically meaning not something that can be understood in structural or functional terms, but that doesn't necessitate it being fundamental.

And BTW I'm not saying I necessarily agree with Chalmers, I'm just trying to clarify what his position is.

I haven't read it, but a recent book on this subject is Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar.

Notre Dame Philosophical Review has a review of it here.