[Discussion] Philosophy books you think are worth reading

[zenigotchas]

This has been on my mind for a while since I've been slowly nibbling away at Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good And Evil over the present 3 months. I'm on the last chapter and have enjoyed it way more than I expected to, even if I think a lot of his conclusions are straight up intellectually or even morally wrong, it is good to see a very different perspective from my own. It has been helping me sharpen my OWN critical thinking skills and my own personal philosophy–Being the philosophy babey that I am, I am not as familiar with the fields of philosophy or how many other good and fun books are in there, but this has been giving me an appetite for this kind of book and to keep exploring.

For those reasons I would definitely say it is worth reading, but mostly because it's so fun.

What philosophy books have YOU utterly devoured or thought were things everyone should try?

Comments

[octahedrite]

Sophie's world

[screechfox]

+1 to this.

I'm not very philosophical but Sophie's World is a great run through of a lot of historical philosophy, combined with a compelling story.

[anehan]

As a fellow noob, I'm also interested in hearing people's recs.

So far, I've read Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy and Plato's Republic. (And also Sophie's World back when it was published. I've got mixed feelings about it.)

Russell's book was interesting. It focuses largely on epistemology, if I've got my terminology correct. I found the early parts challenging in the sense that it was difficult to see why I needed to think about whether I can know that my dining table definitely exists. (I did say I was a noob.) It all came together towards the end of the book, though. A rec for this from me.

Plato's Republic, OTOH, I certainly didn't enjoy reading. Many of his arguments seemed to leak like a sieve, and in my opinion it wasn't even well-written. It's supposed to be a dialogue, but really it's Plato (disguised as Socrates) being surronded by a bunch of yes-men. I've heard that his earlier works work better as dialogues, and that he got more turgid towards the end of his career. It did have its moments, though. There were parts I found interesting, and it was also a lot less misogynistic than I'd been led to believe.