Are there any contemporary philosophers? Someone please help.. list some good books on philosophy.
What follows are some recommendations of mine that I posted in the 'reading room' a while ago. Do note that
NTB disagreed with some of my suggestions so you may want to read our exchange in order to counteract some of the biases in my selection. Stars (*) indicate reasonable places to start.
- I think that Plato's
Republic is a great 'beginner' text in philosophy given its breadth (themes in politics, metaphysics, epistemology, etc) and presentation in the form of dialogue (not to mentioned Plato generally). *
- Descartes'
Meditations (dry but approachable. Metaphysics and epistemology to the core)
-
Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Eclectic, creative, brilliant. Grounded in cognitive science but deals extensively with metaphysics (phil of mind), knowledge, logic, and so on. I can't think of a more entertaining way to be introduced to a formal logical system - in fact, this is the book which inspired me to go and learn logic coled from a textbook. *
- J. S. Mill is quite readable, as he wrote to reach a wider audience not limited to academics, notably
Utilitarianism (ethics) *
There are a number of writers in the Anglo-American (analytic) tradition who write solid philosophy which at this same time is very accessible. In no particular order, with examples:
- Thomas Nagel -
Mortal Questions *
- Daniel Dennet -
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
- Simon Blackburn -
Truth and
Think
- Owen Flanagan -
The Really Hard Problem
- Robert Nozick -
Philosophical Explanations
- Bernard Williams -
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
Continental/European philosophy is a tougher nut to crack (conceptually) but tends to be a lot more poetic and readable. Accessible examples include:
- Nietzche's
Genealogy of Morals *
- Camus'
The Myth of Sisyphus
- Kierkegaard's
Fear and Trembling
- Sartre's
Existentialism is a Humanism (whilst avoiding most everything else of his) *
- de Beauvior's
The Second Sex
[N.B. There are many of strands in continential philosophy not represented here (phenomenology, critical theory, post-structuralism, etc) which are great fun but hard to approach due to their historical nature, i.e. they presume a fair level of familiarity with philosophy. This is less problematic in analytic philosophy which prefers to approach the problem 'afresh' rather than by historically situating it.]
