How I Would Recommend Approaching Philosophy
Why I would start with neither the classics nor well-known contemporary works, even though they have their place on the list. And where I would recommend starting instead and why there in particular.
A Reading List for Critical Thinking
Philosophy reading lists often begin with Plato, continue through Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant, and then work their way through the history of philosophy toward the present. This makes sense if the main purpose is to study the history of philosophy. I do not think it is the best way to learn how to think philosophically.
Anyone reading Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, or any other major philosopher already faces an epistemological problem. How can I tell whether the argument is sound? Which assumptions does it depend on? What would count against the claim? Could it fail at all? Is it an empirical claim, a conceptual proposal, or a statement insulated from possible criticism? Am I responding to the argument or to the author’s rhetorical skill? How reliable are my own intuitions?
These are questions a beginner should encounter as early as possible.
For that reason, this list begins with argumentation, epistemology, and scientific methodology. It then moves to ontology and some basic scientific knowledge. Evolution, human ethology, psychology, probability, and game theory come next. Only after that would I systematically approach many of the canonical philosophical texts.
This does not mean that someone must finish twenty books before being allowed to read Aristotle. The stages can overlap. Several works can be read in parallel. The important point is the direction of travel. A reader should acquire tools for evaluating arguments as early as possible.
Books also do not have to be read like novels from the first page to the last. With Popper, for example, I regard some chapters as much more important for beginners than others. A philosophical book can be used as a working tool. Read a chapter, look up unfamiliar concepts, return to earlier sections, and come back to the rest later.
Difficulty alone is not a good criterion either. A difficult text can be enormously useful if it forces the reader to think carefully about fundamental problems. Hans Albert’s Treatise on Critical Reason is a good example. It is not the easiest book on this list. I nevertheless regard it as one of the most productive introductions to serious philosophical thinking.
Stage 1
Arguments, Error, and Intellectual Hygiene
1. Arthur Schopenhauer
Eristic Dialectic / The Art of Being Right
Level: Immediate foundations
This is an excellent short starting point.
Schopenhauer collects rhetorical and dialectical techniques by which people can win arguments despite having a weak position. The central lesson is simple and extremely important. Persuasiveness and truth are different things.
A writer can be brilliant, witty, rhetorically overwhelming, and still be wrong. A debate can be won without the better argument having won.
This makes the text particularly useful before reading highly rhetorical philosophers such as Plato or Nietzsche.
It is short, widely available, and immediately applicable.
2. Richard Feynman
Cargo Cult Science
Level: Immediate foundations
This short address is one of the best introductions to scientific integrity I know.
Feynman discusses work that has the external appearance of science while lacking the intellectual discipline that makes science reliable. His central demand is that researchers actively expose the weaknesses of their own position.
One should report evidence that appears to count against one’s hypothesis. One should not hide complications that make a result look less impressive. One should make it easier for other people to discover that one is wrong.
That attitude provides an excellent bridge to Popper and critical rationalism.
The text is short and freely available online.
3. Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Level: Immediate foundations
Sagan provides a highly accessible introduction to scientific skepticism.
His famous invisible dragon example shows how a claim can gradually be protected against every conceivable test until nothing remains that could distinguish a world in which the claim is true from one in which it is false.
The book also deals with pseudoscience, perception, unreliable testimony, extraordinary claims, and methods for detecting bad reasoning.
It is useful because many abstract epistemological problems first appear here in concrete and memorable form.
Stage 2
Epistemology and Critical Rationalism
4. Hans Albert
Treatise on Critical Reason
Level: Core foundation
If I had to select only a handful of works from this entire list, this would be one of them.
Albert examines the problem of justification. Attempts to provide ultimate justification lead toward an infinite regress, circular reasoning, or the arbitrary termination of the process. This is the famous Münchhausen trilemma.
The important part is what follows from it.
Knowledge does not require an infallible foundation. Claims and theories can instead remain open to criticism. Rationality becomes a matter of identifying errors and improving explanations rather than establishing propositions beyond all possible doubt.
Albert applies this approach to epistemology, science, ideology, theology, and the social sciences.
The book can be demanding. Some passages need to be read several times. I still consider it extraordinarily productive for a beginner who is willing to work through it.
An English translation exists, which makes Albert much more suitable for an English-language version of this list than I initially expected.
5. Karl Popper
Selected chapters from Conjectures and Refutations
Level: Core foundation
A beginner does not need to read the entire book immediately. Several essays and sections are especially important.
“Science: Conjectures and Refutations”
This is one of the clearest short introductions to Popper’s basic approach.
Science progresses through conjectures that expose themselves to criticism. Confirmations are relatively easy to obtain for many theories. A strong theory takes risks.
“On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance”
This essay attacks the search for privileged sources of knowledge.
Observation is not infallible. Reason is not infallible. Tradition is not infallible. Authorities are not infallible.
The central issue is whether claims remain open to criticism.
Chapter 8, Section 2
“The Problem of the Irrefutability of Philosophical Theories”
I would regard this section as essential reading.
Popper explicitly addresses the fact that philosophical theories can be irrefutable and nevertheless false. Irrefutability therefore does not establish truth.
This creates a much more interesting philosophical problem than the simplified slogan that everything unfalsifiable is meaningless.
How can philosophical theories be rationally criticized when they are not directly falsifiable by experiment?
That question is fundamental for philosophy.
“Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge”
This can follow later and develops Popper’s account of truth, criticism, corroboration, and intellectual progress more fully.
6. Karl Popper
Selected chapters from The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Level: Foundation with a higher level of difficulty
Again, I would not require a beginner to read every chapter.
Chapter 1 is particularly important. It introduces the problem of induction, deductive testing, the demarcation problem, empirical method, and falsifiability.
Chapter 4, on falsifiability, should follow.
This is important because Popper’s actual position is considerably more sophisticated than the textbook caricature according to which one contradictory observation automatically destroys a theory.
Testing involves background assumptions, measurement assumptions, auxiliary hypotheses, and decisions about what should count as a reproducible effect.
Later chapters on basic statements, corroboration, probability, simplicity, and related problems can be added when needed.
7. Karl Popper
The Open Society and Its Enemies
Level: Foundations and political philosophy
Despite its size, much of this work is easier to read than The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
It is useful because Popper applies his fallibilist epistemology to politics and society.
Human beings make mistakes. Institutions should therefore permit criticism and correction. Political systems should be judged partly by whether bad decisions can be reversed without catastrophe.
The work is also useful as an example of how canonical philosophers can be treated critically rather than as authorities whose systems merely have to be interpreted.
The epistemological discussions toward the end of the second volume are particularly relevant to this reading list.
8. David Deutsch
The Beginning of Infinity
Level: Accessible extension of Popper
Deutsch develops many Popperian ideas in a modern and highly readable form.
Problems, explanations, criticism, error correction, and the growth of knowledge are central themes.
One of Deutsch’s most useful ideas is that good explanations are difficult to vary arbitrarily while retaining their explanatory function.
I would not accept every conclusion Deutsch draws. That is irrelevant to the recommendation. The book is valuable precisely because it presents a powerful framework that can itself be subjected to criticism.
9. Pierre Duhem and W. V. O. Quine
Selected texts on the Duhem–Quine problem
Level: After the first Popper readings
A whole book is not necessary at this stage.
Duhem showed that experimental tests normally do not test isolated hypotheses. A prediction depends on a network of assumptions involving theory, auxiliary hypotheses, instruments, measurement, and background knowledge.
Quine later generalized the idea much further.
This matters because it blocks an overly mechanical interpretation of falsification. When observation conflicts with prediction, logic alone usually does not identify exactly which assumption has failed.
The broader Quinean version should itself be treated critically. The problem is indispensable. Quine’s strongest conclusions do not have to be accepted.
Stage 3
Ontology and the Scientific Picture of the World
10. Mario Bunge
Scientific Materialism
Level: Core ontological foundation
For German readers, I would recommend Mario Bunge and Martin Mahner’s Über die Natur der Dinge as the most accessible introduction. I have not found a direct English edition of that book.
For an English-language list, Bunge’s Scientific Materialism is therefore a useful alternative.
Bunge develops a realist and materialist ontology grounded in science. Reality consists of concrete things undergoing change and interaction. Systems possess properties that cannot always be reduced to a mere list of the properties of their components.
This provides useful tools for distinguishing concrete entities from conceptual constructs and for asking what kind of thing a philosophical theory claims to be talking about.
The book also provides an accessible route into Bunge before approaching his much larger systematic works.
11. Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time
Level: Scientific foundations
A philosopher does not have to become a theoretical physicist.
Some understanding of the modern physical picture of the universe is nevertheless important.
Hawking introduces cosmology, relativity, spacetime, black holes, the expansion of the universe, and attempts to understand its origin.
The book is now itself a historical work of popular science, and research has naturally progressed since it was written. It remains a useful conceptual introduction.
Philosophical discussions of time, space, determinism, causality, and cosmology become much more meaningful when the relevant physics is not entirely absent.
12. Sabine Hossenfelder
Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions
Level: After elementary physical foundations
This is the English original of the book published in German as Mehr als nur Atome.
Hossenfelder examines questions at the border between physics and philosophy, including determinism, free will, information, the beginning of the universe, quantum mechanics, and the limits of what physics can tell us.
One reason I would include it is that popular discussions of quantum mechanics easily drift from physics into speculative metaphysics.
A beginner should learn to distinguish experimental evidence, mathematical formalism, interpretation, and philosophical extrapolation.
That distinction is more valuable than memorizing the slogans of a particular interpretation of quantum theory.
Stage 4
Evolutionary Epistemology and Humans as Biological Organisms
13. Gerhard Vollmer
Selected English texts on evolutionary epistemology
Level: Core foundation
Vollmer’s Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie is one of the books I would strongly recommend to German readers.
Unfortunately, I have not found a complete English translation of the book.
For English readers I would therefore use his English essays, especially:
“How Is It That We Can Know This World? New Arguments in Evolutionary Epistemology”
and
“Mesocosm and Objective Knowledge.”
The central problem is fundamental.
Why should cognitive systems produced by biological evolution be capable of gaining real knowledge about the world?
Evolutionary epistemology explains both the success and the limitations of human cognition. Our cognitive structures were shaped through interaction with a real environment. They therefore cannot be completely arbitrary.
At the same time, evolution did not produce infallible scientists. It produced organisms whose cognitive equipment was sufficiently effective for survival and reproduction under particular conditions.
This combination of realism and fallibilism is enormously important.
14. Konrad Lorenz
Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge
Level: Foundation and complement to Vollmer
Lorenz approaches similar questions from ethology and evolutionary biology.
Human perception and cognition are treated as natural phenomena with an evolutionary history.
The categories through which organisms process the world did not appear from nowhere. They developed through evolutionary interaction between organism and environment.
The book is considerably more philosophical than its classification as ethology might suggest.
15. Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
Level: Biological foundations
Anyone discussing morality, cooperation, altruism, family relationships, conflict, or social behaviour should understand basic evolutionary theory.
Dawkins presents the gene-centred perspective on evolution with exceptional clarity.
Kin selection, competition, cooperation, and apparently altruistic behaviour become understandable within an evolutionary framework.
The book does not provide an ethical theory. That is one reason to read it before entering certain ethical debates. It explains biological conditions under which social and moral tendencies could arise.
16. Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
The Biology of Peace and War: Men, Animals, and Aggression
Level: Accessible introduction to human ethology
This is the English translation of Krieg und Frieden aus der Sicht der Verhaltensforschung.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt examines aggression, group formation, cooperation, conflict, and mechanisms that inhibit violence from the perspective of behavioural biology.
For philosophers, human ethology should not be regarded as an exotic specialist subject.
Anyone making claims about human morality, society, politics, aggression, cooperation, or social institutions should know something about the animal species whose behaviour is being discussed.
17. Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
Human Ethology
Level: Advanced foundation, especially important for philosophy of human beings
This is the English version of his major work on human ethology.
It is a large scientific book, but surprisingly readable.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt examines cross-cultural similarities and differences in social behaviour, communication, bonding, aggression, courtship, hierarchy, ritual, and other behavioural patterns.
Much of the material comes from extensive comparative fieldwork.
Anyone seriously interested in ethics, political philosophy, philosophical anthropology, or social philosophy would benefit from understanding this research tradition.
A philosophy of human beings that ignores empirical knowledge about human behaviour risks constructing its subject from philosophical assumptions rather than studying the organism that actually exists.
18. Robert Sapolsky
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Level: Advanced
Sapolsky analyses behaviour across multiple causal levels.
What happened in the nervous system seconds before an action? What happened hormonally hours earlier? What happened during development? What social environment shaped the individual? What evolutionary history lies behind the relevant mechanisms?
This layered approach is philosophically valuable because it discourages simplistic explanations of human behaviour.
The book is long, but extremely rewarding.
Sapolsky’s later Determined should, in my view, be read after Behave. It focuses much more directly on determinism, responsibility, and free will.
Stage 5
Probability, Cognitive Error, and Uncertainty
19. Daniel Kahneman
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Level: Foundations, but to be read critically
Kahneman provides an accessible introduction to heuristics, framing, base-rate neglect, regression toward the mean, overconfidence, and decision-making under uncertainty.
The book should now be read more critically than when it first appeared. Parts of the psychological literature discussed in it became entangled in the broader replication problems of experimental psychology.
Its central lesson remains important.
Human intuition is not a neutral measurement instrument. People make systematic errors when estimating probabilities, interpreting evidence, and evaluating their own judgments.
That lesson should itself be applied to the psychological studies in the book.
20. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fooled by Randomness
Level: Foundations
I would recommend this before The Black Swan.
Taleb shows how easily people turn random outcomes into causal narratives.
Successful people appear retrospectively destined for success. Historical developments become predictable after they have already happened. Survivors are analysed while failed cases disappear from view.
This is an excellent complement to Kahneman.
A plausible story is not automatically a good explanation.
21. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan
Level: After Fooled by Randomness
Taleb extends the problem to rare events with very large consequences.
In some domains, a small number of extreme events dominate the total outcome. Intuitions derived from stable, well-behaved distributions can become badly misleading in such environments.
Those who find the approach useful can continue with the rest of the Incerto series.
For a beginner, the first two books are sufficient.
Stage 6
Game Theory, Cooperation, and Strategic Interaction
22. Ken Binmore
Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction
Level: Introduction
Game theory belongs in a basic philosophical education.
Binmore provides a short introduction that does not require the reader to begin with a large mathematical textbook.
The important concepts include strategic interaction, dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium, zero-sum and non-zero-sum games, the prisoner’s dilemma, repeated games, and information.
These ideas later become relevant to ethics, economics, political philosophy, evolution, cooperation, and the emergence of social norms.
23. Robert Axelrod
The Evolution of Cooperation
Level: After a basic introduction to game theory
Axelrod asks how cooperation can arise among actors who pursue their own interests without requiring a central authority to enforce cooperation.
His tournaments involving iterated prisoner’s dilemmas made strategies such as Tit for Tat famous.
The philosophical interest is obvious.
Cooperative behaviour can be studied as the outcome of repeated interaction rather than simply assumed as a moral principle.
Axelrod’s particular results should not be turned into dogma. Changes in game structure, error rates, population structure, and available strategies can change the outcome.
That makes the book more useful rather than less useful.
Further reading
John Maynard Smith
Evolution and the Theory of Games
Level: Advanced
Maynard Smith systematically applies game-theoretical models to evolutionary problems.
The concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy is especially important for understanding biological conflict, competition, and cooperation.
For absolute beginners, I would read Binmore and Axelrod first.
Stage 7
Now Read the Philosophical Classics
At this point, the reader has already encountered argumentation, fallibility, falsification, ontology, evolution, human cognition, probability, and strategic interaction.
The classical philosophers can now be approached from a very different position.
24. Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics
Level: Classical essential reading
If I had to choose one substantial work from ancient philosophy for an introductory list, this would be it.
Aristotle examines happiness, virtue, character, action, responsibility, friendship, and the nature of a flourishing human life.
Many parts can and should be criticised. Some biological and social assumptions are historically obsolete.
The structure of the inquiry nevertheless remains extremely productive.
Aristotle compares positions, distinguishes concepts, examines objections, and attempts to connect ethics with an account of human nature.
His habit of discussing competing theories before advancing his own is a philosophical strength, even when it makes the text slower to read.
25. David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Level: After the epistemological foundations
Hume unquestionably belongs on a philosophical reading list.
For beginners, however, I would not primarily introduce him through the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
The epistemological problems are more important.
Sections IV and V on skeptical doubts and their proposed solution are particularly relevant. Section VII on necessary connection should also be read.
Here the reader encounters the problem of induction and Hume’s account of causation in their classical form.
Someone who already understands Popper, Albert, and evolutionary epistemology can distinguish much more easily between the problems Hume discovered and the conclusions Hume himself drew from them.
26. John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
Level: Excellent classical introduction
This is one of the classical works I would recommend relatively early.
Mill examines the limits of legitimate social coercion and develops his famous liberty principle.
He also offers a powerful defence of freedom of discussion and intellectual diversity.
Even false opinions can be epistemically valuable because criticism forces people to articulate and re-examine the reasons for beliefs they otherwise repeat mechanically.
One does not have to accept Mill’s principle as a complete political philosophy.
As a starting point for thinking about liberty, coercion, individuality, and open criticism, the book is excellent.
27. Michel de Montaigne
Selected Essays
Level: Supplement after the foundations
I would not require a beginner to read the entire Essays.
Selected pieces are highly worthwhile.
Montaigne examines people, customs, beliefs, and his own judgments with unusual skeptical distance.
He is especially valuable as an early example of applying criticism to one’s own assumptions rather than only to those of one’s opponents.
His skepticism should itself be treated critically.
That makes him more interesting.
28. The Stoics
Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus
Level: Accessible classical supplement
For Marcus Aurelius, I would recommend the Meditations.
For Seneca, On the Happy Life is a good starting point.
Epictetus’ Enchiridion is even shorter and compresses many central Stoic ideas into a small space.
These texts are interesting because they connect philosophy directly with action, emotion, judgment, and everyday life.
The distinction between things under our control and things outside our control remains psychologically powerful.
Stoic psychology should not simply be accepted wholesale. Some demands for independence from external circumstances go very far.
That makes the texts good material for criticism.
29. Bertrand Russell
The Problems of Philosophy and selected essays
Level: Very suitable for beginners
Russell writes unusually clearly for a major philosopher.
The Problems of Philosophy addresses perception, matter, induction, knowledge, truth, and the limits of philosophical inquiry.
It is short enough to read in full.
Russell’s conclusions do not have to be accepted. His great strength is that the reader can usually identify the problem and the argument clearly enough to criticise them.
As an additional short text, Why I Am Not a Christian is also worth reading.
Russell is an excellent rhetorician, which provides another opportunity to separate rhetorical power from argumentative validity.
30. Thomas Nagel
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
Level: Short problem-focused reading after the foundations
This is an excellent example of a philosophical paper.
Nagel presents a clearly defined problem concerning subjective experience and objective description.
The paper is short, readable, and philosophically rich.
Its conclusions can be challenged.
That is precisely why it is useful. The reader gets a distinct problem, a recognisable argument, and enough structure to formulate objections.
31. René Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia
Meditations on First Philosophy and the 1643 correspondence
Level: Case study after the foundations
I would not read Descartes in isolation.
The combination of the Meditations with Princess Elisabeth’s correspondence is much more instructive.
Descartes treats mind and matter as fundamentally different substances.
Elisabeth asks how an immaterial thinking substance can causally produce movement in a physical body.
That apparently simple question exposes one of the central explanatory problems of Cartesian interactionist dualism.
As a philosophical teaching example, it is excellent.
A large metaphysical system can be placed under enormous pressure by one precise question.
32. Plato
Euthyphro and Apology
Level: Read after acquiring methodological tools
Plato should certainly be read.
I simply would not put him first because dialogues are easier to read than Aristotle.
The Euthyphro contains one of the most enduring problems in philosophy of religion and metaethics.
The Apology is short and historically important.
Plato is also an extraordinarily powerful rhetorical writer.
That is one reason to approach him after learning to distinguish an argument’s logical structure from the dramatic structure of a dialogue.
A Socratic interlocutor being rhetorically cornered does not automatically mean that every possible version of his position has been refuted.
Further Study
These works go beyond what I would call the essential beginner’s list.
W. W. Bartley III
The Retreat to Commitment
Bartley develops an important internal problem within critical rationalism.
Can rationalism itself be rationally criticised, or does it ultimately depend on an irrational commitment to rationality?
Bartley develops the idea of comprehensive critical rationalism in response.
Anyone who wants to study Popper and Albert in greater depth should eventually read Bartley.
For the first stage, Albert is more comprehensive.
Karl Popper
Larger parts of The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Conjectures and Refutations
After the introductory selections, both works are worth reading much more extensively.
The later parts of The Logic of Scientific Discovery discuss basic statements, corroboration, probability, simplicity, and the structure of scientific testing in greater detail.
Conjectures and Refutations applies Popper’s epistemology across a much wider range of philosophical and scientific questions.
Mario Bunge
Treatise on Basic Philosophy
Anyone who wants a systematic treatment of Bunge’s semantics, ontology, epistemology, and philosophy of science eventually has to engage with the multi-volume Treatise.
For ontology in particular:
Ontology I: The Furniture of the World
and
Ontology II: A World of Systems
are central.
This is not where I would begin.
John Maynard Smith
Evolution and the Theory of Games
This becomes essential for anyone pursuing evolutionary game theory more deeply.
Robert Sapolsky
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will
I would read this after Behave.
Sapolsky develops his case against a strong conception of free will and draws consequences for responsibility and punishment.
Whether one accepts his conclusion or not, the book forces the reader to examine the relationship between causal explanation, agency, responsibility, and moral judgment.
What I Would Not Put at the Beginning
Kant
Kant is historically important.
I would nevertheless not recommend beginning a philosophical education with either the Critique of Pure Reason or the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
The difficulty is not merely his prose.
A beginner has little equipment for identifying which assumptions Kant builds into his system, which conclusions actually follow, and where conceptual constructions already contain much of what later appears to be derived.
Kant can be read later.
He is easier to evaluate once the reader already possesses a serious epistemological framework.
Nietzsche
Nietzsche is far too rhetorically powerful to serve as an unquestioned philosophical foundation.
He is worth reading later and can be excellent material for argumentative analysis.
I would not use him to teach epistemological basics.
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
The Tractatus is short and fascinating.
That combination can itself be dangerous.
Its aphoristic form and conceptual density give individual propositions enormous rhetorical force even when the underlying argument is not immediately visible.
It becomes much more interesting after studying epistemology and philosophy of science.
Extensive Plato before methodological training
Some Platonic dialogues are excellent.
I would nevertheless avoid a philosophical education that sends a beginner through months of Plato before providing tools for analysing arguments independently.
Popular quantum mysticism
I would be especially careful with popular books about quantum mechanics.
Quantum theory is already mathematically and conceptually difficult. Popular presentations can easily blur experimental results, mathematical models, interpretations, and metaphysical speculation.
The first goal should be to learn how to keep those levels separate.
The Short Version
If someone wanted only a compact core list, I would recommend approximately this order:
- Schopenhauer, Eristic Dialectic
- Feynman, Cargo Cult Science
- Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
- Albert, Treatise on Critical Reason
- Popper, selected texts from Conjectures and Refutations
- Popper, Chapters 1 and 4 of The Logic of Scientific Discovery
- Bunge, Scientific Materialism
- Vollmer, selected English papers on evolutionary epistemology
- Lorenz, Behind the Mirror
- Hawking, A Brief History of Time
- Hossenfelder, Existential Physics
- Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
- Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
- Eibl-Eibesfeldt, The Biology of Peace and War
- Sapolsky, Behave
- Binmore, Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction
- Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
- Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Mill, On Liberty
After that, I would branch according to interest.
For epistemology, continue with more Popper, Bartley, Duhem, and Quine.
For ontology, continue with Bunge.
For evolution and human behaviour, continue with Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s Human Ethology, Maynard Smith, and Sapolsky’s Determined.
For classical philosophy, continue with Montaigne, the Stoics, Russell, Nagel, Descartes together with Elisabeth, and selected Platonic dialogues.
Only then would I approach Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and other authors whose intellectual and rhetorical impact can easily precede the reader’s ability to analyse their assumptions.
This is not intended as a canon of the most famous works in philosophy.
It has a different purpose.
The aim is to acquire, as early as possible, the intellectual tools required to decide for oneself which philosophy is worth accepting.
Sources and Online Texts
Freely accessible or institutionally available texts
Richard Feynman, Cargo Cult Science, Caltech https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf
Karl Popper, Science: Conjectures and Refutations, short text hosted by KTH https://www.kth.se/social/files/57da705ef276540c0f789308/KPopper_Falsification.pdf
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, Internet Archive catalogue / lending copy https://archive.org/details/conjecturesrefut0000popp
W. V. O. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, University of Alberta copy https://sites.ualberta.ca/~francisp/NewPhil448/QuineTwoDogmas51.pdf
Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/aimstructureofph0000duhe
Gerhard Vollmer, “How Is It That We Can Know This World? New Arguments in Evolutionary Epistemology” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Perger/post/Do-you-believe-in-the-Theory-of-Evolution/attachment/5d0ba78bcfe4a7968dacc28c/AS%3A771642376593409%401560985287285/download/21_vollmer.pdf
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8438
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9662
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34901
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600
Epictetus, The Enchiridion, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680
Seneca, texts including Of a Happy Life, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56075/56075-h/56075-h.htm
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827
Plato, Euthyphro, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1642
Plato, Apology, Project Gutenberg collection https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13726
René Descartes, Meditations, Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70091
Princess Elisabeth and René Descartes, correspondence, Early Modern Texts https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1643_1.pdf
Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914
Mario Bunge, Scientific Materialism, Internet Archive catalogue / lending copy https://archive.org/details/scientificmateri0000bung
Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology, Internet Archive catalogue / lending copy https://archive.org/details/humanethology0000eibl
English editions and publisher information
Hans Albert, Treatise on Critical Reason. Princeton University Press, 1985. English translation of Traktat über kritische Vernunft.
Mario Bunge, Scientific Materialism. D. Reidel / Springer, 1981. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-009-8517-9
Mario Bunge, Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Volume 3: Ontology I: The Furniture of the World. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-010-9924-0
Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions. Viking / Atlantic Books, 2022. The English book preceded the German translation Mehr als nur Atome. https://sabinehossenfelder.com/books/
Ken Binmore, Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/game-theory-9780199218462
Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, The Biology of Peace and War: Men, Animals, and Aggression. Translated by Eric Mosbacher, Viking Press, 1979.
Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology. English edition originally published in 1989. Routledge / Aldine. https://www.routledge.com/Human-Ethology/Eibl-Eibesfeldt/p/book/9780202309705
Konrad Lorenz, Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge. English edition, 1977.