Bertrand Russell once said that science is what you know, and philosophy is that you do not know. The vastness and temporary immateriality of the subject can make this particular form of cognition of the world inaccessible to beginners. Many simply don’t know where to start studying philosophy. The list of literature provided in this article will give a good start and support in further familiarization with this form of knowledge.
Plato. “Five dialogues”
Alfred Whitehead famously said that all Western philosophy is one big footnote to Plato. This is more than a slight exaggeration, and yet, to know the world, you must read the work of the most famous student of Socrates. That is why the book “Five Dialogues” was included in the list of literature on philosophy.
Plato wrote excellent examples of prose, showing all his grip and understanding of this wisdom in five parts. It is important to note that the book “Five Dialogues” is included in the list of literature on philosophy used repeatedly by students around the world:
- The euthyphron is an argument, still valid today, that morality cannot be deduced from the gods, whether they exist or not.
- Apology includes Socrates' own defense in court, where he was accused of wickedness and corruption of Athenian youth, and in which he was sentenced to death.
- Crito is a dialogue in which Socrates explores the concept of justice and offers an early version of the theory of social contracts.
- Meno is a great example of a Socratic method focused on researching the ideas of virtue in order to get a well-known definition of knowledge as a justified true belief.
- Fedo - the last part of the book of Plato, which presents the reader the last moments of the life of Socrates, where the philosopher talks about the soul and the afterlife.
“Five Dialogues” is the best philosophy literature on the list, which shows us an example of good writing and an extraordinary understanding of the world of a famous teacher and his student.
David Chalmers. The Conscious Mind
Another fascinating book from the list of literature on philosophy. The "Conscious Mind" can be an enlightenment for beginners, because Chalmers covers all the main schools of thought - from induction to falsification, from Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts to Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism, to later debates such as realism versus anti-realism, or the idea that that science behaves (or at least should behave) like a Bayesian algorithm.
Roger Penrose. “The new mind of the king”
Philosophy best responds to intellectual challenges arising in other fields and fields, such as physics, psychology or politics. Often, those who are faced with this form of knowledge of the world are puzzled by the aspect of mathematics and the structure of the world at the chemical and physical level [. And long before the first acquaintance with philosophy.
Penrose is a return to authors who respected their teachers enough to explain things properly. When Roger mentions complex numbers, quantum mechanics, Turing machines, he not only runs his hand through their secrets, but stops to go through the details using equations. Where necessary, Penrose uses images, metaphors, and a simple language to understand.
Some of his possible positive assumptions, which have quantum gravity that allows the human mind to surpass Gödel’s theorem, are pretty stupid, according to most scientists. But his real achievement is that the author conveys to the reader how deeply mysterious nature is. That is why the book “The New Mind of the King” was included in the list of literature on philosophy. Science and this form of knowledge of the world, according to Penrose, always go side by side.
Albert Camus. "Stranger"
The main way to dip your fingers into philosophy is to read biographies of historical figures who, over the course of several tens of centuries, have been able to advance a little further than the average person. But there is another great immersion method - read the beautifully written book by Albert Camus “The Stranger”.
The novel is about absurdity, mortality and the recognition that “there is no love of life without despair in life”, set under the dazzling Algerian sun.
Plato. "Feast"
And again, Plato, the author of the next masterpiece of those times, which we have already included in the list of literature on philosophy. The stories told in the Symposium (Feast) explain the thoughts already expressed here. This book of Plato can only be compared with his other work, The Republic.
The author believed that the seeker of the wisdom and philosophy of the world is one whose heart is aware of these things, which in other cases could be ignored. This is one who is confident in his actions; whose advice can unravel even the most complex balls; who is awake at night when looking for the right paths; who surpasses what he did yesterday; who is wiser than a sage; who asks for advice and sees others turning to him for help.
Interesting fact. These thoughts began to appear long before the birth of Socrates and Plato, namely in Ancient Egypt, during the XII dynasty.
