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Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?

80 points by dbz ↗ HN
Hello HN!

I was wondering, what are the best books which have been eye-opening or incredibly interesting about philosophy that you all have read?

Two examples of books: Common Sense (I'm reading it for school) & On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (I've been wanting to read this)

147 comments

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jrp
I don't know if it counts as a serious philosophy book, but I really enjoyed Godel, Escher, Bach. Math, computers, consciousness, etc.

I'm currently reading Reasons and Persons. Thought experiments and discussion about how personal identity works under, eg, transporter copies.

rms
Godel, Escher, Bach won a Pulitzer Prize; I think that counts as serious. :)
darushimo
it may be serious, but it is not 'philosophy' as the topic is generally understood. (not to discount it as a worthwhile read.)
wanderingmango
Actually, at its core it is philosophical and mathematical logic. So yes, it is philosophy.
baddox
I think many readers will be surprised at how accessible "Gödel, Escher, Bach" actually is. I'm not an expert at anything: I have no work experience and maybe two serious computer science courses under my belt, but GEB really satisfies an intellectual curiosity I've had for years. I'm 550 pages in (out of about 750 pages) and with the exception of the two chapters discussing the anatomy of the human brain (a subject I'm just not that interested in), I've torn through this book—I only started reading about three months ago, which means I've been reading GEB much faster than any other book I've ever opened. I highly recommend "Gödel, Escher, Bach" even to those who have seen other people recommend it yet have been reluctant to try it out.
spacemanaki
Plus one to this, it really is quite readable, I think it's overly characterized as very dense and difficult.
kleevr
> (out of about 750 pages)

Come on, it's 777 pages for a reason! :)

When I realized the page count (purposefully) included the index I was quite tickled. So many gems, little and large...

steveplace
It's taken me 6 months to get through part 1. GEB is a tough read.
kpich
+1 Reasons and Persons. The Personal Identity section in that in particular is wonderful! It's a really good book because it kind of stands alone -- you don't need to be very well-versed in philosophy to get the arguments if you read carefully.
MWinther
I bought GEB when I was 13, mostly because I liked the Escher paintings. I was hooked after reading the first Achilles/Turtle episode, though, and even though many concepts went over my head at the time. I still haven't read it cover to cover, though, but I still have a hard time not agreeing with this particular recommendation.
SHOwnsYou
If you enjoy debating philosophy (especially value based/govt philosophy), Liberalism and the Limits of Justice by Michael Sandel builds up and absolutely destroys around 10 of the most common premises for these types of debates. A hundred other issues are dealt with along the way and this will change the way you think about this type of philosophy.
randxx
since reading "buddhism without beliefs", i've kind of lost interest in these things. which is, indeed, a recommendation.
SHOwnsYou
I couldn't agree more about the frivolity of these debates, but judging from what he listed I figured govt/value debates might be somewhat frequent (especially since he is reading Common Sense for school).

On the other hand, not taking part in the debates can be bad for you also. The debating process allows you to expose your ideas to the light of free discussion and allows you to exchange error for truth (JSM). Even if you aren't debating people with a clue on the topic, the debate and your subsequent internal dialog will be beneficial.

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HSO
Bertrand Russell: A history of western philosophy.

I haven't read it all but what I've read was both informative and witty. Note that Russell, kind of similar to The Economist, is "opinionated". Must be that British style...

aerique
While I like the book (and Russel in general) it really is a history rather than a philosophical book.
mahmud
But someone like OP would benefit from a broad introduction to the corpus of thought out there. They can then choose which lines to follow.
mahmud
I read it cover to cover and loved it. But Russel, although a humanist, is firmly an occidental man. He rushes through Oriental philosophy like it's a bad neighborhood (he really didn't hide his distaste for mysticism and metaphysics at all.)

A better read might be Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy". And Durant's masterpiece, The Story of Civilization is unparalleled in its scope and lucidity, though not philosophy. I have such a huge attachment to the Durants, they kept me company on many a long night. I read about seven or eight of their dozen volumes.

wheels
Well, it is a history of western philosophy. Also, I wouldn't say that Russell has a distaste for mysticism; my read of many of his writings on religion (A Free Man's Worship, Mysticism and Logic, etc.) would be that he genuinely sees the value of mysticism and transcendental experience – though I'm going on memory from reading about a decade ago.

Durant's writing is great too, but The Story of Philsophy doesn't have the depth of The History of Western Philosophy, and, I actually enjoy Russell's snark along the way.

mahmud
The book might be strictly Western in its coverage, but my opinion on his approach to Oriental thought is extrapolated, and is the sum of everything I have read of the man. I say this as someone who first discovered Russell as a logician.

Regarding his mysticism, Whitehead must have passed some of it on, but in the History, he is nothing but a rational materialist. You see this in his treatment of Plato and Platonism vis-a-vis, say, Aristotle.

Where others saw Plato's Ideal as a pure goal or experience, obtained only through sheer effort or total transformation, as evidenced by the various religious groups who synthesized platonic ideals with mystical beliefs. Russell saw something a bit more proscriptive, imo. Allegory is open to interpretation, and I think Russell approached Plato as a fellow Cambridge gentleman, and not, say, a troubled mind searching for answers in a world with much less science, and is forced to defer more to the unknown, the perfect place with all the answers .. where we could go, if only we were perfect ourselves. Plato's obsession with the Ideal, order, wisdom the perfect society, etc. is a cry for help; he is desperately seeking full understanding of his world and is unable to. Only if he could change himself and his society would the world change to something more tangible!

Russell missed that part and projects his own image on Plato; the fully informed intellectual royal whose words are heeded by society. He thought Plato enjoyed a similar luxury, and his calls for perfection, specially in the Republic, were made out of snobbery.

This is my personal take on it, and I am excited to take a second stab at the History.

intellectronica
I second that recommendation. You won't get a lot of philosophy out of it, but you'll get thousands of pointers of where to look for the interesting stuff, put it context.
wheels
I don't think it's the best place to get started. I've read it cover to cover and it's great background for further reading in philosophy, but it's a dry start. Russell's Unpopular Essays is a good deal more fun to read.

Other things I'd recommend for wading into the waters of philosophy would be Utopia by Sir Thomas More, or Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes.

sdave
"Siddhartha", "Steppenwolf" - by Herman Hesse.

"Atlas Shrugged" - by Ayn Rand.

"Mrityunjay" - by Sivaji savant (originally in marathi/hindi language.. based on the character of Karna from Mahabharata.Not very sure how good the english translation is though.The title means - he who has conquered Death.)

dmfdmf
"The Virtue of Selfishness" "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" "Philosophy: Who Needs It" "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology"

All by Ayn Rand. Whether you end up agreeing with her or not, she will definitely will make you think.

vegai
Good ones. Just make sure these aren't the only ones you study or you'll end up being a worse amateur philosopher than you were before.
AmaroqWolf
I'm currently pursuing Rand's philosophy. Her nonfictions are very valuable because they comprise the philosophy itself. But Peikoff's books and lectures about Objectivism are also extremely valuable.

He had to overcome a lot of bad thinking habits to gain a genuine understanding of Objectivism and he is in a good position to help others get past those roadblocks.

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is useful to help you integrate Rand's philosophy into a mental hierarchy, and his courses Understanding Objectivism and Objectivism Through Induction are useful to help you prove Objectivism to yourself, so you can see how Rand's philosophy really is connected to reality and pertains to your life.

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halojones
"The Bible", "Notes From Underground" (Dostoevsky)
joubert
The bible is a horrible suggestion for a philosophy book. Isn't this a work that prescribes genocide, builds myth, promote the irrational?
halojones
(Your reply brings to mind another book I should have mentioned - The Order of Things (Les Mots et Les Choses) by Michel Foucault.)

If philosophy is the drive to understand the human condition, I don't think any philosopher can or should ignore the Bible. Athens, Rome and Jerusalem are where the Western mind was born it has been said. And there is nothing to stop you approaching the Bible as it were hermeneutically, ie. in the same way you might treat the Greek Myths. I find it fascinating myself - from the "ex nihilo" of Genesis, through the "de profundis" of the Psalms, to Job's "Why?!", not to mention the Christian New Testament - and I think it will be read (by philosophers) long after many books in "The Philosophy Section" have been forgotten.

joubert
But the bible itself isn't a good philosophy book. Meta-bible discussions, including those by Christian scholars, might form a good corpus of philosophy, however.
joshuacc
While the Bible as a whole isn't a philosophy book, it does contain a few. Books like the Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Book of Job, etc. are what we could call "practical philosophy."
halojones
> But the bible itself isn't a good philosophy book

Well I just interpret "philosophy" more broadly. Before we can act, and indeed before we can think, we must somehow plant our feet - we can't stand "nowhere" in a sense. And philosophy is just the search for a good place to stand, a "will to locate oneself" perhaps. And if we habitually stand in the same place, we're religious! We can no more be beyond (super) philosophy than we can be beyond (super) religion than we can be beyond (super) man. In this sense, the authors of the books of the bible are philosophers like the rest of us. If it's dissimilar in style to Plato, Aristotle and so on, there you go. So when you say it isn't a good philosophy book, to my mind you're just saying you don't like the philosophy it evinces, which of course is your prerogative.

avdempsey
Check out Charles S. Peirce, American father of pragmaticism (not pragmatism). Two essays, 'The Fixation of Belief' and 'How to Make Our Ideas Clear' are particularly inspiring. Google 'peirce how to make our ideas clear', it's number one.
vlorch
being and time - Martin Heidegger
ulvund
I would not recommend any compilations of philosophy. The great thing about philosophy is reading the rationales and the results, not only the results.

"Ricard+Revel - The Monk and the Philosopher" http://www.amazon.com/Monk-Philosopher-Father-Discuss-Meanin...

"Socrates(/Plato) - The Allegory of the Cave" http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

"Plato(/Socrates/others) - Symposium" http://www.amazon.com/Symposium-Plato/dp/0872200760

"Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness" http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/dp...

hh
I absolutely agree that The Monk and the Philosopher is one of the best book. A frank discussion between a father and son who both have PhD. Every interesting book.
jsc
Actually Jean-Francois Revel did not have a PhD (he explains why in his autobiography "Le voleur dans la maison vide").
rick_2047
Wow, I was fiddling with the idea of posting exactly that question (with Philosophy in the title) but was hesitant as to is this the right community (btw where can I find one?)

I haven't read many books about philosophy but my main interest is Philosophy of mind and I just love the lectures here[1].

[1]http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=...

pavs
>but was hesitant as to is this the right community (btw where can I find one?)

Try reddit.com/r/books

Some HN-ers don't like reddit probably because their impression starts and ends with the reddit default front page. But the gems are the smaller sub-reddits with some very high quality communities. My personal favorite /r/askscience

ganjianwei
I really enjoyed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It's not quite a philosophy book but I found his take on the concept of 'quality' very useful. To me it's a story of how a westerner discovers eastern philosophy, which is great to read coming from a western perspective.
pavs
I never leave a book unfinished, if I start a book I feel like have to finish the book (I finished Dan Brown's book with disgust, imagine that), but I just couldn't finish this book. I have absolutely no idea why people like this book and I have got recommendations from quite a few people.
pavelludiq
I had the opposite reaction. I almost never finish books, this book is the first one bigger than a 100 pages that i finished front to cover. I'm currently re-reading it.

Here are a few reasons why i liked it:

-It was the first book on philosophy i actually read. The closest book on philosophy i ever had contact with before was a high school textbook and it was more than horrible.

-I read it with a deliberate reason, i was interested specifically in why some people are bad with tech, actually not just bad but horrible with it. Where does this gap come from?

-I read it at a point in my life when i was trying to figure out a lot of stuff, and one of them was how to not be an arrogant asshole, i found that it was way too easy to be one towards people who i perceived as less intelligent than me. I approached this book searching for ways to enhance my reasons to be arrogant, but left it with a sort of humility and understanding towards others that i didn't know i was capable of.

-Because of my obsessiveness and extreme rationalism, it was easy for me to connect with the character of Phaedrus.

-It was a novel, not a philosophy book, it was light to read, and at the same time intellectually stimulating.

Maybe you should ask yourself why is it that you don't like it? I'm curious for the reasons, it certainly has its flaws, and i still have difficulty with some of the ideas after the second re-read, but i never found it not entertaining.

pavs
For the first ~25 page or so the book is nothing but this guy who goes to biking with his friends and son.

Maybe my expectation was too high, maybe I was hoping to be blown away by some deep philosophical understanding. Or maybe its the writing style, I felt like I was reading someone's diary, reading his mundane everyday thoughts.

Absolutely nothing. Just a guy riding his bike for ~25 pages.

I stopped reading where he was yelling at his kid for some stupid reason during camping. Maybe after that he talks about something interesting.

I will probably give it another shot, most likely not anytime soon.

jemfinch
> I will probably give it another shot, most likely not anytime soon.

If you stopped reading it after 25 pages, you never gave it a shot in the first place. It's 464 pages long, for Pete's sake!

pavs
Reading a non-fiction book is an investment of time and energy. 25 pages in to the book and the author didn't even begin to address the point of the book, which was a big turn-off for me, I have never read a book that just talks about random stuff for the first 25 pages or so. I thought it was a very weird way to start off a book.

I am sure its a decent book, or there wouldn't be so many fans out there, so I will give it another try.

zb
Zen is an overrated book. Having said that, to say that "I have absolutely no idea why people like this book" when you haven't read it (and 25 pages does not count) sounds completely absurd. I do recommend you actually try reading it, even if for no other reason then to find out what everyone else is on about.
jemfinch
I wouldn't call Zen overrated, at least insofar as it's a relatively easy read which makes some good points.

Those points, IMO, are not the author's main philosophical contention, but his presentation of philosophical introspection intertwined with everyday life. Would that more Americans realized they could contemplate metaphysics even while going about their everyday lives.

zb
By "overrated" I don't mean that it's bad. It's overrated in the same way that The Mythical Man Month is the most overrated software engineering book, or Sgt. Pepper is the most overrated album. Those are important works, but they don't live up to the level of hype around them. In fact, I don't think anything could.

I agree with your point, though. (But not sure why it only applies to Americans? ;)

jemfinch
I can only speak authoritatively about Americans, because I've only lived in America. Residents of other countries may be different :)
shadowfox
It only picks up around the middle of the book.
jemfinch
> Reading a non-fiction book is an investment of time and energy.

No doubt.

> 25 pages in to the book and the author didn't even begin to address the point of the book

It's biographical philosophy. 25 pages of setting the stage for the author's philosophical epiphany in the midst of a pivotal motorcycle trip in his life is addressing the point of the book.

I think perhaps you weren't expecting it to be a biographical book. Perhaps when you give it another go, you should take a quick look at the afterword (regarding the author's son) to get a better grasp of the author's perspective.

gruseom
I couldn't get through Pirsig either. Unlike you, though, I have no compunction about not finishing a book; it's not my job to be interested in it.

Re Dan Brown: since you feel that way, I recommend the hilarious review of it that Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell did for the BBC. Make sure to watch to the end!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ByyMd_qDA

anonman1
"History of Sexuality: Volume I" -Michel Foucault

"Discipline and Punish" -Michel Foucault

"Philosophy in the Flesh" -George Lakoff

"Metaphors We Live By" -George Lakoff

"Civilization and its Discontents" -Sigmund Freud

These books allowed me to look at reality in a completely different manner.

shachaf
_The Tao is Silent_, by Raymond Smullyan, comes to mind.
hh
I like this book also. Every well written by a Western logician.
antoniogarrote
-Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations by Ludvig Wittgenstein

-The Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper

-On Liberty John Stuart Mill

-Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and their Computation by Machine by John McCarthy

igravious
While it is eye-opening I could hardly recommend the Tractatus unless you get it with a commentary. How about The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus by Michael Morris?

Good call with Karl Popper. On Liberty is archaic somewhat. To recommend just that book by John McCarthy is too narrow, and besides logic and the theory of computation are not a part of philosophy per se. Logic is a tool of philosophers. The theory of computation could possibly be folded into philosophy of mind but I've never seen it done so, there is a strong argument that it should be.

SkyMarshal
Sophie's World is a fun novel and a map of the historical development of philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World

The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists).

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.htm...

My best friend in college was a Russian Jew whose family immigrated to US during the Cold War, and he kept that book on his coffee table.

It's the Yin to Howard Zinn's Yang - A People's History of the United States - which even though it's not philosophy is worth reading too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United...

darushimo
not to sound like an ass, but if you want to seriously deal with philosophy, don't waste your time with sophies world. or 'zen and the art of...' for that matter.
danohuiginn
Why not? Do you consider it misleading, or just too simplistic? If the former, fair enough (though I'd love to hear details; I quite enjoyed Sophie). If the latter: I'm a big fan of light overviews. You can always go deeper into the areas you find interesting, whereas it's easy to get lost if you dive straight into the in-depth stuff.
SkyMarshal
Granted it doesn't delve deep and is just a broad overview couched in a fun story, but do you know of better books that gives a chronological history of the development of philosophy?

Some things I find useful to understand how they developed, in what chronological order, philosophy especially. Much of philosophy is a response to preceding ideas, and it helps to understand it all if you start at the beginning and work your way forward to present day, rather than read disjointed segments of it out of context from how it developed.

I'm sure there's something better than Sophie's World for that, I just don't know what it is.

Bishizel
Asking for "Best Philosophical Books" is pretty much like asking for an opinion, everyone will have a very different view. That being said, here's my view!

John Stuart Mill - "Utilitarianism" (Kant be damned.)

Thomas Nagel - "Moral Luck"

David Lewis - "On the Plurality of Worlds"

Plato - "The Republic"

Aristotle - "The Metaphysics"

helwr
Hirshman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

Camus, the myth of Sisyphus

Borges, the Aleph

Chomsky, on Language

Cicero, On Invention

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Wiener, Cybernetics

James, Pragmatism

Tzara, Dada manifesto

cma
re: Cybernetics, a better start is probably Wiener's The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society
tfh
The ones I've read and find good:

- Existentialism is a Humanism - Jean Paul Sartre : Very easy to read and is a very good introduction to existentialism.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche

- Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

jaxn
As I read the comments, I am surprised how little existentialism there is listed. Maybe not the best place to start, but I think it is the life changing stuff.
swombat
Also by Hesse: Narcissus & Goldmund

Actually, most books by Hesse have a philosophical element.

dtby
_Faith of a Heretic_ - Walter Kaufmann
tmsh
My favorites from college are: early dialogues of Plato (the most Socratic / least Platonic -- The Apology is a good start), Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (on how deeply the very ideas about how we perceive things affect our understanding), and Aristotle's Nico. Ethics (the importance of habits, moderation, and the idea of the good).
ashutoshm
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche

Ashtavakra Gita - Ashtavakra

The Prophet - Gibran

rmk
Sophie's world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World

It's a great book that takes you on a whirlwind tour of the most famous philosophers and their thoughts. What's more, it's woven into a suspense novel, so it keeps you reading!

escanda
Read it some years ago, definitively a good book to get some background in the history of philosophy.