Reading philosophy is an activity that can benefit all people. I enjoy this pasttime so much that I spent many years in university developing my skill in it. Along the way, I learned a few things, not just about the world and the mind, but also how to learn.

Reading philosophy is important, not because it gives us values and truths to accept, but because it exposes us to the process of developing understanding. Difficult works that develop our abstract reasoning help us to understand complex issues that arise in the course of daily life - and can also help us explain our reasoning to others when facing complex issues.

It is unfortunately necessary to be somewhat well-read in philosophy to keep up in more formal philosophical discourse. What follows is my attempt to collect noteworthy classical, modern, and contempotary works on a number of topics, with special focuses on the nature of mind, reality, the limits of knowledge, & moral teachings in a roughly chronological order. When reading philosophy like this, you can follow chains of thought through the centuries. After reading the texts I suggest, you should be able to begin participating in more serious philosophical discussion - not to mention developing more nuanced positions - and it shouldn't be hard to find people or resources to help understand the texts along the way.

After my list of suggested texts, more general notes on actually reading philosopy follow.

Continue reading...