Where do I start reading Philosophy?

My nose bleeds whenever people here like Esuric, Liberte and Clayton discuss stuff like Roderick Long’s paper on Wittgenstein. Any reading list suggestions?

history of western philosophy, by bertrand russell

Aristotle - Ethics

To start, “Human Action”, especially the first 232 pages, “Theory and History”, especially the non-polemical parts, and “The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science”, all three by Ludwig von Mises, of course.

Anything else? I was expecting people here put a ranked reading list. :smiley:

As a philosophy major, I have to say that it really depends on what you’re interested in. Philosophy is such a broad subject, any ranked reading list is going to be pretty biased. I’d reccomend starting with an overview of the history of philosophy; find what your interests are; and go from there. Russel and Clark are great places to start. (Clark is better, in my opinion)

One of the comments on A History of Western Philosophy.

Despite this book’s well-deserved status as a classic work, it has some major flaws that a reader should keep in mind, all stemming from Russell’s intolerance of viewpoints different from his own. Russell, like other logical positivists, saw no place for metaphysics in philosophy. In his “History of Western Philosophy,” he makes no effort to curb that bias, resulting in what might be considered unfair treatments of all thinkers who did not stick purely to science. Also, Russell has no tolerance for systems of thought that do not conform to his preferences for democracy, atheism, pacifism, and social liberalism. So Plato is described as just another proponent of totalitarianism, Rousseau is portrayed as a crackpot and Nietzsche is depicted as a warmonger, but the much less significant thinkers John Dewey and William James get personal kudos for being nice progressive guys full of human kindness. Russell’s book is a great place to start, but to get a fair treatment of thinkers such as Rousseau and Nietzsche, it should be supplemented with material such as the chapters on those thinkers in Strauss and Cropsey’s “History of Political Philosophy.” And, of course, read Copleston’s “History of Philosophy” if you have time.

^^^This is why Clark’s Thales to Dewey is better. I don’t know why it isn’t more widely read.

It’s only flaw is that, strictly as a historical book, Clark didn’t cover topics that were currently in development during the time that he was writing. He leaves out important figues such as the Russel, Wittgenstein, and the positivists.