An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Most of mine are going to be books by philosophers or scientists (about philosophy or other things). - The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell was a pretty good one. He has a lot of ideas that were ahead of their time (positive psychology, etc). You can see a lot of parallels between his ideas and modern Stoicism (although Russell criticized it elsewhere, I think he came to some of the same conclusions). - Introduction To Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Another Russell one. I think this is probably the clearest and easiest to understand explanation I've ever read of the underpinnings of mathematical foundations. It's written in a style that should be accessible to almost anyone with a high school education. He wrote it while he was in prison (for refusing to be drafted) during WW1. Apparently he left a copy of it to the prison warden. - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume. This is worth reading because it is the motivation for basically all of modern philosophy of science (at least in the west). It's also pretty easy to read and if you read it you'll be able to more easily understand other books and papers that are responses to it.…

Some from the canon: Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (translated by David Gallop) The Modes of Scepticism by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (a beautiful collection of texts from Pyrrhonian scepticism and analysis of their arguments; the best way I know to meet ancient scepticism) Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy (The Cambridge University Press edition is very good; it's probably worth buying their Selected Philosophical Writings for a good basic Descartes text) David Hume: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (I recommend the Oxford Philosophical Texts editions) Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations (terribly, terribly difficult, but very rewarding) A few contemporary things: Gilbert Ryle: The Concept of Mind Willard Van Orman Quine: From a Logical Point of View J. L. Mackie: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong Thomas Nagel: Mortal Questions (short essays, well-written, very accessible) Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Michael Smith: The Moral Problem Specialist, technical, odd:…

Most of the "eye-opening or incredibly interesting" philosophical material that I've read has been in individual articles rather than books. That said, here are a few favourites from various areas. It's a bit heavily weighted towards recent material; Kant and Plato ought to be on there, but I can't stand Kant as a writer, even if his ideas are profound, and Plato's style has always irritated me for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. I could probably keep tying titles all day, so I'll stop with those that first popped into my head. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory Gottlob Frege, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding J.S. Mill, On Liberty John Rawls, A Theory of Justice Stewart Shapiro, Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology

Fiction: - The Time Machine (still holds up very well, and seems strangely eerie and prescient in places)... (H. G. Wells) - Dune (Frank Herbert) - The Hobbit (and LotR) (Tolkien) - Neuromancer (William Gibson) - Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties (I picked up Idoru first, so I haven't yet read Virtual Light) (also Gibson) - The Difference Engine (Gibson, Sterling) - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) - Cryptonomicon (" ") - Circuit of Heaven, End of Days (Dennis Danvers) - All of the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories and novels. (Fritz Leiber) - The Earthsea trilogy (Ursula K. LeGuin) - 'salem's Lot (Stephen King) - Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein) - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) - the Coldfire trilogy (C. S. Friedman) - various Cory Doctorow short stories - Kamikaze L'Amour (Richard Kadrey) - Lightpaths (Howard V. Hendrix) - A Canticle For Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr.) - Moonwar, Venus (Ben Bova) - the Stainless Steel Rat series (Harry Harrison) - Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) - Ringworld (Larry Niven) - Cthon (Piers Anthony) -- Trippiness level approaching Philip Jose Farmer ;-) - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (Douglas Adams)…