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Reading path · Beginner

First steps in philosophy

This path is for readers who have never studied philosophy and want to begin with the questions rather than the names. It opens with a short book that treats the big problems as puzzles you can work on yourself, then lets you watch Socrates do it at his trial. Two broader introductions follow: one organised by problems, one that sets the European tradition beside others. The path ends with two short classics on what we can know. Nothing assumes background knowledge. At a few evenings a week, expect about two months.

6 books, in order

  1. Step 1: What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy

    Thomas Nagel · 1987

    Nagel takes nine basic questions, from how we know anything to death and the meaning of life, and works through each in a few plain pages. It shows that philosophy is something you do, not a list of doctrines.

    Where to start
    It runs to about a hundred pages; read it whole and in order.
    Time
    2–3 evenings
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  2. Step 2: Apology

    Plato · c. 399–390 BCE

    Socrates' speech in his own defence presents philosophy as a way of life: testing what people think they know, and accepting the cost. It is a short primary text and best read whole.

    Where to start
    Read it in one sitting. G. M. A. Grube's translation in Plato's Five Dialogues (revised by John M. Cooper) also includes the Euthyphro and Crito.
    Time
    1 evening
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  3. Step 3: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

    Simon Blackburn · 1999

    Blackburn organises his introduction around problems rather than people, and teaches you how to follow an argument, find its weak premise and test it.

    Where to start
    Begin with the introduction and the chapter on knowledge, then read the chapter on free will, which shows Blackburn's method at its best.
    Time
    2–3 weeks
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  4. Step 4: How the World Thinks

    Julian Baggini · 2018

    Baggini sets the questions you have met beside answers from Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Islamic philosophy and from oral traditions in Africa and Aboriginal Australia. You begin to see your own starting assumptions as one set among several.

    Where to start
    Read the introduction and the part on who we are, where the contrasts between traditions are clearest.
    Time
    3–4 weeks
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  5. Step 5: The Problems of Philosophy

    Bertrand Russell · 1912

    Russell's short book of 1912 is a model of clear argument about appearance, matter, induction and a priori knowledge. Its last chapter makes the case for philosophy even when it cannot settle its questions.

    Where to start
    Read Chapter I, 'Appearance and Reality', and Chapter XV, 'The Value of Philosophy', then go back to the chapters in between.
    Time
    1–2 weeks
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  6. Step 6: Meditations on First Philosophy

    René Descartes · 1641

    Descartes asks what, if anything, can be known for certain, and his answer creates the modern mind–body problem. The six meditations are short but dense, so read slowly.

    Where to start
    Read the First Meditation, on what can be called into doubt, and the Second, on the nature of the mind, in one sitting.
    Time
    3–4 evenings
    Difficulty
    Beginner

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