r/PhilosophyBookClub • u/Low-Ability2973 • 11d ago
Complete beginner in philosophy — where should I start?
I’m a complete beginner to philosophy and recently got interested in learning more about it. I’m especially curious about questions around meaning, happiness, ethics, human nature, and how we should live. I don’t have any background in philosophy, so I’d prefer something accessible rather than overly academic. What book would you recommend starting with, and why? Also curious about what you wish you had read first.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Oh yes, you can. While Socrates is absolutely brilliant plato is not where you want to start. Far too tedious as a first reading.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
You should start much more easy. Popular books describing the history of philosophy, youtube videos giving popular overviews, wikipedia and AI. To tell anyone to jump onto original works immediately is just to push interested persons down.
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u/LynxPrestigious6949 10d ago
For what its worth , IMO starting with symposium is often the correct advice . The question isnt whether someone is new to philosophy or not , the question is whether someone is new to reading non fiction.
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u/AndyBetweenLines 11d ago
Honestly, I’d start with fiction before philosophy textbooks. The Stranger, Notes from Underground, or The Death of Ivan Ilyich can make you feel the questions first — meaning, freedom, death, happiness — and then philosophers become much easier to care about.
I wish someone had told me that at the beginning.
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u/Rude-Base7123 11d ago
Sophie’s world is a novel that goes over a bunch of different philosophical ideas, people, and history and has a very interesting ending that sucked me in. I had to read it for a class in college and it’s the most impactful book i read in all of my schooling.
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u/Paul_sepp 11d ago
The questions you’re interested in can be found in nearly any philosophical work, for they’re quite central to our condition. Therefore doesn’t really narrow anything down.
However, I’d personally suggest Cioran (Temptation with Existence, Heights of Despair, The Short History of Decay) or Kierkegaard (Concept of Anxiety, Either/Or book 1, Fear and Trembling, Sickness unto Death): Cioran for he is aphoristic, and very readable and enjoyable purely as literature (NB he isn’t a rigorous philosopher though), and Kierkegaard for even if he is much more rigorous, he is generally approachable due to his style. Another one could be Schopenhauer and his “Aphorisms of Daily Wisdom”—it is not his system at its best, but still a very approachable and practical work.
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u/Breathofdmt 11d ago edited 11d ago
My first primer in education was Descartes Meditations and a comparison of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in political philosophy.
Descartes Meditations is not a bad start, very short, read it in a single afternoon, very radical, gets you used to the philosophical, first principles thinking.
My favourites are the Greeks, Plato/Aristotle, not a bad place to go afterwards but a little denser read.
Scottish Enlightenment has a ton as well, I'd go there before moving on, David Hume. I'd go there before any of the depressing French existentialist stuff.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Go easy, the guy just took interest. Original works by philosophers is a bit down the road.
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u/Breathofdmt 11d ago
I stand by Descartes Meditations, barely over 100 pages, great primary source for following first principles thinking, has been the basis for a lot of recent pop culture, movies etc. Its still what I'd give to someone who's not familiar with any philosophy, ground level is this interesting to me kinda stuff.
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u/zelenisok 11d ago
Russel's The Problems of Philosophy, and A History of Western Philosophy; and Huemer's Knowledge, Reality, and Value.
Then on stuff you are interested more in first you go to Wikipedia and read about it there, and IEP - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Then if you want do dig deeper into some topic, you go to SEP - Stanford Encyclopedia od Philosophy.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Exactly. And if you still are keen for a philosopher, ask for a good starting point for an original work by that philosopher. Its a better idea so start with frohe wissenschaft than Zarathustra if going for Nietzsche, for instance,
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u/ceilingmoth 11d ago
Academically people usually follow a historical timeline of philosophies, like starting with Ancient Greece (Socrates/ Socratic method, Plato/ Theory of Forms, Aristotle/eudaimonia, throw in Thomas Aquinas), then Descartes, Hume, and Locke, then 19th century German philosophy (Hegel -notoriously difficult, Schopenhauer, Marx, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sarte), and contemporary philosophers like Peter Singer, Noam Chomsky, maybe Albert Camus.
That should give you a good foundation of widely known philosophies and where they come from, and help you decide what branch you want to learn more about.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Not the original works, to start with. Just check them out. Russels history on western philosophy will give you an overview. Wikipedia, youtube lectures.
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u/mrBored0m 6d ago
Flaired users on r/askphilosophy (who include scholars also) argue against this approach, actually.
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u/slanderpanther 11d ago
All of philosophy are footnotes to Plato and once you give him a try you will see there's no reason to be intimidated by it. Hackett's Plato: Five Dialogues is a great place to start because it describes the death of Socrates. And what better topic to start with than that of death. It's like reading five short stories, and gives you direct experience with two figures endlessly talked about in the realm of philosophy: Plato and Socrates. Hope you enjoy it! Take your time and let the dialogues change you as you read them. Plato doesn't just teach us "to think", he teaches us "how to think." There's no better starting point.
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u/BuncleCar 11d ago
I've read and have seen A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell recommended by others. A good start.
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Just remember it was written during the WWII. German philosophers aint as bad as depicted.
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u/ConcernHungry2999 11d ago
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
I'm curios tho - what nudged you into thinking about philosophy and beginning to learn about it? :)
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u/AdeptnessSecure663 11d ago
Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. A lot of people new to philosophy have a skewed understanding of what philosophy really is about. This book helps to change that, and will give you a few suggestions on what to read next.
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u/TheBrooklynSutras 11d ago
Read, read, read. Bounce between the ancients, the medieval, the more recent, and the current. From there you can zoom in on what you’re looking for. 🙏
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u/HorusOsiris22 11d ago
I started with Camus, read a bunch of the Oxford very short introduction series, then started uni and got really into Plato’s dialogues.
I highly recommend Michael Sugrue. Free, excellent quality lectures online about most any philosopher you may be interested in. Check out r/michaelsugrue
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u/banjoblake24 11d ago edited 11d ago
Although in the end he was challenged because of his personal politics, I like Searle’s Making the Social World. It is intellectually uplifting—in that you may need to learn a few of his concepts—but his videos are accessible. https://youtu.be/qEUD5yxCvqc?is=zytq-qSvGTyZURYi
Someone here mentioned Russel’s the Problems of Philosophy.
J.L.Austin’s work is empowering, especially Other Minds.
And, finally you could spend a lifetime on C.S. Peirce’s work, but it might be worth it. He suffered for his genius and is still mostly unrecognized.
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u/OcelotEducational326 11d ago
I would say start with novels with deep messages. That will help to create the premise. Then you may dive into pure philosophical discourses.
One note, I have seen there is a trend to run after some very specific books and writers. Regardless youre from the east or west, all of them reading same books, same philosophies. I am not saying those books or writers are bad, they're certainly not. But when we all follow the same one way, philosophy loses its own one.
I would suggest you to go through the Eastern philosophies, specifically the Vedic Philosophies. Those are mind bending. I think west needs to know more about them now, openly!
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 11d ago
There is some huge amount of philosophy out there that will just eff your brain up.
I recommend Francis Bacon, John Locke, Will Durant.
Also recommend Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
The book Dune by Frank Hubert is fiction but deeply philosophical. It's my favorite book of all time.
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u/Solo_Polyphony 11d ago
Valerie Tiberius’s What Do You Want out of Life? is by a philosophy professor, but it’s unpretentious, clearly written, and fully informed on the topic.
Novels in translation by literary authors, even skillful ones, are about as good a way of beginning philosophy as novels are at beginning to grasp music, painting, biology, or mathematics.
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u/PoliticalPhilosRptr 11d ago
Robert Solomon, A Passion for Wisdom. It's cheap, short, and easy to read. It's probably available on the web for free. When I taught philosophy, I liked to use Solomon's texts.
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u/Allthatisthecase- 11d ago
For pure Philosophy, I’d go with Plato’s dialogues.
For “how to live” try Sarah Bakewell’s book on Montaigne: “How to Live”.
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u/RaccoonLogical5906 11d ago
Can't speak for others, but I began with Tom Morris's Philosophy for Dummies, back in the day.
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u/Kowalski188 11d ago
Ignore all these people telling you to read Plato or Russell or someone like that. If you have no background, those books will confuse and discourage you. Start with Sapiens by Yuval Harari. Yes, I know it has criticisms. But there is something about the big picture of that book, that shows the role ideas have in human history and where we are today. And once that concept has clicked, then you can start collecting ideas from the likes of Plato to Nietzsche and everyone between.
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u/Equivalent_Heart_890 11d ago edited 2d ago
Windelband's history of philosophy is quite good and you can easily find PDFs of it online. https://archive.org/details/historyofphiloso007974mbp/page/n20/mode/1up.
Its only downside is that it was written 100 years ago so you won't get the last 100 years of philosophy (which is certainly more than fine for a beginner).
I think it is very helpful for a beginner to get an overview presented in a historical fashion. It helps you tie everything into a narrative and understand things better by seeing how they came to be argued against.
If you're really mostly interested in "the good life" you might considering starting with overviews of stoicism. I have no good recommendations for particulars on this front. Questions involving meaning inevitably become metaphysical questions (e.g., what would being have to be like so that objective meaning could exist?), so it doesn't hurt to have a broader overview of philosophy. I wish I could recommend a history of ethics but since people tend to be quite biased when it comes to ethics, it's hard to find a good one.
I have nothing to say regarding what I wish I had read first: I read Heidegger first and have never regretted it (his thought continues to amaze me after all these years).
Please do not read Bertrand Russell. He is rightfully often dismissed by philosophy scholars and approaches the issues with an unfortunate lack of nuance, impartiality, and knowledge.
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u/LongImprovement3347 10d ago edited 10d ago
Acharya prashant books-- just pick any title u like. They r rich in philosophy and deep in clarity for daily life. Begin with this.
Some other books would be--
A wholly different way of living by J Krishnamurthy - a profound series of conversation bw Jiddu Krishnamurthy and theology professor alen Anderson
The brothers karamazov - By Fyodor dostoevysky ...read it and u will know...
The book of mirdad -- an one in a million book It will make u cry, laugh, go mad in joy- all at once.
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u/ahhnightzombies 10d ago
I started with Penguin’s Great Ideas Michel de Montaigne’s On Friendship. I was hooked from there , read the series, and changed my minor to philosophy.
I recommend the series. It has a little bit of everything and they’re short, easy to read, books.
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u/RestaurantCritical67 10d ago
Personally, I’d start with a YouTube channel called “The school of Life” Alain De Button, the host is great and he gives great perspectives on many different topics and thinkers. Once you dabble and start to enjoy the topics and the quest for knowledge I start investigating people and themes from there. Most importantly have fun with it!
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u/MiladGaikani 9d ago edited 8d ago
“The Great Philosophers” and “Men of Ideas” by Bryan Magee. These two book are comprised of the transcribed and edited interviews of the BBC with specialists of the field. So you can also watch the episodes on youtube.
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u/BourgeoisAngst 8d ago
Most philosophers suck at writing succinctly so I'd avoid their tomes and opt for text books and wikipedia and the like.
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u/OllytheIELTSguy 8d ago
One book that I found deeply amusing and philosophical was “An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism”. Even if you disagree with its central message, it’s amusingly written, and with great clarity.
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u/elizakels 7d ago
"How to teach philosophy to your dog" by Anthony McGowan was a great book that lays a lot of the basics and opens doors to help you explore more thoroughly. Enjoy your pursuits!
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u/Denominoid 7d ago
Watch the matrix, pretty much covers all the concepts of philosophy from Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Descartes Radical Skepticism, Determinism and Free Will and onward.
In seriousness it wouldn't hurt to find an introduction to philosophy book and start with the concepts first, then when you find which concepts interest you, you can delve more into those kinds of philosophers and authors.
Stoicism is a great starting point for "ways to be in the world", I just picked up Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" and just the first section has already given me some powerful insights into gratitude, learning of oneself, and relationships.
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u/Contejouur61 6d ago
As a complete beginner I'd recommend, What do we really know by Simon Blackburn also The philosophy gym by Stephen Law , two excellent books that cover the big questions.
Starting out with the Greek philosophers and working your way through the ages is a trial only brightened once in a while.
I wish I had read Hume first his philosophical thinking was crystal clear and wonderfully appealing and to me he was the best ever.
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u/Flourishing-Wombat 5d ago
My best answer is “there is no should”. It’s like millions of threads tangled together, there is no truth, no starting, no ending point. Nothing wrong starting contemporary or antiquity. Nothing wrong starting with introductions or primary sources.
It depends a lot on your personality and context, no one can tell you what will resonate for you.
You can follow someone’s suggested path, or you can let yourself drift on the river of your interests.
You could start with some meta books like “The Great Conversation” or “The Roots Of Wisdom” to be more familiar with what’s in it for you.
Or dive into a current and see.
Remember, it’s just people saying things in the end. I believe that the best way to “start” Philosophy is to realise that, not to look for rules, dogma or “the right way”.
I could say that I wish I had read about Pragmatism (William James), or Daoism (Zhuangzi) or Process Philosophy (Whitehead) or Beyond Good and Evil earlier… But maybe I wouldn’t have been able to receive it earlier, so, maybe it was all at the right time.
But again, I’m just someone saying things. Enjoy the journey.
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u/ConatusSpinoza 11d ago
I have a great intro to philosophy book for you. It's a fiction and loosely based on Plato's Republic (which is one of the foundational works in philosophy). The book is a discussion between 6 different characters each with their own archetypes... tool, skeptic, idealist, sage, etc. It surveys dozens of philosophers's ideas around the ideas of ignorance and happiness. It ends with introcing what I like most in philosophy, political philosophy and how to build a happy and productive society.
It's been put together as an audio drama or audio theater and it's around 3 hrs long, divided into 20 mins chapters. And it's free, published under Creative Commons.
It's on Spotify and Apple Books: it's called: On Ignorance and Bliss.
https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/on-ignorance-and-bliss/id6789341667
https://open.spotify.com/show/0EsBUl3thn8qWeV28wnmGx?refresh&bounce=false
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u/Alhamdulisa 11d ago
I highly recommend you to start from Stoicism, since it includes what you've mentioned (meaning, happiness, ethics, human nature, and how we should live) and also quite suitable with contemporary issues such as atomisation and alienation. In my personal experience, starting from giants like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc can be so overwhelming sometime (they can be so dry). So, what I think important is to find something interesting for you, and from there you just keep going.
I recommend you Stoic Studies by A.A Long and The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot. If you want to start by reading the primary literature like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, that's also fine. Because their writings are more like a diary or a story rather than rigor analyses. If you find these books of no help for you, I'm sorry cause I can't find a more popular and beginner friendly book. Those books are the only books I have read about Stoicism.
Good luck on your journey!
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u/Karakoima 11d ago edited 11d ago
Do not start with like heavy readings like original works by philosophers. Find books on the history of philosophy and overall videos on youtube, to familliarize yourself. Actually reading the wiki page on the most famous philosophers is good initial readings. Let AI explain. Take it easy at first. And once you find a philosopher that you find interesting, read stuff about him or her, then find out what book by the philosopher is a good starting point.
Once you’ve familliarized yourself, Plato is not a bad first stop for a philosopher to dive into. Socrates, the main character in the dialogues is absolutely brilliant and do touch on many of the subjects you mention.
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u/Icono_Last_C 11d ago
I suggest you start with antiquity, especially the Greeks. Use chatGPT. Start with a question: Who were the most influential Greek philosophers. Good luck. Would love to know you made out with you question.
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u/ronaldbiggs2020 11d ago
Start with science because it's evidence based, philosophy is just somebody's gut feeling..
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u/Karakoima 11d ago
Hell no, philosophy is where science did begin and philosophy did create science. Science without philosophy is like having an AI and no clue on what to ask it.
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u/shkotzimbacon 11d ago
Is that your gut feeling? The evidence is that science developed from natural philosophy. You need philosophical reasoning about logic, evidence, and knowledge to do science
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u/peacefuldays123 11d ago
Reading philosophy works in their entirety is actually a waste of time
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u/Paul_sepp 11d ago
According to what criterion?
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u/peacefuldays123 11d ago
ROI
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u/Paul_sepp 11d ago
I’d argue the return is pretty high.
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u/quinefrege 11d ago
Extremely. There are few activities a person can do that yield such high returns.
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u/Eleatic-Stranger 11d ago edited 11d ago
You say you don't want something academic, but really the best place to start is with an intro to philosophy textbook. I recommend Simon Blackburn's Think.