The deepest and most interesting philosophical books are generally difficult and best accompanied by some form of instruction. This is true regardless of how clearly (e.g. Plato) or esoterically (e.g. Kant) written they are. There are some good secondary sources that can help but it's far preferable to be able to talk to an expert in a one-on-one or smallish setting. It would take a long time to explain why this is the case, so I'll just leave it as an assertion here.

Okay, that being said, I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from reading philosophy on their own. Here are some recommendations for books and articles that can be (more) fruitfully read on one's own. Anything marked with a + is a secondary source. Ideally I'd be giving you excerpts from each of these in a reader for a course. I'm going to skip some people like Aristotle who should be approached in carefully selected excerpts or with a guide, and also some more obvious things that almost everyone with a college education has read, like Descartes' Meditations or Plato's Republic.

On Fate, Alexander of Aphrodisias

+ Problems from Locke, Mackie

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza

+ The Courtier and the Heretic, Stewart (on Spinoza and Leibniz)

Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant

On Liberty, Mill

"Modern Moral Philosophy", Anscombe

"What is Capitalism?", Rand

The Bounds of Sense, Strawson

+ "Rawls on Justice", Nagel

"The Naturalists Return", Kitcher

Sources of Normativity, Korsgaard

This crowd in particular might be interested in some of Frege's work as well, e.g. "What is a Function?" and "Sense and Reference."

If you do start reading primary sources, particularly the early modern philosophers, I recommend visiting www.earlymoderntexts.com. Jonathan Bennett has done a great job "translating" the works of Hume, Kant, Locke, Berkley, etc. from old-English (or German, French...) into modern-English so that their philosophical arguments can be understood without being obfuscated by language quirks.

That said, the quality of secondary works varies a lot. Some things, like Mackie's Problems from Locke, are now primary sources in their own right, albeit in a secondary way.

That's why the parent commenter said you need a guide/instructor to properly understand what is going on in these books, and I agree with that. But for people without such a luxury, secondary sources and articles are a good method for gaining some rudimentary understanding of the philosophical topics.

However, I still believe that a determined outsider can get real benefit out of philosophy on his or her own. (Not the fullest benefit, but significant benefit.) I completely agree with you about cultural/historical/philosophical background, which is why in my answer I made a point of recommending not just titles but specific editions for classical works. Maybe we could call this the best of both worlds: good primary sources, filled out with enriching secondary material, all in one edition? (It does tend to make those editions more costly than some, and also heavier.)

I think that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is very mixed. Often (not always) the articles spend a lot of time making distinctions among many views, without adequately explaining any of them at an introductory level, and at the expense of any sort of broad view of the issues. So like most philosophy reading it's most useful if you're already in a philosophy course or something like that.

The former style of philosophy does produce work that is clearer and easier to read, but it has its own limitations: in the worst cases, philosophers get so hung up on being clear that they shy away from discussing the difficult problems that bring people to philosophy in the first place, and instead spend their careers arguing over minutiae or practicing pseudo-science. Clear definitions aren't going to provide you with the final word on how to treat others, how to organize society, what really exists, or how we know about it.

Then again, the latter style of philosophy doesn't necessarily do much better on addressing these "big questions." Sometimes it is better at keeping these questions in view, but (as you point out) it is often extremely esoteric.

The best philosophers, I think, understand that clear definitions are a starting place, a model that needs to be developed. They see that model as a tool for addressing the thorny, complicated, and tangled questions that philosophers are asked to answer, not as a truth that must be defended in its own right. The goal is to find real philosophical truths. Where a rigorous, methodical approach helps us attain that goal, it should be welcomed; but where that approach becomes a hindrance, it should be left behind.

I'm currently reading Reasons and Persons. Thought experiments and discussion about how personal identity works under, eg, transporter copies.

Come on, it's 777 pages for a reason! :)

When I realized the page count (purposefully) included the index I was quite tickled. So many gems, little and large...

"Ricard+Revel - The Monk and the Philosopher" http://www.amazon.com/Monk-Philosopher-Father-Discuss-Meanin...

"Socrates(/Plato) - The Allegory of the Cave" http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

"Plato(/Socrates/others) - Symposium" http://www.amazon.com/Symposium-Plato/dp/0872200760

"Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness" http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/dp...

Here are a few reasons why i liked it:

-It was the first book on philosophy i actually read. The closest book on philosophy i ever had contact with before was a high school textbook and it was more than horrible.

-I read it with a deliberate reason, i was interested specifically in why some people are bad with tech, actually not just bad but horrible with it. Where does this gap come from?

-I read it at a point in my life when i was trying to figure out a lot of stuff, and one of them was how to not be an arrogant asshole, i found that it was way too easy to be one towards people who i perceived as less intelligent than me. I approached this book searching for ways to enhance my reasons to be arrogant, but left it with a sort of humility and understanding towards others that i didn't know i was capable of.

-Because of my obsessiveness and extreme rationalism, it was easy for me to connect with the character of Phaedrus.

-It was a novel, not a philosophy book, it was light to read, and at the same time intellectually stimulating.

Maybe you should ask yourself why is it that you don't like it? I'm curious for the reasons, it certainly has its flaws, and i still have difficulty with some of the ideas after the second re-read, but i never found it not entertaining.

Maybe my expectation was too high, maybe I was hoping to be blown away by some deep philosophical understanding. Or maybe its the writing style, I felt like I was reading someone's diary, reading his mundane everyday thoughts.

Absolutely nothing. Just a guy riding his bike for ~25 pages.

I stopped reading where he was yelling at his kid for some stupid reason during camping. Maybe after that he talks about something interesting.

I will probably give it another shot, most likely not anytime soon.

If you stopped reading it after 25 pages, you never gave it a shot in the first place. It's 464 pages long, for Pete's sake!

I am sure its a decent book, or there wouldn't be so many fans out there, so I will give it another try.

No doubt.

> 25 pages in to the book and the author didn't even begin to address the point of the book

It's biographical philosophy. 25 pages of setting the stage for the author's philosophical epiphany in the midst of a pivotal motorcycle trip in his life is addressing the point of the book.

I think perhaps you weren't expecting it to be a biographical book. Perhaps when you give it another go, you should take a quick look at the afterword (regarding the author's son) to get a better grasp of the author's perspective.

Those points, IMO, are not the author's main philosophical contention, but his presentation of philosophical introspection intertwined with everyday life. Would that more Americans realized they could contemplate metaphysics even while going about their everyday lives.

I agree with your point, though. (But not sure why it only applies to Americans? ;)

Re Dan Brown: since you feel that way, I recommend the hilarious review of it that Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell did for the BBC. Make sure to watch to the end!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ByyMd_qDA

All by Ayn Rand. Whether you end up agreeing with her or not, she will definitely will make you think.

He had to overcome a lot of bad thinking habits to gain a genuine understanding of Objectivism and he is in a good position to help others get past those roadblocks.

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is useful to help you integrate Rand's philosophy into a mental hierarchy, and his courses Understanding Objectivism and Objectivism Through Induction are useful to help you prove Objectivism to yourself, so you can see how Rand's philosophy really is connected to reality and pertains to your life.

  Some from the canon:

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:

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:

J. L. Mackie: The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation

William Kingdon Clifford: The Ethics of Belief (he argues, oddly but powerfully, that it's immoral to believe things on insufficient evidence or irrationally - an offense to morality, not just reason)

As an introductory book, I would recommend Russell's Problems of Philosophy.

Some of the books mentioned are absolutely great-- like "Being and Time", or Husserl's "Logical Investigations"-- but incredibly difficult to read unprepared. If you were ready to be reading them, you wouldn't be asking the question here.

The two books you mention in the question (Common Sense and "On the Fourfold Root") are both quite readable, as are a few of the primary texts mentioned in the responses ("Existentialism is a Humanism", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra") but in general, I'd have to suggest you stay away from primary texts at first.

In other words, begin by reading works about philosophy, rather than works of philosophy.

A single-volume work on the history of philosophy will give you the broad scope (for example, Durant, or Russell, or "Sophie's World" if you prefer fiction), but will tend to turn the philosophers discussed into caricatures of themselves.

You mention that you are in school; I'd suggest you take a philosophy course or two, if you are interested in the field. Having an experienced guide will definitely help.

For example, and maybe the best example: Socrates, laying on his back as the numbness and cold from the hemlock worked its way from his legs upward after willingly drinking it, removed the cloth that had been laid across his face and said "Oh... don't forget to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius for me...". This phrase, which was also used by Steinbeck in "The Moon is Down" in a similar context, is taken to mean "please go an make an offering to the God of Ailments & Cures, as I have been cured of the curses of the physical world by death, and am going to a much better place..."

Also, Plato's take wasn't that the physical world was "bad" so much as it was composed of imperfect instances of the "Forms"; Reality as mere shadows and projections of purer, more abstract concepts.

I take slight issue, however, with you denigrating "secondary materials" with a broad stroke. There are some really very good, objective analyses of Plato (Vlastos, et. al.) that actually provide a great deal of insight from time to time by explaining some of the idioms and pre-conceived notions of the time and culture that are necessarily understood to be placed in the proper context to understand the dialogue.

For my 2¢, I say to the OP: Wittgenstein. The "Brown" and "Blue" books. Very interesting, modern philosophy that deals with semantic meaning and the binding of semantics to syntax and lexicon. Very intriguing stuff. Oh, and the guy was a kindergarden teacher, so you KNOW he had balls of steel. ;)

If you're curious, the first page of the following article lists 21 interpretations of that bit from The Phaedo. (Naturally, the author then goes on to offer her own view of the matter. She is an academic, after all.)

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~peter009/debt.pdf

The problem is: you have to start somewhere. And with most philosophers, the primary texts aren't going to make any sense at all if you don't have the context build up already. Secondary sources are a necessary evil at that beginning stage.

But, cultural background is useful, I would place that in a different category than the secondary summaries of philosophers' work.

-The Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper

-On Liberty John Stuart Mill

-Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and their Computation by Machine by John McCarthy

Good call with Karl Popper. On Liberty is archaic somewhat. To recommend just that book by John McCarthy is too narrow, and besides logic and the theory of computation are not a part of philosophy per se. Logic is a tool of philosophers. The theory of computation could possibly be folded into philosophy of mind but I've never seen it done so, there is a strong argument that it should be.

I haven't read it all but what I've read was both informative and witty. Note that Russell, kind of similar to The Economist, is "opinionated". Must be that British style...

A better read might be Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy". And Durant's masterpiece, The Story of Civilization is unparalleled in its scope and lucidity, though not philosophy. I have such a huge attachment to the Durants, they kept me company on many a long night. I read about seven or eight of their dozen volumes.

Durant's writing is great too, but The Story of Philsophy doesn't have the depth of The History of Western Philosophy, and, I actually enjoy Russell's snark along the way.

Regarding his mysticism, Whitehead must have passed some of it on, but in the History, he is nothing but a rational materialist. You see this in his treatment of Plato and Platonism vis-a-vis, say, Aristotle.

Where others saw Plato's Ideal as a pure goal or experience, obtained only through sheer effort or total transformation, as evidenced by the various religious groups who synthesized platonic ideals with mystical beliefs. Russell saw something a bit more proscriptive, imo. Allegory is open to interpretation, and I think Russell approached Plato as a fellow Cambridge gentleman, and not, say, a troubled mind searching for answers in a world with much less science, and is forced to defer more to the unknown, the perfect place with all the answers .. where we could go, if only we were perfect ourselves. Plato's obsession with the Ideal, order, wisdom the perfect society, etc. is a cry for help; he is desperately seeking full understanding of his world and is unable to. Only if he could change himself and his society would the world change to something more tangible!

Russell missed that part and projects his own image on Plato; the fully informed intellectual royal whose words are heeded by society. He thought Plato enjoyed a similar luxury, and his calls for perfection, specially in the Republic, were made out of snobbery.

This is my personal take on it, and I am excited to take a second stab at the History.

Other things I'd recommend for wading into the waters of philosophy would be Utopia by Sir Thomas More, or Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes.

For what I'll call "hard philosophy" I put my votes for books by Hilary Putnam and John Dewey. As a rationalist seeking a solid basis for ethics in the physical world, I've found both authors quite instructive. Perhaps "Objectivity" by Nicholas Rescher belongs here as well.

There's a whole other class of what I call "idea books" and I've seen a few of them listed in the comments, too. Given the reading examples you mentioned, I'm assuming you're looking more at "hard philosophy" so I'll skip the other kind of suggestions unless you ask for them.

- Existentialism is a Humanism - Jean Paul Sartre : Very easy to read and is a very good introduction to existentialism.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche

- Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

Actually, most books by Hesse have a philosophical element.

http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Modern-An...

Must We Mean What We Say? (1969) The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (1979) New York: Oxford University Press.

I would also second Russell's A Brief History of Western Philosophy. It's biased and weirdly shallow in some places, but written by a philosopher, so not a toothless compilation.

Obscure but made an impression on me: Ways of Worldmaking by Nelson Goodman.

If you can get through it: John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...an important book with a few very important ideas.

Stuff by Amartya Sen.

On philosophy of science, the historical narratives do the job I think, like The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler (a great read once you get through the Greeks). You could read Thomas Kuhn, Feyerabend's autobiography "Killing Time" which is great, and if you're really serious read Peter Galison's stuff.

Finally, again, more history that pure philosophy but I really liked Wittgenstein's Vienna by Toulmin.

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

"Atlas Shrugged" - by Ayn Rand.

"Mrityunjay" - by Sivaji savant (originally in marathi/hindi language.. based on the character of Karna from Mahabharata.Not very sure how good the english translation is though.The title means - he who has conquered Death.)

* K.Popper (in both cases;): _Open society and its ennemies_ http://www.archive.org/stream/opensocietyandit033120mbp#page...

for "Ars Vitae" (applicable to one's life)

* Plato: _Gorgias_

* Marc Aurélius: _Meditations_

* Friedrich Nietzsche: _Beyond good & evil_

I agree with others on Hume, Russell, Husserl. Another great thinker while he does not pretend to be a philosopher is Dan Sperber, I think of 2 books

* Dan Sperber (with Deirdre Wilson) _Relevance. Communication and Cognition_ (Blackwell, 1986)

* Sperber, Dan (1996) Explaining culture: _A naturalistic approach._ (Oxford: Blackwell)

Finally philosophical literature: * Doistoievski: _The Brothers Karamazov_ (question of God is asked)

Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Even though you may not agree with his conclusions, it is still a remarkable piece of work. http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/FP.html

David Stove does a good job debunking Hume's problem of induction, which underlies what I consider wrong in most modern philosophy http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/davidstove.html

Liberty or Equality outlines the potential for tyranny inherent in democracy http://blog.mises.org/6326/liberty-or-equality/

1. Maurice Merleau-Ponty - The Phenomenology of Perception

2. Simone de Beauvoir - Ethics of Ambiguity

3. Friedrich Nietzsche - Will to Power

I'd highly recommend NOT reading Being and Time by Heidegger - you'll want to stab your eyes out ten times.

Outside of pure philosophical texts and more emphasis on fictional works related to philosophy, I'd suggest indirect material that encourage ideas of subjective perception and point-of-view. Examples are works by Franz Kafka, Ryu Murakami and William S. Burroughs.

Ethics and (technical questions about) personal identity: "Reasons and persons", by Derek Parfit. Quite heavy going, but Parfit's an outstandingly clear thinker and there are some very good ideas here.

Applied ethics: "Living high and letting die", by Peter Unger. Argues for the counterintuitive conclusion that basically all of us in the affluent West have an obligation to do (not just somewhat more but) vastly more for the least well-off.

Philosophy of religion (from a definitely atheist perspective): "The miracle of theism", by John Mackie. Quite dense, but well written, clear and mostly fair. Much much more seriously intellectually than any of the recent "New Atheist" books.

Philosophy of mind, epistemology, ethics, decision theory, philosophy of physics, many other things: "Good and Real", by Gary Drescher. "A breathtakingly original assault on all the Big Issues!", says Daniel Dennett, and he's right.

Recommended on just about any topic: the "Oxford Readings in Philosophy" series of anthologies. Each volume consists of a lengthy introduction followed by somewhere on the order of 10 important articles from the primary literature. Generally very approachable and well selected.

Tao Te Ching - http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Skylight-Illuminations/dp...

The Dhammapada - http://www.amazon.com/Dhammapada-Translation-Buddhist-Classi...

The fact is, "eye-opening reads" really depends on the eye, and without much context, it's very difficult to give recommendations.

So I'll name two books that were 'eye-opening' for me AND are good philosophy and another that is just 'good philosophy.'

J. S. Mill's On Liberty. Read it. It's short. It's poignant. Don't not read this book.

Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche is required reading. if you like it, check out the viking collection of works by him and read his wikipedia page. You'll get a sense of what else you'd like to read from these two sources.

The groundwork for a metaphysics of morals by Kant is a great introduction to his way of thinking/reasoning and deals with an important matter--the possibility of a moral system. This book is a good introduction to a way of philosophizing very different from the others--Kant aims to be deeply systematic and specific. While not eye-opening, 'sexy philosophy' or quite 'enjoyable,' GMM is a relatively short read and a worthwhile thought-journey.

For the majority of extremely utilitarian American readers, GMM will most definitely be eye-opening.

Especially the Ain Rand section, which made it clear to me that you need to know how a person grew up to understand how they formed their philosophy.

Yes, it's a comic, but that makes it all the more accessible. Fantastic for philosophy beginners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World

The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists).

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.htm...

My best friend in college was a Russian Jew whose family immigrated to US during the Cold War, and he kept that book on his coffee table.

It's the Yin to Howard Zinn's Yang - A People's History of the United States - which even though it's not philosophy is worth reading too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United...

Some things I find useful to understand how they developed, in what chronological order, philosophy especially. Much of philosophy is a response to preceding ideas, and it helps to understand it all if you start at the beginning and work your way forward to present day, rather than read disjointed segments of it out of context from how it developed.

I'm sure there's something better than Sophie's World for that, I just don't know what it is.

It's a great book that takes you on a whirlwind tour of the most famous philosophers and their thoughts. What's more, it's woven into a suspense novel, so it keeps you reading!

- Pirkei Avot, it's a section of the Mishnah (a part of the Talmud), it summarizes the jewish moral thought (well, not for the Karaites Jews, they did not believe in the Talmud), I was born in a Orthodox Jewish family so it was important on my beliefs, even though I am an Atheist now.

- Organon, it's a compilation of Aristotle's logic works, they are the basis for the logical thought of the Western civilization, I think it's easier to read the originals than compendiums.

- Philosophical Investigations, the second book of Wittgenstein, it's dense, and obscure to some extent, but it's really eye-opener, some ideas that influenced the last century are introduced there.

- Proofs and Refutations, a posthumous work by Imre Lakatos, it defied much of my established view on how Mathematics works.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a powerful book, it's dense and you can only drag many conclusions from it when you read other works from Nietzsche, which lead to my next book.

- On the Genealogy of Morality, this is for me the most important of the 5 books that I have read from Nietzsche, in the first essay of the book the concept of master morality and slave morality is introduced, some people think that Nietzsche favors the first, I disagree, for me he describes and criticizes both.

- Truth and Method, the classic of Gadamer, some people call it a "postmodern" work, this only serves to show how "modern" some of the "postmodern" were, the book basically addresses how our current beliefs and customs, which he calls traditions, plays an important part in our hermeneutics and how we always are biased to interpret something.

- Epistemic Justification, this book of William Alston is a good refinement if you already know some epistemology, although I disagree with the "justified true belief" definition of knowledge, that is the main theme of the book and its essays, it introduced some questions about the nature and limitations of knowledge.

- Inquiry into the Human Mind, by Thomas Reid is a good read and also a staunch defense of the common sense.

John Stuart Mill - "Utilitarianism" (Kant be damned.)

Thomas Nagel - "Moral Luck"

David Lewis - "On the Plurality of Worlds"

Plato - "The Republic"

Aristotle - "The Metaphysics"

The Tao te Ching

The Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent by John Henry Newman

Either/Or by Kierkegaard

"Discipline and Punish" -Michel Foucault

"Philosophy in the Flesh" -George Lakoff

"Metaphors We Live By" -George Lakoff

"Civilization and its Discontents" -Sigmund Freud

These books allowed me to look at reality in a completely different manner.

Camus, the myth of Sisyphus

Borges, the Aleph

Chomsky, on Language

Cicero, On Invention

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Wiener, Cybernetics

James, Pragmatism

Tzara, Dada manifesto

It's a series of Kripke's lectures from 1970 if I'm not mistaken, republished, but without significant changes/corrections. Note Kripke's age of 29 at that point. In them, he develops his theory of direct reference in a highly interesting and controversial way. He didn't leave the philosophers of that time indifferent, and neither will you. Enjoy.

On the other hand, not taking part in the debates can be bad for you also. The debating process allows you to expose your ideas to the light of free discussion and allows you to exchange error for truth (JSM). Even if you aren't debating people with a clue on the topic, the debate and your subsequent internal dialog will be beneficial.

This is will largely be ignored on this tread, but The Bible is a source of philosophical thought for millions of people. You can get a clear picture of the central theme by reading the book of John.

Science? Wasn't Whitehead talking about Western philosophy?

The legacy of Greece to Western Philosophy is Western Philosophy.

You can generalize and say "philosophy and science are derived from Greek works, which are still relevant" and help this guy out, or we can play word games. I could give a shit what the actual quote was. My goal wasn't to impress the guy with my knowledge of quotes, it was to offer a recommendation.

Plato. Strangely enough, Plato is probably one of the best introductions to philosophy, not only because he was one of the first whose writings survive to modern time, but also because its relatively simple to read and understand. Some of my personal favorite are 'The Apology', 'The Symposium', and 'The Phaedrus', and of course 'The Republic'. The weird thing with Plato is you'll never know how much of his writings are his thinking as opposed to Socrates teaching. I still reread Plato because the stories (most of his writing is in narrative form) are so damn entertaining.

Aristotle. This is a natural progression from reading Plato. The 'Nichomachean Ethics' is a cornerstone of ancient philosophy and is a relative simple read.

John Locke/Gottfried Leibniz. I'll admit, I struggled through 'An Essay of Human Understanding' but this title and Leibniz's rebuttal 'New Essays on Human Understanding' illustrate a historically important philosophical debate between empiricists and rationalists. Since you're reading 'Common Sense' you might also want to give Locke's 'Second Treatise on Civil Government' a gander.

Immaneul Kant. Since you're reading Schopenhauer you should read Kant as he was heavily influenced by him. You'll hear him referenced a lot if you continue to read philosophy so you should familiarize yourself with his thinking, especially on his thoughts in epistemology.

Bertrand Russell. People have already recommended him and he's one of the most popular philosopher's of modern times, mostly because he's so easy to read and was somewhat of a cultural icon during his time. I have a particular fondness for his work because when I had doubts about my faith, "Why I Am not A Christian" helped me find words to communicate my break with Catholocism. His "History of Western Philosophy" is considered a cornerstone history of philosophy book (although it is somewhat dated now). His writings are usually rather short and concise.

Jacques Derrida/Gilles Deleuze. Now we're getting into some wacky shit. To be fair, I shouldn't even be commenting on it because I have no idea what these guys are talking about half the time. These are the philosophers that people read and pretend to understand because they want to sound smart. You know the stereotypical "philosophy" students that you see in movies. Maybe you'll find something of substance in their work although many philsopher's believe these guys are/were hacks and purposefully obfuscate their writing to hide the fact that there's no substance in it.

One of the best ways to read philosophy is to start with a philosopher who truly changed the game with their work (such as Kant) and work your way out reading the work of his supporters as well as the work of those that disagree with him. This way you'll get a worldy view on 'important' philosophical issues while starting to formulate your own opinions on th ematter.

I think Wilber's inclusion of physics would resonate with HNers.

If philosophy is the drive to understand the human condition, I don't think any philosopher can or should ignore the Bible. Athens, Rome and Jerusalem are where the Western mind was born it has been said. And there is nothing to stop you approaching the Bible as it were hermeneutically, ie. in the same way you might treat the Greek Myths. I find it fascinating myself - from the "ex nihilo" of Genesis, through the "de profundis" of the Psalms, to Job's "Why?!", not to mention the Christian New Testament - and I think it will be read (by philosophers) long after many books in "The Philosophy Section" have been forgotten.

Well I just interpret "philosophy" more broadly. Before we can act, and indeed before we can think, we must somehow plant our feet - we can't stand "nowhere" in a sense. And philosophy is just the search for a good place to stand, a "will to locate oneself" perhaps. And if we habitually stand in the same place, we're religious! We can no more be beyond (super) philosophy than we can be beyond (super) religion than we can be beyond (super) man. In this sense, the authors of the books of the bible are philosophers like the rest of us. If it's dissimilar in style to Plato, Aristotle and so on, there you go. So when you say it isn't a good philosophy book, to my mind you're just saying you don't like the philosophy it evinces, which of course is your prerogative.

Ashtavakra Gita - Ashtavakra

The Prophet - Gibran

Also, I would observe that besides Ayn Rand (who for many is not a philosopher) not a single female philosopher has been mentioned here which I find is a damning indictment on the state of affairs of the world of ideas. To remedy that I would recommend to you read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft or anything by De Beauvoir (and do ignore her contemporary Sartre for he was nothing but a windbag).

I am delighted that you singled out Thomas Paine (who again is not a philosopher as such; must be something in the air in the States) and Arthur Schopenhauer. They are both tremendous stylists. I've said this many times before - I don't care how great a philosopher's ideas are, if they can't write well I don't want to know. Thus we have people here recommending Kripke or Frege or heck knows who like that who bludgeon you to death with their tedious logic. Avoid them I say.

Finally I would like to be clichéd and recommend anything by Nietzsche except for Thus Spake Zarathustra even though he himself considered it his best work and I would especially recommend Ecce Homo by him because it is a summation of his previous works by his own hand. Nietzsche was the supreme stylist and ruthlessly honest and fearless. Also I'd recommend A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues by a contemporary philosopher André Comte-Sponville. This is a remarkable book on virtue theory that takes in Aristotle, Spinoza, Nietzsche and Woody Allen among others and is divided up by virtue which is extremely novel. It is fantastically written. Anything by Cioran as well such as The Trouble with Being Born. I'm trying not to typecast myself here! :)

And finally finally Sophie's World and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while nice cute books are not true philosophy books. This is also why I wouldn't recommend Camus' The Outsider though someone did mention The Myth of Sisyphus. Borges falls into this category. Sophie's world is really a kid's book as well and one that I would perhaps recommend to children though I'd recommend Borges or Camus or Kafka first.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vindication-Rights-Woman-Penguin-Cla...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-Sex-Vintage-classics/dp/00997...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Great-Ideas-Suffering-World/...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ecce-Homo-Becomes-Penguin-Classics/d...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-Treatise-Great-Virtues-Philoso...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trouble-Being-Born-E-M-Cioran/dp/155...

I haven't read many books about philosophy but my main interest is Philosophy of mind and I just love the lectures here[1].

[1]http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=...

Try reddit.com/r/books

Some HN-ers don't like reddit probably because their impression starts and ends with the reddit default front page. But the gems are the smaller sub-reddits with some very high quality communities. My personal favorite /r/askscience

http://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/

http://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicPhilosophy/

Dialectic of Enlightenment - Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno

The Sublime Object of Ideology - Slavoj Zizek

Sources of the Self - Charles Taylor