| author | Alan Dipert
<alan@dipert.org> 2025-10-08 06:17:55 UTC |
| committer | Alan Dipert
<alan@dipert.org> 2025-10-08 06:17:55 UTC |
| parent | 31140f1e1c41192d4c59c24ee3b2403bd8b64d50 |
| md/WellReadUndergrad.md | +105 | -105 |
diff --git a/md/WellReadUndergrad.md b/md/WellReadUndergrad.md index 0670acb..d7c583a 100644 --- a/md/WellReadUndergrad.md +++ b/md/WellReadUndergrad.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami - [Alexander Pope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope) — <span class="level-one">[*Essay on Man*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_Man)</span> (long poem wrestling with religious metaphysics) - [Voltaire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire) — [*Candide*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide) (parody of Leibniz) and shorter satires - [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe) — [*Faust*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust) -- [Fyodor Dostoevsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky) — <span class="level-three">[*Crime and Punishment*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment)</span> (or <span class="level-three">[*Notes from Underground*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_Underground)</span>); <span class="level-three">[*The Brothers Karamazov*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov)</span> (especially “The Grand Inquisitor”) +- [Fyodor Dostoevsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky) — <span class="level-three">[*Crime and Punishment*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment)</span> (or <span class="level-three">[*Notes from Underground*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_Underground)</span>); <span class="level-three">[*The Brothers Karamazov*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov)</span> (especially "The Grand Inquisitor") - [Hermann Hesse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse) — <span class="level-one">[*Siddhartha*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel))</span> (novella) - [Albert Camus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus) — <span class="level-one">[*The Stranger*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(Camus_novel))</span>; [*The Plague*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague); [*The Myth of Sisyphus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus) (essays on meaning and suicide) - [Ayn Rand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand) — [*The Fountainhead*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead); [*Atlas Shrugged*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged) @@ -29,17 +29,17 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami ### Semi-Popular or Not Strictly Philosophical Essays -- [Michel de Montaigne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne) — <span class="level-one">[*Essays*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_(Montaigne))</span> (“That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die,” “Of Friendship,” “Of Cannibals,” “Of Custom…,” “Our Feelings Reach Beyond Us”) -- [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) — [“Perpetual Peace”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace); [“What Is Enlightenment?”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Enlightenment%3F) -- [Ralph Waldo Emerson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson) — [*Essays: First Series*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series) (“Friendship,” “Nature,” “Self-Reliance”) +- [Michel de Montaigne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne) — <span class="level-one">[*Essays*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_(Montaigne))</span> ("That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die," "Of Friendship," "Of Cannibals," "Of Custom…," "Our Feelings Reach Beyond Us") +- [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) — ["Perpetual Peace"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace); ["What Is Enlightenment?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Enlightenment%3F) +- [Ralph Waldo Emerson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson) — [*Essays: First Series*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series) ("Friendship," "Nature," "Self-Reliance") - [Henry David Thoreau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau) — <span class="level-one">[*Walden*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden)</span>; <span class="level-one">[*Civil Disobedience*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau))</span> -- [Charles Sanders Peirce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce) — [“The Fixation of Belief”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fixation_of_Belief); [“How to Make Our Ideas Clear”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Make_Our_Ideas_Clear) -- [William Kingdon Clifford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford) — <span class="level-two">[“The Ethics of Belief”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethics_of_Belief)</span> -- [William James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James) — <span class="level-two">[“The Will to Believe”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe)</span>; [*Pragmatism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism_(book)); [“The Moral Equivalent of War”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Equivalent_of_War); [“The Pragmatic Theory of Truth”](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/) +- [Charles Sanders Peirce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce) — ["The Fixation of Belief"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fixation_of_Belief); ["How to Make Our Ideas Clear"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Make_Our_Ideas_Clear) +- [William Kingdon Clifford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford) — <span class="level-two">["The Ethics of Belief"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethics_of_Belief)</span> +- [William James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James) — <span class="level-two">["The Will to Believe"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe)</span>; [*Pragmatism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism_(book)); ["The Moral Equivalent of War"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Equivalent_of_War); ["The Pragmatic Theory of Truth"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/) - [Sigmund Freud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud) — [*The Interpretation of Dreams*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpretation_of_Dreams); [*The Future of an Illusion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_an_Illusion); [*Civilization and Its Discontents*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents); [*Beyond the Pleasure Principle*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Pleasure_Principle) -- [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — [“A Free Man’s Worship”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Free_Man%27s_Worship); selections from [*Why I Am Not a Christian*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Am_Not_a_Christian) -- [Isaiah Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) — essays such as [“The Hedgehog and the Fox”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox) (in [*Russian Thinkers*](https://archive.org/details/russianthinkers00beri)) -- [Ayn Rand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand) — [*The Virtue of Selfishness*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness); [*Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Objectivist_Epistemology); John Galt’s speech in [*Atlas Shrugged*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged) +- [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — ["A Free Man's Worship"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Free_Man%27s_Worship); selections from [*Why I Am Not a Christian*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Am_Not_a_Christian) +- [Isaiah Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) — essays such as ["The Hedgehog and the Fox"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox) (in [*Russian Thinkers*](https://archive.org/details/russianthinkers00beri)) +- [Ayn Rand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand) — [*The Virtue of Selfishness*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness); [*Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Objectivist_Epistemology); John Galt's speech in [*Atlas Shrugged*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged) ### History of Philosophy @@ -63,11 +63,11 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami - [George Berkeley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) — [*Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Dialogues_between_Hylas_and_Phlonous); [*A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treatise_Concerning_the_Principles_of_Human_Knowledge) - [David Hume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) — [*An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enquiry_Concerning_Human_Understanding) (parts); <span class="level-two">[*Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogues_Concerning_Natural_Religion)</span> - [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau) — [*The Social Contract*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract) -- [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) — <span class="level-two">[*Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwork_of_the_Metaphysics_of_Morals)</span>; [“Perpetual Peace”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace); [“What Is Enlightenment?”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Enlightenment%3F); <span class="level-two">[*Critique of Pure Reason*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason)</span> (or [*Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolegomena_to_Any_Future_Metaphysics)) +- [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) — <span class="level-two">[*Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwork_of_the_Metaphysics_of_Morals)</span>; ["Perpetual Peace"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace); ["What Is Enlightenment?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Enlightenment%3F); <span class="level-two">[*Critique of Pure Reason*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason)</span> (or [*Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolegomena_to_Any_Future_Metaphysics)) - [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) — <span class="level-one">[*On Liberty*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty)</span>; <span class="level-two">[*Utilitarianism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism_(book))</span> - [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) — key selections summarizing major views (e.g., the [*Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm)) - [Søren Kierkegaard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard) — signature works (e.g., [*Fear and Trembling*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling)) -- [William James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James) — <span class="level-two">[*The Varieties of Religious Experience*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience)</span> (especially “Mysticism”) +- [William James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James) — <span class="level-two">[*The Varieties of Religious Experience*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience)</span> (especially "Mysticism") - [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) — <span class="level-two">[*Beyond Good and Evil*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil)</span> and other mature works - [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — <span class="level-one">[*The Problems of Philosophy*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problems_of_Philosophy)</span>; [*Logic and Knowledge*](https://archive.org/details/logicandknowled00russ) @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami - [Matthew Stewart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Stewart_(philosopher)) — [*The Truth About Everything*](https://archive.org/details/truthabouteveryt00stew) - [Ben-Ami Sharfstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Shafstein) — [*A Comparative History of World Philosophy*](https://archive.org/details/comparativehisto0000shar) - [Mary Warnock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Warnock) — [*Women Philosophers*](https://archive.org/details/womenphilosopher0000warn) (anthology) -- [A.J. Ayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer) & [Jane O’Grady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_O%27Grady) — [*A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations*](https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofphil0000ayer) +- [A.J. Ayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer) & [Jane O'Grady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_O%27Grady) — [*A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations*](https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofphil0000ayer) ### Twentieth-Century Themes @@ -103,31 +103,31 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami - [L. Nathan Oaklander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Nathan_Oaklander) — [*Existentialist Philosophy*](https://archive.org/details/existentialistph0000oakl) - [Edmund Husserl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl) — representative phenomenology (e.g., [*Ideas I*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas:_General_Introduction_to_Pure_Phenomenology)) - [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) — selections from [*Existentialism Is a Humanism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism_Is_a_Humanism) and [*Being and Nothingness*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness) -- [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) — essays such as “[What Is a Thing?](https://archive.org/details/whatisthingtr00heid)” +- [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) — essays such as "[What Is a Thing?](https://archive.org/details/whatisthingtr00heid)" - [Michel Foucault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault) — [*The Foucault Reader*](https://archive.org/details/foucaultreader0000fouc) (ed. Paul Rabinow) - [David H. Richter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Richter) (ed.) — <span class="level-two">[*The Critical Tradition*](https://archive.org/details/criticaltraditio0000unse)</span> #### Analytic Philosophy -- [Gottlob Frege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottlob_Frege) — <span class="level-three">[“On Sense and Reference”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference), introduction to [*Begriffsschrift*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begriffsschrift), “On Concept and Object,” “On Function and Concept,” “On Russell’s Paradox”</span> -- [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — [“On Denoting”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Denoting); essays on logical atomism in [*Logic and Knowledge*](https://archive.org/details/logicandknowled00russ) -- [G.E. Moore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore) — <span class="level-two">[*Principia Ethica*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Ethica)</span> (chapter 1); [“The Refutation of Idealism”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Refutation_of_Idealism) -- [A.J. Ayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer) — [“The Principle of Verification”](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/verificationism/); [“The Elimination of Metaphysics”](https://iep.utm.edu/verificationism/#SH5a) +- [Gottlob Frege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottlob_Frege) — <span class="level-three">["On Sense and Reference"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference), introduction to [*Begriffsschrift*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begriffsschrift), "On Concept and Object," "On Function and Concept," "On Russell's Paradox"</span> +- [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — ["On Denoting"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Denoting); essays on logical atomism in [*Logic and Knowledge*](https://archive.org/details/logicandknowled00russ) +- [G.E. Moore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore) — <span class="level-two">[*Principia Ethica*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Ethica)</span> (chapter 1); ["The Refutation of Idealism"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Refutation_of_Idealism) +- [A.J. Ayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer) — ["The Principle of Verification"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/verificationism/); ["The Elimination of Metaphysics"](https://iep.utm.edu/verificationism/#SH5a) - [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) — [*Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus); [*Blue and Brown Books*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_and_Brown_Books); [*Zettel*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettel_(Wittgenstein)); [*Philosophical Investigations*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations); [*On Certainty*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Certainty) -- [Gilbert Ryle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle) — [“Descartes’ Myth”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine#The_Categories_Goof) -- [J.L. Austin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin) — [“A Plea for Excuses”](https://academic.oup.com/pq/article/4/15/1/1546489); [“Other Minds”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251299) -- [Alan Turing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing) — <span class="level-one">[“Computing Machinery and Intelligence”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_Machinery_and_Intelligence)</span> -- [Edmund Gettier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Gettier) — [“Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”](https://philpapers.org/archive/GETIJT.pdf) -- [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) — [“Two Dogmas of Empiricism”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906); [“On What There Is”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2012669) -- [John Searle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle) — [“What Is a Speech Act?”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4544389) +- [Gilbert Ryle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle) — ["Descartes' Myth"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine#The_Categories_Goof) +- [J.L. Austin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin) — ["A Plea for Excuses"](https://academic.oup.com/pq/article/4/15/1/1546489); ["Other Minds"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251299) +- [Alan Turing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing) — <span class="level-one">["Computing Machinery and Intelligence"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_Machinery_and_Intelligence)</span> +- [Edmund Gettier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Gettier) — ["Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"](https://philpapers.org/archive/GETIJT.pdf) +- [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) — ["Two Dogmas of Empiricism"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906); ["On What There Is"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2012669) +- [John Searle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle) — ["What Is a Speech Act?"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4544389) - [Richard Rorty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty) — [*Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_and_the_Mirror_of_Nature) -- [Thomas Nagel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel) — <span class="level-one">[“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F)</span> +- [Thomas Nagel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel) — <span class="level-one">["What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F)</span> #### Science Writing with Philosophical Reach - [Thomas Kuhn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn) — <span class="level-three">[*The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions)</span> - [Paul Feyerabend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend) — [*Against Method*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method) - [Loren Eiseley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Eiseley) — [*The Immense Journey*](https://archive.org/details/immensejourney00eise) and related essays - [Sherwin B. Nuland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwin_B._Nuland) — [*How We Die*](https://archive.org/details/howwedienewrefle00nula) -- [Lewis Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas) — essays such as “Germs” in [*The Lives of a Cell*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_a_Cell) +- [Lewis Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas) — essays such as "Germs" in [*The Lives of a Cell*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_a_Cell) - [E.O. Wilson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson) — [*Sociobiology*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology:_The_New_Synthesis); [*Consilience*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)) #### Mathematics, Logic, and AI @@ -158,9 +158,9 @@ A well-read undergraduate should ideally have read, or at least be somewhat fami #### Philosophy of Religion - [Anselm of Canterbury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury) — ontological argument in [*Proslogion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proslogion) - [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) — Five Ways in [*Summa Theologiae*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica) -- [Blaise Pascal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal) — [Pascal’s wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager) +- [Blaise Pascal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal) — [Pascal's wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager) - [William James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James) & [W.K. Clifford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford) — essays cited above -- [Søren Kierkegaard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard) & [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) — the leap of faith; “God is dead” +- [Søren Kierkegaard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard) & [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) — the leap of faith; "God is dead" - [Martin Buber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber) — selections from [*I and Thou*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou) - [Sigmund Freud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud) — [*The Future of an Illusion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_an_Illusion); [*Moses and Monotheism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_and_Monotheism) - [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell) — skeptical essays noted earlier @@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ Every philosophy major should grapple with the central debates in philosophy of ## II. Philosophical Words and Phrases -A vocabulary list drawn from E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s *Cultural Literacy* with additions I found useful to emphasize. +A vocabulary list drawn from E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s *Cultural Literacy* with additions I found useful to emphasize. | Term | Term | Term | Term | | --- | --- | --- | --- | @@ -199,22 +199,22 @@ A vocabulary list drawn from E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s *Cultural Literacy* with additi | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant">Kant, Immanuel</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital"><em>Das Kapital</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi">Lao-tse</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz">Leibniz</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/liar_paradox">liar paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin">Lenin, Vladimir</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)"><em>Leviathan</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism">liberalism (classical, American)</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism">libertarianism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke">Locke, John</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_classicus"><em>locus classicus</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli">Machiavelli</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism">materialism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Meaning_as_use">“Meaning is use.”</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference">meaning / reference (Frege)</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages">medieval</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism">materialism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Meaning_as_use">"Meaning is use."</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference">meaning / reference (Frege)</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages">medieval</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics">metaphysics</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages">Middle Ages</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill">Mill, John Stuart</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/monism">monism</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/monotheism">monotheism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne">Montaigne</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesquieu">Montesquieu</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More">More, Thomas</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism">mysticism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)">naturalism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law">natural law</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights">natural rights</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture">nature–nurture controversy</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche">Nietzsche, Friedrich</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism">nihilism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne#Famous_quotes">“No man is an island.”</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture">nature–nurture controversy</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche">Nietzsche, Friedrich</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism">nihilism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne#Famous_quotes">"No man is an island."</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)">non sequitur</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy">Occidental philosophy</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy">oligarchy</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly">oligopoly</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_are_what_you_eat">“One is what one eats.”</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory">“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument">ontological argument</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology">ontology</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_are_what_you_eat">"One is what one eats."</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory">"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument">ontological argument</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology">ontology</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism">pacifism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox">paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm">paradigm</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal">Pascal, Blaise</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager">Pascal’s Wager</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce">Peirce, Charles Sanders</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act">performatives</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistinism">philistinism</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king">philosopher-king</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone">philosopher’s stone</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato">Plato</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism">Platonism</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager">Pascal's Wager</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce">Peirce, Charles Sanders</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act">performatives</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistinism">philistinism</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king">philosopher-king</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone">philosopher's stone</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato">Plato</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism">Platonism</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralism_(philosophy)">pluralism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy">plutocracy</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism">polytheism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope">Pope, Alexander</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism">positivism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom">postulate</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism">pragmatism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination">predestination</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(mathematics)">predicate</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince"><em>The Prince</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustean_bed">Procrustean bed</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat">proletariat</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D."><em>quod erat demonstrandum</em> (Q.E.D.)</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raison_d%27%C3%AAtre"><em>raison d’être</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring">red herring</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum">reductio</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D."><em>quod erat demonstrandum</em> (Q.E.D.)</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raison_d%27%C3%AAtre"><em>raison d'être</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring">red herring</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum">reductio</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation">the Reformation</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism">relativism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance">the Renaissance</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric">rhetoric</a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges">Ring of Gyges</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Russell, Bertrand</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox">Russell’s paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre">Sartre, Jean-Paul</a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges">Ring of Gyges</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Russell, Bertrand</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox">Russell's paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre">Sartre, Jean-Paul</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism">scholasticism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Reliance"><em>Self-Reliance</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics">semantics</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics">semiotics</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_qua_non"><em>sine qua non</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates">Socrates</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist">sophist</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act">speech-act theory</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza">Spinoza, Baruch</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism">stoicism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivism">subjectivism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax">syntax</a> | @@ -222,81 +222,81 @@ A vocabulary list drawn from E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s *Cultural Literacy* with additi | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau">Thoreau, Henry David</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism">totalitarianism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation">transubstantiation</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing Test</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals">universals</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction">use / mention</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism">utilitarianism</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia">utopia</a> | | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verstehen"><em>Verstehen</em></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning">vicious circle</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire">Voltaire</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltanschauung"><em>Weltanschauung</em></a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein">Wittgenstein, Ludwig</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes">Zeno’s paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist">Zeitgeist</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill%27s_methods"><span class="level-two">Mill’s methods</span></a> | -| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem"><span class="level-two">Arrow’s theorem</span></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma"><span class="level-two">Prisoner’s dilemma</span></a> | | | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein">Wittgenstein, Ludwig</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes">Zeno's paradox</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist">Zeitgeist</a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill%27s_methods"><span class="level-two">Mill's methods</span></a> | +| <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem"><span class="level-two">Arrow's theorem</span></a> | <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma"><span class="level-two">Prisoner's dilemma</span></a> | | | ## III. Famous, Short Quotations from the History of Philosophy -> “It is not possible to step into the same river twice.” — [Heraclitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) -> “Nature loves to hide.” — [Heraclitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) -> “If cattle, horses, or lions had hands, they would draw the forms of gods like cattle, horses, or lions.” — [Xenophanes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes) -> “Man is the measure of all things.” — [Protagoras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras) -> “Know yourself!” — [Delphic maxim (via Socrates)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims) -> “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — [Socrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) -> “No one does wrong intentionally.” — [Socrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) -> “Philosophy begins in wonder.” — [Plato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato) -> “The true lover of knowledge … soars with undimmed passion until he grasps the essential nature of things.” — [Plato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato) -> “I am human; I think of nothing human as foreign to me.” — [Terence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence) -> “So the good has been explained as that at which all things aim.” — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) -> “Man is by definition a rational animal.” — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) (echoed by [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas)) -> “Man is by nature a political animal.” — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) -> “The human good turns out to be the activity of the soul in conformity with excellence.” — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) -> “Plato is dear to me, but the truth is dearer still.” — attributed to [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) -> “There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.” — [Cicero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero) -> “I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; I believe so that I may understand.” — [Anselm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury) -> “God is that than which no greater can be thought.” — [Anselm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury) -> “It is necessary to assume something … and this all men call God.” — [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) -> “Since we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not…” — [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) -> “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” — [William of Ockham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham) (attributed) -> “Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen.” — [Montaigne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne) -> “I think, therefore I am.” — [René Descartes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes) -> “Common sense is the best-distributed commodity in the world.” — [René Descartes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes) -> “… the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” — [Thomas Hobbes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes) -> “No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience.” — [John Locke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke) -> “To be is to be perceived.” — [George Berkeley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) -> “I refute it thus.” — [Samuel Johnson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson) (as recorded by [James Boswell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boswell)) -> “’Tis not, therefore, reason, which is the guide of life, but custom.” — [David Hume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) -> “Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.” — [David Hume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) -> “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” — [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau) -> “I have no need of that hypothesis.” — [Pierre-Simon Laplace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace) (about God) -> “Two things fill the mind with ever new awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) -> “Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind.” — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) -> “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) -> “The greatest happiness for the greatest number.” — [Jeremy Bentham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham) / [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) -> “It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” — [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) -> “What experience and history teach is that people never learn anything from history.” — [Georg Hegel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel) -> “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” — [Ralph Waldo Emerson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson) -> “One is what one eats.” — [Ludwig Feuerbach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach) -> “Religion is the opiate of the people.” — [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) -> “The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it.” — [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) -> “That government is best which governs least.” — [Henry David Thoreau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau) -> “What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors.” — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) -> “There are no facts, only interpretations.” — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) -> “Every word is a prejudice.” — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) -> “Consider what effects we conceive the object of our conception to have—that is the whole of our conception of the object.” — [Charles Sanders Peirce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce) -> “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — [Lord Acton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton) -> “Contrariwise … that’s logic.” — [Lewis Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll) -> “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.” — [Lewis Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll) -> “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — [George Santayana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana) (attributed) -> “All of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato.” — [Alfred North Whitehead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead) (attributed) -> “The Nothing nothings.” — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) -> “Language is the house of Being.” — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) -> “All metaphysics … speaks the language of Plato.” — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) -> “Insofar as the statements of geometry speak about reality, they are not certain…” — [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein) (paraphrasing [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)) -> “… man is condemned to be free.” — [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) -> “Hell is other people.” — [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) -> “First comes the grub, then comes morality.” — [Bertolt Brecht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht) -> “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) -> “Every sign by itself seems dead; in use it is alive.” — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) -> “… philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.” — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) -> “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” — [Noam Chomsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky) -> “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — [Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights) -> “What is there? Everything.” — [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) -> “To be is to be the value of a bound variable.” — [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) +> "It is not possible to step into the same river twice." — [Heraclitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) +> "Nature loves to hide." — [Heraclitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) +> "If cattle, horses, or lions had hands, they would draw the forms of gods like cattle, horses, or lions." — [Xenophanes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes) +> "Man is the measure of all things." — [Protagoras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras) +> "Know yourself!" — [Delphic maxim (via Socrates)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims) +> "The unexamined life is not worth living." — [Socrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) +> "No one does wrong intentionally." — [Socrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) +> "Philosophy begins in wonder." — [Plato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato) +> "The true lover of knowledge … soars with undimmed passion until he grasps the essential nature of things." — [Plato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato) +> "I am human; I think of nothing human as foreign to me." — [Terence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence) +> "So the good has been explained as that at which all things aim." — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) +> "Man is by definition a rational animal." — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) (echoed by [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas)) +> "Man is by nature a political animal." — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) +> "The human good turns out to be the activity of the soul in conformity with excellence." — [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) +> "Plato is dear to me, but the truth is dearer still." — attributed to [Aristotle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) +> "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it." — [Cicero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero) +> "I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; I believe so that I may understand." — [Anselm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury) +> "God is that than which no greater can be thought." — [Anselm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury) +> "It is necessary to assume something … and this all men call God." — [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) +> "Since we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not…" — [Thomas Aquinas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) +> "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." — [William of Ockham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham) (attributed) +> "Man is quite insane. He wouldn't know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen." — [Montaigne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne) +> "I think, therefore I am." — [René Descartes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes) +> "Common sense is the best-distributed commodity in the world." — [René Descartes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes) +> "… the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." — [Thomas Hobbes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes) +> "No man's knowledge can go beyond his experience." — [John Locke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke) +> "To be is to be perceived." — [George Berkeley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) +> "I refute it thus." — [Samuel Johnson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson) (as recorded by [James Boswell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boswell)) +> "'Tis not, therefore, reason, which is the guide of life, but custom." — [David Hume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) +> "Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them." — [David Hume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) +> "Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains." — [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau) +> "I have no need of that hypothesis." — [Pierre-Simon Laplace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace) (about God) +> "Two things fill the mind with ever new awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within." — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) +> "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) +> "Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." — [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) +> "The greatest happiness for the greatest number." — [Jeremy Bentham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham) / [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) +> "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." — [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) +> "What experience and history teach is that people never learn anything from history." — [Georg Hegel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel) +> "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." — [Ralph Waldo Emerson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson) +> "One is what one eats." — [Ludwig Feuerbach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach) +> "Religion is the opiate of the people." — [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) +> "The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." — [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) +> "That government is best which governs least." — [Henry David Thoreau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau) +> "What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors." — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) +> "There are no facts, only interpretations." — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) +> "Every word is a prejudice." — [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche) +> "Consider what effects we conceive the object of our conception to have—that is the whole of our conception of the object." — [Charles Sanders Peirce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce) +> "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." — [Lord Acton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton) +> "Contrariwise … that's logic." — [Lewis Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll) +> "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean." — [Lewis Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll) +> "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — [George Santayana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana) (attributed) +> "All of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato." — [Alfred North Whitehead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead) (attributed) +> "The Nothing nothings." — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) +> "Language is the house of Being." — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) +> "All metaphysics … speaks the language of Plato." — [Martin Heidegger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) +> "Insofar as the statements of geometry speak about reality, they are not certain…" — [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein) (paraphrasing [Immanuel Kant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)) +> "… man is condemned to be free." — [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) +> "Hell is other people." — [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) +> "First comes the grub, then comes morality." — [Bertolt Brecht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht) +> "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) +> "Every sign by itself seems dead; in use it is alive." — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) +> "… philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday." — [Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) +> "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." — [Noam Chomsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky) +> "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." — [Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights) +> "What is there? Everything." — [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) +> "To be is to be the value of a bound variable." — [W.V.O. Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) ## IV. A Note on the Very Idea of a Philosophical Canon -This little canon tips its hat to Harold Bloom’s *The Western Canon* and to E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s arguments for cultural literacy, but applies the logic to philosophy. That raises perennial debates: Do canons over-celebrate dead Western men? How do we fold in non-Western traditions? Does “classicizing” our reading harden culture or help us think? +This little canon tips its hat to Harold Bloom's *The Western Canon* and to E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s arguments for cultural literacy, but applies the logic to philosophy. That raises perennial debates: Do canons over-celebrate dead Western men? How do we fold in non-Western traditions? Does "classicizing" our reading harden culture or help us think? With philosophy the stakes shift. The aim is not merely knowing arguments but cultivating wisdom—an ability to judge what is true or valuable. Reading mountains of philosophy, on its own, is neither necessary nor sufficient. It helps only when paired with conceptual discipline, logical skill, interpretive charity, emotional maturity, worldly experience, methodological self-awareness, tolerance for unpopular ideas, and, most of all, a spark of wonder.