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Curriculum Map (Revised)

Philosophy Curriculum (The Master Accordion)

curriculum philosophy reading-list

Strategy: The Accordion Method

Do not read top-to-bottom.

  1. The Spine: Read the specific section for the current phase first to build the framework.
  2. The Anchor: Read this next to deep dive into the specific era/concept.
  3. The Color: Read last to add human context, emotion, and texture.

Repeat this loop for each Phase.

Stage 0: The Toolkit (Methodology & Reference)

Goal: Learning how to think before learning what others thought.

  • The Primer: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy — Simon Blackburn completed
  • The Narrative: The Story of Philosophy — Bryan Magee completed
  • The Reference: A History of Western Philosophy — C. Stephen Evans completed
  • The Reference: The History of Philosophy — A. C. Grayling completed
  • The Principles: Philosophy: Principles and Problems — Roger Scruton completed
  • The Logic: The Philosophers Toolkit — Julian Baggini
  • The Encyclopedia: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy — Ted Honderich (Keep on hand)
  • The Big Picture: The Big Questions of Philosophy — David K. Johnson (Audiobook)

Phase I: The Greeks (Pre-Socratic to Aristotle)

Goal: The invention of rational inquiry.

  • The Spine: Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1 — Peter Adamson completed
  • The Pre-Socratics: The First Philosophers — Robin Waterfield completed
  • The Anchor (Plato): Five Dialogues — Plato completed
  • The Anchor (Plato): Phaedo — Plato completed
  • The Anchor (Plato): The Symposium — Plato completed
  • The Deep Dive: The Republic — Plato (Essential next step)
  • The Anchor (Aristotle): Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle completed
  • The Context: Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction — Jonathan Barnes completed
  • The Color: Mythology — Edith Hamilton
  • Supplementary: Euthyphro — Plato
  • Supplementary: Socratic Dialogues — Plato
  • Supplementary: Politics — Aristotle

Phase II: Hellenistic, Roman & Eastern (300 BCE – 300 CE)

Goal: Philosophy as a way of life.

  • The Spine: Hellenistic & Roman Philosophy (Vol. 2) — Peter Adamson
  • The Eastern Anchor: Laozi's Dao De Jing — Ken Liu completed
  • The Eastern Spine: The Complete Confucius completed
  • The Eastern Color: The Four Chinese Classics — David Hinton
  • The Stoic Anchor: Letters from a Stoic — Seneca
  • The Stoic Deep Dive: Discourses / Handbook — Epictetus
  • The Application: Courage Under Fire - James Stockdale — James Stockdale
  • The Political: De Oratore — Cicero
  • Supplementary: On the Commonwealth — Cicero
  • Supplementary: On the Laws — Cicero
  • Supplementary: Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
  • Supplementary: That One Should Disdain Hardships — Musonius Rufus
  • Supplementary: Classic Asian Philosophy — Joel Kupperman
  • Supplementary: Eastern Philosophy: The Basics — Victoria Harrison

Phase III: Medieval & Neoplatonism (300 – 1400)

Goal: The synthesis of Faith and Reason.

  • The Spine: Medieval Philosophy (Vol. 4) — Peter Adamson
  • The Bridge: Confessions — Augustine of Hippo completed
  • The Anchor: Consolation of Philosophy — Boethius
  • The Islamic Anchor: Philosophy in the Islamic World (Vol. 3) — Peter Adamson
  • The Jewish Anchor: A Reader — Maimonides
  • The Summit: A Shorter Summa — Peter Kreeft (Aquinas)
  • The Color: Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction — Fergus Kerr
  • Supplementary: The Enneads — Plotinus
  • Supplementary: The Elements of Theology — Proclus
  • Supplementary: Incoherence of the Incoherence — Ibn Rushd
  • Supplementary: Foundations of Mysticism — Bernard McGinn
  • Supplementary: Intro to Philosophy of Religion — Brian Davies

Phase IV: Renaissance & Early Modern (1500 – 1700)

Goal: The turn to the Subject (Epistemology) and the State.

  • The Spine: A New History of Western Philosophy — Anthony Kenny (Part 3: Rise of Modern Philosophy)
  • The Pivot: Essays — Montaigne
  • The Color (Bio): How to Live — Sarah Bakewell
  • The Rationalist: Meditations on First Philosophy — Descartes
  • The Realist: The Prince / Discourses — Machiavelli
  • The Empiricist: Second Treatise of Government — Locke
  • The State: Leviathan — Hobbes
  • The Outsider: Ethics — Spinoza
  • The Scientist: The Philosophy of Science — (Start Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith here)
  • Supplementary: Discourse on the Method — Descartes
  • Supplementary: Essay Concerning Human Understanding — Locke
  • Supplementary: New Essays on Human Understanding — Leibniz
  • Supplementary: Pensées — Pascal
  • Supplementary: The Spirit of the Laws — Montesquieu

Phase V: The Enlightenment (1700 – 1800)

Goal: The Age of Reason and the definitions of Human Rights.

  • The Spine: A New History of Western Philosophy — Anthony Kenny (Part 3 cont.)
  • The Skeptic: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding — Hume
  • The Moralist: Theory of Moral Sentiments — Adam Smith
  • The Revolutionary: The Social Contract — Rousseau
  • The System: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics — Kant
  • The Critique: Critique of Pure Reason — Kant
  • The Color (Fiction): Candide — Voltaire
  • Supplementary: An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals — Hume
  • Supplementary: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion — Hume
  • Supplementary: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality — Rousseau
  • Supplementary: Emile — Rousseau
  • Supplementary: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Kant
  • Supplementary: Critique of the Power of Judgment — Kant
  • Supplementary: Rights of Man / Common Sense — Thomas Paine
  • Supplementary: Principles of Morals and Legislation — Bentham

Phase VI: 19th Century (Idealism, Marxism, Nihilism)

Goal: History, Will, and Power.

  • The Spine: German Philosophy 1760–1860 — Pinkard
  • The Method: Phenomenology of Spirit — Hegel
  • The Reaction: Fear and Trembling — Kierkegaard
  • The Materialist: Communist Manifesto — Marx & Engels
  • The Utilitarian: On Liberty — Mill
  • The Egoist: The Ego and Its Own — Stirner
  • The Color: Notes from the Underground — Dostoevsky
  • Supplementary: Utilitarianism — Mill
  • Supplementary: Principles of Political Economy — Mill
  • Supplementary: Sickness Unto Death — Kierkegaard
  • Supplementary: Capital, Vol. I — Marx
  • Supplementary: Lectures on the Philosophy of History — Hegel
  • Supplementary: Democracy in America — Tocqueville

Phase VII: 20th Century (Analytic, Continental, Critical Theory)

Goal: The split between Language/Logic and Experience/Power.

  • The Spine: A History of Western Philosophy — C. Stephen Evans (Postmodernism section)
  • The Analytic: Language, Truth and Logic — Ayer
  • The Existential: Existentialism is a Humanism — Sartre
  • The Political: The Origins of Totalitarianism — Hannah Arendt
  • The Critical Theory: Dialectic of Enlightenment — Adorno & Horkheimer
  • The Post-Modern: Discipline and Punish — Foucault
  • The Color: The Myth of Sisyphus — Camus
  • Supplementary: The Human Condition — Arendt
  • Supplementary: Eichmann in Jerusalem — Arendt
  • Supplementary: What Is Existentialism? — Beauvoir
  • Supplementary: Prison Notebooks — Gramsci
  • Supplementary: Lenin and Philosophy — Althusser
  • Supplementary: History of Sexuality Vol. 1 — Foucault

Phase VIII: Thematic Tracks (Deep Dives)

Read these “Vertical” lists once you have the “Horizontal” historical context.

Track A: Political Philosophy & Rights

From your “Political Philosophy” & “Leftist Ideology” lists

  • Natural Right and History — Leo Strauss
  • Reflections on the Revolution in France — Edmund Burke
  • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman — Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Justice as Fairness — John Rawls
  • Lectures on Political Philosophy — John Rawls
  • The Open Society and Its Enemies — Karl Popper
  • After Virtue — Alasdair MacIntyre
  • One-Dimensional Man — Marcuse
  • Repressive Tolerance — Marcuse
  • Left-Wing Communism — Lenin

Track B: Ethics & Moral Realism

From your “Ethics” list

  • Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong — J.L. Mackie (The Error Theory)
  • Moral Realism: A Defence — Russ Shafer-Landau
  • The Sources of Normativity — Christine Korsgaard
  • Practical Ethics — Peter Singer
  • Ethics in the Real World — Peter Singer
  • The Moral Landscape — Sam Harris
  • The Elements of Moral Philosophy — James Rachels

Track C: Philosophy of Religion & Mind

From your “Metaphysics” list

  • The Return of the God Hypothesis — Stephen C. Meyer
  • Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason — J.L. Schellenberg
  • A Free Will — Michael Frede
  • Reality+ — David Chalmers
  • Thinking It Through — Kwame Anthony Appiah

Track D: Current Cultural Critique

From your “Contemporary Cultural” list

  • The Closing of the American Mind — Allan Bloom
  • Cynical Theories — Helen Pluckrose
  • Shop Class as Soulcraft — Matthew B. Crawford
  • The Right to Sex — Amia Srinivasan
  • Byung-Chul Han — Vita contemplativa
  • Culture Hacks — Richard Conrad
  • The Surrender Experiment — Michael A. Singer
  • The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday
  • The Quest for Character — Massimo Pigliucci

Stage 9: The Library (Electives & Overflow)

Books from your collection to read when you want to go off-trail.

Literature & Fiction

  • The Abolition of Man — C.S. Lewis
  • Ficciones — Jorge Luis Borges
  • Leisure: The Basis of Culture — Josef Pieper
  • Harrison Bergeron — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  • Welcome to the Monkey House — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  • An Apology for Idlers — Robert Louis Stevenson
  • On Love — Stendhal
  • The Praise of Folly — Erasmus
  • The Histories — Polybius
  • The Agricola and the Germany — Tacitus
  • The Annals of Imperial Rome — Tacitus
  • Institutio Oratoria — Quintilian

Modern Political Commentary (20th–21st Century)

  • Twilight of Democracy — Anne Applebaum
  • On Tyranny — Timothy Snyder
  • How Democracy Ends — David Runciman
  • How Democracies Die — Steven Levitsky
  • The Conservative Heart — Arthur C. Brooks
  • The Conscience of a Conservative — Barry Goldwater
  • Against the State — Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
  • Inventing Human Rights — Lynn Hunt
  • The Power of the Powerless — Václav Havel
  • Modernity and the Holocaust — Zygmunt Bauman
  • Socialism: Utopian and Scientific — Friedrich Engels
  • Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth — Ludwig von Mises
  • Marxification of Education — James Lindsay
  • Explaining Postmodernism — Stephen R.C. Hicks
  • Post-modernism for Beginners — James Powell

Niche Ethics & Metaphysics

  • Better Never to Have Been — David Benatar (Anti-natalism)
  • Determined — Robert M. Sapolsky (Hard determinism)
  • The Elephant and the Blind — Thomas Metzinger
  • Why? The Purpose of the Universe — Philip Goff
  • Moral Fictionalism — Mark Eli Kalderon
  • Ethical Intuitionism — Michael Huemer
  • What We Owe the Future — William MacAskill (Effective Altruism)
  • Sick Societies — Robert B. Edgerton
  • Lying — Sam Harris
  • Making Sense — Sam Harris

Critical Theory & Sociology

  • Gender Trouble — Judith Butler
  • The Second Sex — Simone de Beauvoir
  • Orientalism — Edward Said
  • Wretched of the Earth — Frantz Fanon
  • Pedagogy of the Oppressed — Paulo Freire
  • Simulacra and Simulation — Jean Baudrillard
  • Of Grammatology — Jacques Derrida
  • Bodies That Matter — Judith Butler
  • Epistemology of the Closet — Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
  • Teaching to Transgress — bell hooks
  • Feminism Is for Everybody — bell hooks
  • The Dialectic of Sex — Shulamith Firestone
  • Intersectionality essays — Kimberlé Crenshaw
  • Faces at the Bottom of the Well — Derrick Bell
  • Can the Subaltern Speak? — Gayatri Spivak
  • The Location of Culture — Homi Bhabha
  • Teachers as Intellectuals — Henry Giroux
  • On Critical Pedagogy — Henry Giroux
  • Critical Theory: A Reader — Martin Jay (ed.)

Reference & Introductions (Duplicates/Alternates)

  • A History of Western Philosophy — Bertrand Russell
  • Philosophy of Pseudoscience — Massimo Pigliucci
  • Think Again: How to Reason — Coursera
  • The Problems of Philosophy — Russell
  • What Does It All Mean? — Thomas Nagel
  • Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction — Edward Craig
  • A New History of Western Philosophy — Anthony Kenny (Full set)
  • The Story of Philosophy — Will Durant

Stage 10: The Archive (Specialized & Technical References)

The remaining academic texts, logic coursebooks, and specific deep-dives.

20th Century Analytic & Continental (The Missing Giants)

  • Being and Time — Martin Heidegger
  • Logical Investigations, Vol. 1 — Edmund Husserl
  • Philosophical Investigations — Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • On Certainty — Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • Two Dogmas of Empiricism — W.V.O. Quine
  • Principia Ethica — G.E. Moore
  • Foundations of Arithmetic — Gottlob Frege
  • Begriffsschrift — Gottlob Frege
  • Conjectures and Refutations — Karl Popper
  • The Logic of Scientific Discovery — Karl Popper
  • Studies in the Way of Words — Paul Grice
  • Modern Moral Philosophy — G.E.M. Anscombe
  • Natural Goodness — Philippa Foot
  • How to Do Things with Words — J.L. Austin
  • Rise of Analytic Philosophy — Potter
  • Sublime Object of Ideology — Slavoj Žižek

19th Century & Revolutionary Theory

  • On the Suffering of the World — Arthur Schopenhauer
  • The Essence of Christianity — Ludwig Feuerbach
  • State and Revolution — Vladimir Lenin
  • What Is to Be Done? — Vladimir Lenin
  • Reform or Revolution — Rosa Luxemburg
  • Permanent Revolution — Leon Trotsky
  • On Practice — Mao Zedong
  • Cultural Revolution speeches — Mao Zedong
  • Long March — Rudi Dutschke
  • Theatre of the Oppressed — Augusto Boal
  • The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — Walter Benjamin
  • History and Class Consciousness — György Lukács
  • Ideology & ISAs — Louis Althusser
  • Mirror Stage — Jacques Lacan
  • Anti-Oedipus — Deleuze & Guattari
  • A Thousand Plateaus — Deleuze & Guattari

Political & Social Theory (Academic)

  • Contemporary Political Philosophy — Will Kymlicka
  • The Moral Foundations of Politics — Ian Shapiro
  • Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice — Jack Donnelly
  • Morality: Restoring the Common Good — Jonathan Sacks
  • Natural Rights Theories — Richard Tuck
  • An Essay on the Principle of Population — Thomas Malthus
  • Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy — Andrew Valls
  • The Decline and Rise of Democracy — David Stasavage
  • Hijacked — Elizabeth S. Anderson
  • Considerations on France — Joseph de Maistre
  • Machiavellian Moment — Pocock
  • Persian Letters — Montesquieu
  • Conservative Mind — Russell Kirk

Ethics & Logic (Textbooks/Coursework)

  • Wise Choices, Apt Feelings — Allan Gibbard
  • Finding Oneself in the Other — G.A. Cohen
  • The Fundamentals of Ethics — Julia Driver
  • The Myth of Morality — Richard Joyce
  • What We Owe to Each Other — T.M. Scanlon
  • The View From Nowhere — Thomas Nagel
  • Paradoxes — R.M. Sainsbury
  • Logic or the Art of Thinking — Antoine Arnauld
  • The Right to Oblivion — Lowry Pressly

Philosophy of Science & Epistemology

  • Resisting Scientific Realism — K. Brad Wray
  • What Is This Thing Called Science? — Alan Chalmers
  • Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction — Barker & Kitcher
  • Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction — Alexander Rosenberg
  • The Scientific Image — Bas C. Van Fraassen
  • The Philosophy of Language — A.P. Martinich
  • Cambridge Pragmatism — Misak
  • System of Logic (Book III) — Mill

Historical Context & Anthologies

  • The Idea of Natural Rights — Brian Tierney
  • Early Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings — A.P. Martinich
  • The Portable Renaissance Reader — James Bruce Ross
  • Classical Arabic Philosophy — Jon McGinnis
  • Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 — Robert Pasnau
  • Classics of Western Philosophy — Steven M. Cahn
  • The Crisis of the European Mind — Paul Hazard
  • The Gods of War — Meic Pearse
  • Living with the Gods — Neil MacGregor
  • Why We Fight — Christopher Blattman
  • Nature, Contemplation, and the One — Armstrong
  • Plotinus Commentary — Gerson
  • Neoplatonism — Dillon & Gerson
  • Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism — Remes
  • Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings — Klima
  • Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy — Bosley
  • Complete Works — Pseudo-Dionysius
  • Theophany — Eric Perl
  • Periphyseon — John Scotus Eriugena
  • Mystical Works — Meister Eckhart
  • Kant’s Critical Philosophy — Deleuze
  • A Kant Dictionary — Gardner

The “Very Short Introductions” (VSIs) Collection

  • Descartes (Tom Sorell)
  • Hobbes (Richard Tuck)
  • Locke (John Dunn)
  • Spinoza (Roger Scruton)
  • Hume (Ayer)
  • Russell (Grayling)
  • Ancient Philosophy (Julia Annas)
  • Presocratic Philosophy (Catherine Osborne)
  • Stoicism (Brad Inwood)
  • The Enlightenment (John Robertson)
  • Rousseau (Robert Wokler)
  • Ethics (Simon Blackburn)

Videos & Courses (Supplementary)

  • What Is Philosophy? — YouTube
  • Closer To Truth — YouTube
  • Philosophy Overdose — YouTube
  • Daniel Bonevac — YouTube
  • Jack Sanders — YouTube
  • Wireless Philosophy — YouTube
  • Jeffrey Kaplan — YouTube
  • The Great Philosophers — Bryan Magee (YouTube)
  • Gregory B. Sadler — YouTube
  • René Descartes - Meditation > 1 — YouTube
  • Great Ideas of Philosophy — The Great Courses
  • Ancient Philosophy — Peterson Academy
  • The Philosophy of Ethics — Peterson Academy
  • The Philosophers Toolkit — TTC
  • Think Again — Coursera
  • PHIL 176 - Lecture 1 — Open Yale Courses
  • No Excuses: Existentialism — The Great Courses
  • Critical Thinking — FutureLearn
  • Intro to Ethics Unwrapped
  • Death with Shelly Kagan — YouTube
  • Rick Roderick on The Masters of Suspicion — YouTube
  • Michael Sugrue — YouTube
  • John Rawls Lecture 1 — Audio
  • Plato's Republic Guide — YouTube
  • Plato The Dawn of Thought — Peterson Academy
  • The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism