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Philosophy Curriculum — Accordion Method (Revised)

Philosophy Curriculum — Accordion Method (Revised)

This reorganizes your existing list into an Accordion Method so you can:

  1. build a strong historical “spine,”
  2. deepen with anchors,
  3. add color/context,
    while keeping your existing [x] progress.

How to run the Accordion (repeat for every stage)

  • Pass A — Spine (survey): one overview/history/intro for the era.
  • Pass B — Anchors (primary texts): the core works that define the problems of that era.
  • Pass C — Color & comparison: secondary works, debates, and one explicit comparison to an earlier era.

Stage 0 — Reference Shelf (use continuously, not as a “phase”)

Supplementary

Videos (deduped)

Overview Books (you’ve completed these — keep as “revisit” tools)

  • Simon Blackburn — Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
  • Bryan Magee — The Story of Philosophy
  • A. C. Grayling — The History of Philosophy
  • C. Stephen Evans — A History of Western Philosophy: From the Pre-Socratics to Postmodernism
  • Roger Scruton — Philosophy: Principles and Problems

Stage 1 — Ancient Mediterranean (Pre-Socratic & Classical)

Pass A — Spine

  • Use Waterfield + Adamson as your “era map,” and Barnes VSI as the Aristotle orientation.

Pass B — Anchors

  • Plato + Aristotle core readings you already finished stay here.

Pass C — Reference / expansion

  • Robin Waterfield (ed.) — The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists
  • Plato — Five Dialogues
  • Plato — Phaedo
  • Plato — The Symposium
  • Peter S. Adamson — Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1 by Peter Adamson
  • Jonathan Barnes — Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction (1982)
  • Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics
  • Reference
    • Plato — Complete Works, Dialogues, Socratic Dialogues
    • Aristotle — Complete Works (Vols. I & II)
    • Xenophon — Cyropaedia

Stage 2 — Hellenistic & Roman

Pass A — Spine

  • Adamson Vol. 2 is the historical/idea spine for this stage.

Pass B — Anchors

  • Stoics + Cicero as the center of gravity.

Pass C — Color / modern application

  • Peter Adamson — Hellenistic & Roman Philosophy (Vol. 2)
  • Seneca — Letters from a Stoic
  • Epictetus — Discourses / Handbook / Fragments
  • Musonius Rufus — That One Should Disdain Hardships
  • Cicero — De Oratore (Books I–II)
  • James Stockdale — Courage Under Fire

Stage 3 — Classical Chinese (parallel spine)

(You can run this in parallel with Stages 1–2, or as a dedicated “Eastern block.”)

Pass A — Spine

  • Kupperman / Harrison for orientation.

Pass B — Anchors

  • Confucius + Dao De Jing (you’ve done) + the Four Classics collection.

Pass C — Expansion

  • Confucius — The Complete Confucius
  • Ken Liu — Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time
  • Joel Kupperman — Classic Asian Philosophy
  • Victoria Harrison — Eastern Philosophy: The Basics
  • David Hinton — The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius (-300.0)
  • Ken Liu — Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time

Stage 4 — Late Antique & Medieval

4A — Late Antique & Neoplatonism (c. 200–600)

  • Augustine belongs here (moved from Ancient so the timeline is clean).
  • Augustine of Hippo — Confessions
  • Plotinus — The Enneads (Loeb, Armstrong)
  • Radek Chlup — Proclus: An Introduction
  • Proclus — The Elements of Theology (Dodds)
  • References
    • Plutarch — Moralia (selections)
    • Armstrong — Nature, Contemplation, and the One
    • Gerson — Plotinus Commentary & Plotinus the Platonist
    • Dillon & Gerson — Neoplatonism
    • Remes & Slaveva-Griffin — Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism

4B — Medieval (c. 500–1500)

  • Boethius — Consolation of Philosophy
  • Peter Adamson — Philosophy in the Islamic World (Vol. 3)
  • Ibn Rushd — Incoherence of the Incoherence
  • Maimonides — A Reader (Twersky)
  • Peter Adamson — Medieval Philosophy (Vol. 4)
  • Fergus Kerr — Aquinas: VSI
  • Peter Kreeft — A Shorter Summa
  • Brian Davies — Intro to Philosophy of Religion
  • Bernard McGinn — Foundations of Mysticism
  • Reference
    • Klima — Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings
    • Bosley & Tweedale — Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy
    • Pseudo-Dionysius — Complete Works (select)
    • Eric Perl — Theophany
    • John Scotus Eriugena — Periphyseon (abridged selections)
    • Meister Eckhart — Mystical Works

Stage 5 — Renaissance & Early Modern (1500–1700)

Pass A — Spine

  • Use VSIs (Sorell, Tuck, Dunn) as “era scaffolding.”

Pass B — Anchors

  • Descartes → Hobbes/Locke → Spinoza/Leibniz (as your core arc).

Pass C — Color / political context

  • Montaigne — Essays (selected)
  • Sarah Bakewell — How to Live
  • Machiavelli — Discourses
  • Descartes — Discourse on the Method
  • Descartes — Meditations
  • Tom Sorell — Descartes: VSI
  • Pascal — Pensées
  • Spinoza — Ethics (+ Scruton VSI)
  • Leibniz — New Essays on Human Understanding
  • Hobbes — Leviathan (+ Tuck VSI)
  • Locke — Second Treatise (+ Dunn VSI)
  • Locke — Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections)
  • Rousseau — Basic Political Writings
  • Rousseau — Emile
  • Montesquieu — The Spirit of the Laws
  • Voltaire — Candide
  • Bentham — Principles of Morals and Legislation
  • Mill — On Liberty; Utilitarianism
  • Paine — Rights of Man / Common Sense
  • Tocqueville — Democracy in America
  • Reference
    • Descartes — Collected Works (Principles, etc.)
    • Zweig — Montaigne
    • Pocock — Machiavellian Moment (chapters)
    • Montesquieu — Persian Letters
    • De Maistre — Considerations on France

Stage 6 — Enlightenment (1680–1800)

Pass A — Spine

  • VSIs + a single “map” of the project (reason, science, morality, politics).

Pass B — Anchors

  • Hume → Kant is the conceptual ridge-line.

Pass C — Expansion

  • Ayer — Hume: VSI
  • Hume — Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  • Hume — Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
  • Hume — Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
  • Hume — Standard of Taste
  • Adam Smith — Theory of Moral Sentiments
  • Rousseau — Discourse on Inequality; Social Contract
  • Scruton — Kant: VSI
  • Kant — Prolegomena
  • Kant — Groundwork
  • Kant — Critique of Pure Reason (core parts)
  • Kant — *Critique of the Power of Judgment
  • Reference
    • Hume — Treatise of Human Nature (selections)
    • Kant — Paton Groundwork commentary
    • Kirk — Conservative Mind (later context)
    • Grayling — Russell: VSI (20th c.)
    • Voltaire — Candide (already in Early Modern)

Stage 7 — German Idealism / 18th–19th c. Context

Pass A — Spine

  • Beiser / Pinkard before you attempt Hegel.

Pass B — Anchors

  • Hegel (Phenomenology + History lectures).

Pass C — Reference

  • Beiser — German Idealism
  • Pinkard — German Philosophy 1760–1860
  • Hegel — Phenomenology of Spirit
  • Hegel — Lectures on the Philosophy of History
  • Reference
    • Deleuze — Kant’s Critical Philosophy
    • Gardner — A Kant Dictionary

Stage 8 — 19th Century (1800–1900)

Pass A — Spine

  • Use “short” Schopenhauer + the arc into Marx and Kierkegaard.

Pass B — Anchors

  • Marx & Engels + Kierkegaard (and whichever others you prioritize).

Pass C — Expansion

  • Schopenhauer — On the Suffering of the World
  • Kierkegaard — Fear and Trembling; Sickness Unto Death
  • Feuerbach — Essence of Christianity
  • Stirner — Ego and Its Own
  • Marx & Engels — Communist Manifesto
  • Marx — Capital, Vol. I (core sections)
  • Mill — On Liberty; Utilitarianism; Principles of Political Economy (selections)
  • Bentham/Mill — Utilitarianism and Other Essays
  • Reference
    • Mill — System of Logic (Book III)
    • Lukács — History and Class Consciousness
    • Lenin — Left-Wing Communism
    • James Lindsay — Marxification of Education

Stage 9 — 20th Century

Pass A — Spine

  • Pick one analytic thread and one continental thread (don’t do everything at once).

Pass B — Anchors

  • Russell/Frege/Quine (analytic) + Husserl/Heidegger/Sartre (continental) as core.

Pass C — Expansion

  • Russell — Problems of Philosophy
  • Moore — Principia Ethica
  • Frege — Foundations of Arithmetic
  • Ayer — Language, Truth and Logic
  • Quine — Two Dogmas of Empiricism
  • Popper — Conjectures and Refutations
  • Misak — Cambridge Pragmatism
  • Grice — Studies in the Way of Words
  • Anscombe — Modern Moral Philosophy
  • Foot — Natural Goodness
  • Appiah — Thinking It Through
  • Chalmers — Reality+
  • Husserl — Logical Investigations, Vol. 1
  • Heidegger — Being and Time
  • Sartre — Existentialism is a Humanism
  • Beauvoir — What Is Existentialism?
  • Camus — Myth of Sisyphus
  • Gramsci — Prison Notebooks
  • Althusser — Lenin and Philosophy
  • Derrida — Of Grammatology
  • Baudrillard — Simulacra and Simulation
  • Reference
    • Frege — Begriffsschrift
    • Potter — Rise of Analytic Philosophy
    • Appiah — Thinking It Through (if as reference instead)
    • Žižek — Sublime Object of Ideology (optional)

Stage 10 — Thematic “Accordion Modules” (run alongside Stages 6–9)

These are not separate histories; they’re topic tracks you can interleave once you’ve hit Early Modern → Kant.

Ethics & Moral Philosophy (module)

  • Spine → intro texts; Anchors → major positions; Color → disputes & applications.
  • Allan Gibbard — Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990)
  • Christine M. Korsgaard — The Sources of Normativity (1996)
  • David Benatar — Better Never to Have Been (2006)
  • G.A. Cohen — Finding Oneself in the Other (2012)
  • J.L. Mackie — Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977)
  • James Rachels — The Elements of Moral Philosophy (2003)
  • Julia Driver — Ethics: The Fundamentals (2006)
  • Mark Eli Kalderon — Moral Fictionalism (2005)
  • Michael Huemer — Ethical Intuitionism (2005)
  • Peter Singer — Practical Ethics (1979)
  • Peter Singer — Ethics in the Real World (2016)
  • Richard Joyce — The Myth of Morality (2001)
  • Russ Shafer-Landau — Moral Realism: A Defence (2003)
  • Russ Shafer-Landau — The Fundamentals of Ethics (2009)
  • T.M. Scanlon — What We Owe to Each Other (1999)
  • Thomas Nagel — The View From Nowhere (1986)
  • William MacAskill — What We Owe the Future (2022)
  • Sam Harris — The Moral Landscape (2010)

Metaphysics / Philosophy of Religion / Free Will (module)

  • J.L. Schellenberg — Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (1993)
  • Michael Frede — A Free Will (2011)
  • Robert M. Sapolsky — Determined (2023)
  • Stephen C. Meyer — The Return of the God Hypothesis (2021)
  • Thomas Metzinger — The Elephant and the Blind
  • Philip Goff — Why? The Purpose of the Universe (2023)

Epistemology / Philosophy of Language / Logic (module)

  • A.P. Martinich — The Philosophy of Language (1985)
  • J.L. Austin — How to Do Things with Words (1955)
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein — Philosophical Investigations (1953)
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein — On Certainty (1969)
  • R.M. Sainsbury — Paradoxes (1988)
  • Antoine Arnauld — Logic or the Art of Thinking (1662)
  • Lowry Pressly — The Right to Oblivion

Philosophy of Science (module)

  • K. Brad Wray — Resisting Scientific Realism
  • Massimo Pigliucci — Philosophy of Pseudoscience (2013)
  • Peter Godfrey-Smith — Theory and Reality
  • Alan Chalmers — What Is This Thing Called Science?
  • Barker & Kitcher — Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction
  • Alexander Rosenberg — Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
  • Bas C. Van Fraassen — The Scientific Image (1980)

Political & Social Theory (module)

  • Kymlicka — Contemporary Political Philosophy
  • MacIntyre — After Virtue
  • Arendt — Human Condition; Origins of Totalitarianism; Eichmann in Jerusalem
  • Rawls — Justice as Fairness; Lectures on Political Philosophy
  • Reference
    • Arendt — Life of the Mind
    • Popper — Logic of Scientific Discovery
    • Trotsky — Permanent Revolution
    • Lenin — State and Revolution
    • Mao — On Practice
    • Luxemburg — Reform or Revolution

Leftist Ideology (module)

  • Rousseau — Discourse on Inequality (revisit)
  • Marx — Capital I
  • Lenin — What Is to Be Done?
  • Adorno & Horkheimer — Dialectic of Enlightenment
  • Benjamin — Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
  • Marcuse — One-Dimensional Man
  • Foucault — Discipline and Punish; History of Sexuality Vol. 1
  • Beauvoir — Second Sex
  • Butler — Gender Trouble
  • Fanon — Wretched of the Earth
  • Said — Orientalism
  • Freire — Pedagogy of the Oppressed
  • Boal — Theatre of the Oppressed
  • Reference
    • Mao — Cultural Revolution speeches
    • Dutschke — Long March
    • Marcuse — Repressive Tolerance
    • Althusser — Ideology & ISAs
    • Lacan — Mirror Stage
    • Deleuze & Guattari — Anti-Oedipus; A Thousand Plateaus
    • Butler — Bodies That Matter
    • Sedgwick — Epistemology of the Closet
    • hooks — Teaching to Transgress; Feminism Is for Everybody
    • Firestone — Dialectic of Sex
    • Crenshaw — Intersectionality essays
    • Bell — Faces at the Bottom of the Well
    • Spivak — Can the Subaltern Speak?
    • Bhabha — Location of Culture
    • Giroux — Teachers as Intellectuals; On Critical Pedagogy
    • Jay (ed.) — Critical Theory: A Reader

Political Philosophy / Philosophy of Politics (module)

  • Alexander Hamilton — The Federalist Papers (1788)
  • Allan Bloom — The Closing of the American Mind (1987)
  • Amia Srinivasan — The Right to Sex (2021)
  • Andrew Valls — Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy (2005)
  • Anne Applebaum — Twilight of Democracy (2020)
  • Arthur C. Brooks — The Conservative Heart (2015)
  • Barry M. Goldwater — The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
  • David Runciman — How Democracy Ends (2018)
  • David Stasavage — The Decline and Rise of Democracy
  • Elizabeth S. Anderson — Hijacked (2023)
  • Friedrich Engels — Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880)
  • Helen Pluckrose — Cynical Theories (2020)
  • Ian Shapiro — The Moral Foundations of Politics (2003)
  • Jack Donnelly — Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (1989)
  • Jonathan Sacks — Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (2019)
  • Leo Strauss — Natural Right and History (1949)
  • Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. — Against the State (2014)
  • Ludwig von Mises — Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (1920)
  • Lynn Hunt — Inventing Human Rights (2007)
  • Mary Wollstonecraft — A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
  • Richard Tuck — Natural Rights Theories (1979)
  • Robert B. Edgerton — Sick Societies (1992)
  • Steven Levitsky — How Democracies Die (2018)
  • Thomas Paine — Common Sense (1776)
  • Thomas Robert Malthus — An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
  • Timothy Snyder — On Tyranny (2017)
  • Václav Havel — The Power of the Powerless (1978)
  • Zygmunt Bauman — Modernity and the Holocaust (1989)

History of Philosophy / Anthologies (module)

  • A.P. Martinich — Early Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary (2007)
  • Brian Tierney — The Idea of Natural Rights (1997)
  • James Bruce Ross — The Portable Renaissance Reader (1953)
  • Jon McGinnis — Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources (2007)
  • Robert Pasnau — Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 (2011)
  • Steven M. Cahn — Classics of Western Philosophy (1977)

Literature with Philosophical Themes (module)

  • C.S. Lewis — The Abolition of Man (1943)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky — Notes from the Underground (1864)
  • Jorge Luis Borges — Ficciones (1944)
  • Josef Pieper — Leisure: The Basis of Culture (1948)
  • Kurt Vonnegut Jr. — Harrison Bergeron (1961)
  • Kurt Vonnegut Jr. — Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
  • Robert Louis Stevenson — An Apology for Idlers (1877)
  • Stendhal — On Love (1822)

Ancient / Classical Sources (module)

  • Edith Hamilton — Mythology (1942)
  • Erasmus — The Praise of Folly (1508)
  • Polybius — The Histories
  • Publius Cornelius Tacitus — The Agricola and the Germany (98)
  • Publius Cornelius Tacitus — The Annals of Imperial Rome (116)
  • Quintilian — Institutio Oratoria

Contemporary Cultural / Social Critique (module)

  • Byung-Chul Han — Vita contemplativa (2023)
  • Christopher Blattman — Why We Fight
  • Meic Pearse — The Gods of War (2007)
  • Neil MacGregor — Living with the Gods (2018)
  • Paul Hazard — The Crisis of the European Mind (1935)
  • Richard Conrad — Culture Hacks
  • Matthew B. Crawford — Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009)
  • Michael A. Singer — The Surrender Experiment (2015)
  • Ryan Holiday — The Obstacle Is the Way (2014)

Practical Philosophy / Self-Help Inspired by Philosophy (module)

  • Ryan Holiday — The Obstacle Is the Way (2014)
  • Massimo Pigliucci — The Quest for Character
  • Sam Harris — Lying (2011)
  • Sam Harris — Making Sense (2020)

Misc (links & notes)

Completion Ledger — finish every “partial/selections” book by the end

This is the safety rail so “read parts now” still becomes “read all later.”

  • Cicero — De Oratore

    • Stage 2: Books I–II
    • Stage Ω (below): Book III (finish the work)

  • Montaigne — Essays

    • Stage 5: selected essays
    • Stage Ω: complete remaining essays

  • Locke — Essay Concerning Human Understanding

    • Stage 5: selections
    • Stage Ω: complete remaining chapters

  • Kant — Critique of Pure Reason

    • Stage 6: core parts
    • Stage Ω: complete remaining parts

  • Marx — Capital, Vol. I

    • Stage 8: core sections
    • Stage Ω: complete remaining sections

  • Mill — Principles of Political Economy

    • Stage 8: selections
    • Stage Ω: complete remaining chapters

Stage Ω — Full-Text Completion Pass (run after Stage 9)

  • Goal: convert every “selected/selections/core” into full completion (ledger above).
  • Rule: only one completion book at a time; interleave with light review of your era maps.