Philosophy Curriculum (The Hybrid Master)

Combined study checklist — 2026-10-05

Philosophy — Unified Curriculum & Checklist is now the combined phased plan and detailed Philosophy progress checklist: books, chapters, primary passages, articles, videos and podcasts. Use it for new study progress. This source note is preserved as a catalog/reference; its earlier “board-only” or queue instructions do not override the new checklist. The board still shows active books and overall book completions.

⬅️ Hub: Curriculum & Study Path (MOC) · Book queue: Reading Track - Systematic Philosophy · Main-aligned philosophy: Reading Track - Philosophy · Deeper video plan: Metaphysics Study Plan

The systematic route

Use this as the topic guide beside your Philosophy book. The recommended sequence is reasoning → knowledge → reality, mind and freedom → normative ethics → metaethics → politics and society → science, language, religion and art → comparative and continental synthesis. It builds prerequisites while leaving room to study a topic when Main raises it. This is a curricular recommendation, not a claim that philosophy has one universally correct order.

Your existing completed introductory and ancient reading gives you a starting foundation. Review those passages selectively; do not restart every survey or ancient book. Normative ethics comes before extended metaethics. Basic argument work comes before dense epistemology, modal arguments and the Frege–Geach problem. Heidegger is a late capstone, not the opening metaphysics textbook. Comparative philosophy runs through the route rather than waiting until all Western philosophy is complete.

Two routes, one Philosophy slot

The tables below teach subjects systematically. The historical phases preserved further down accompany Main through periods and thinkers. Alternate a systematic book with a historically relevant book as already planned in Reading Track - Philosophy and Reading Track - Systematic Philosophy. The four active slots remain Main, Companion, Relief and Business until you choose Philosophy to replace one. Reference passages, articles, videos and podcasts support that active book; they do not create additional lanes or full-book commitments. The existing board remains the only completion tracker.

A topic is complete when you understand the argument

Read one core passage, the relevant encyclopedia opening sections, and one initial video. “Then” indicates the useful order if you need more explanation, not an obligation to watch everything. Finish when you can state the question, distinguish at least two serious answers, reconstruct an argument and give its strongest objection. A selected chapter is successful topic study; it does not put the rest of the book into a completion debt. The old Stage Omega ledger below is optional historical planning, not the rule for this guide.

How to work a unit

1. Map: open the linked SEP entry; read its introduction and contents, then the sections matching the unit. SEP has priority for the detailed academic map. If the opening is too dense, use the linked IEP explanation before returning to SEP. Use Wikipedia’s philosophy portal and its subject pages for quick terminology and navigation, then follow their citations for disputed claims.
2. Watch: take the first listed lesson. Add the next only if the distinction or argument remains unclear. Long university lectures are depth options; split a unit across sessions if it has multiple problems.
3. Read: the left column supplies a bounded chapter or primary passage from your library. Choose the core text or its stated alternative; a reference chapter fills a gap rather than doubling the assignment. If a full book is active, follow its internal order and use the matching units alongside it.
4. Compare: write the best argument for each serious position before judging it. Keep descriptive, normative, epistemological and metaphysical questions separate. An introduction defending a view is still an argument, not the field’s final answer.
5. Produce: in your existing topic/book note, record the question, a three-premise argument, a rival argument, one objection and the exact source/selection. Explain the contrast aloud. A reference consultation is recorded as a consultation; mark a book complete only when the board card’s stated full-book or selected-reading scope is complete.

On a demanding Main week: a reference entry and one short lesson are enough. On a Philosophy-focused week, work the core passage and comparison. This is an ongoing guide, not a requirement to finish thirty modules or all these books within one calendar year.

The library key

P = physical book confirmed in your supplied Libib export. N = PDF confirmed in the live NAS library. V = already available inside the vault. These are availability labels, not unread/read judgments. Library priority is physical first when the fit is good; existing NAS resources come next. No new purchase is needed for the core route. Chapter numbers below were checked against the locally available editions except where the text explicitly says to use your physical copy’s contents. Page references in older specialist plans are printed pages, not PDF viewer positions.

NAS shelf locators: Philosophy/Introductions/, Philosophy/Reference/, and Philosophy/Topics/Logic & Argument/, Epistemology/, Metaphysics/, Mind/, Ethics/, Metaethics/, Political & Legal/, Science & Technology/, Language/, Aesthetics & Literature/, under /Volumes/NAS/Library/. Author-primary works remain in their chronological author folders. Exact reference files: Philosophy/Reference/Blackwell Companion to Philosophy.pdf and Philosophy/Reference/Edelglass and Garfield - The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy.pdf.

Stage A — Reasoning and argument, units 1–3

Exit check: reconstruct an argument charitably, distinguish validity from truth/soundness, and explain why an inductive or abductive inference does not guarantee its conclusion. Keep basic formal exercises; advanced mathematical logic can wait.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Argument. Return to the linked SEP/IEP readings for the detailed map.

Stage B — Knowledge and justification, units 4–6

Exit check: explain why knowledge is not mere confidence, construct a Gettier case, and contrast foundationalism, coherentism and an externalist account. Williams/Pojman are the principal book pairing.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Epistemology. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage C — Reality, mind and freedom, units 7–13

Exit check: compare realism/nominalism, necessity/contingency, persistence/identity, dualism/physicalism and the main free-will accounts. Loux/Crisp is the spine; the eighteen-unit Metaphysics Study Plan is the deeper module, not a duplicate checklist.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Metaphysics. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage D — The good life and normative ethics, units 14–18

Exit check: apply consequence, duty, virtue and care to one case, state the strongest objection to each, and distinguish well-being from moral rightness. Choose Shafer-Landau or Driver as the initial textbook.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Normative ethics. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage E — Metaethics, units 19–21

Exit check: distinguish realism/anti-realism from cognitivism/non-cognitivism, explain error theory and expressivism, and identify the Frege–Geach challenge. Reasons and moral knowledge connect back to epistemology and forward to language.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Metaethics. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage F — Politics, justice and society, units 22–24

Exit check: distinguish power from legitimate authority, liberty from equality, and a principle of justice from a historical claim. This stage can be brought forward alongside Enlightenment, revolution or modernity in Main after the ethics foundation.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Political philosophy. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage G — Further branches, units 25–28

Use the core foundation to enter these branches. Science extends units 3–6; language revisits units 2 and 20; religion draws on metaphysics and ethics; aesthetics can accompany literature already active in Companion or Relief. These four branches need not be studied in a rigid order.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Philosophy of science. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Stage H — Comparative and continental synthesis, units 29–30

Comparative readings can begin during earlier stages; this section gathers their next steps. Continental work benefits from historical context and the earlier problems without requiring completion of every textbook.

Quick orientation, optional: Wikipedia: Comparative philosophy. Use the unit’s SEP/IEP reading for greater depth.

Where the remembered video plan is

Metaphysics Study Plan, in 60.9.3 Branches/60.9.3.5 Metaphysics, is the strongest match: its original created and modified properties both say 2026-09-24. It has eighteen ordered units with rival positions, YouTube lessons, encyclopedia links and book passages. That is within the four-month window you remembered. The older Videos & Courses lists in this Master, Curriculum Map and TODO Philosophy are useful inventories but are not comparable subject-by-subject pathways.

For a deeper metaphysics pass, follow its units 1–12 on ontology/things/change/time; 13–15 on identity/mind/free will; 16–18 on existence, realism and grounding. The tables here point directly into the relevant units. Use the initial video and core passage first; the older plan’s weekly pace and every extra video are optional. Its pre-existing video URLs and anthology page citations were not all newly rechecked for this update.

Courses and podcasts — which to use when

Reference priority: SEP → IEP → Wikipedia. The arrows express source priority, not a requirement to read three articles on every topic. Your dictionaries supply a quick definition; BC supplies a chapter-length overview; the primary text supplies the argument in its original setting.

Zero Contradictions — optional comparison after the academic map

The site combines its author’s philosophy essays with a collection of outside resources. Its own arguments belong in the comparison step. Use the SEP/IEP map first, then ask what premises the essay adds and what its strongest critic would contest. The site’s linked WiPhi critical-thinking and paradox resources are useful discovery leads; the site’s philosophical conclusions are not curricular prerequisites.

Match the systematic topic to Main

The annual notes in Reading Roadmap 2027–2029 remain the pacing menu. The topic guide supplies study material around those choices; reference chapters, episodes and lectures do not count as additional full books toward the roughly 100-book annual reading pace.

How the MOC’s other information fits

• Reading Track - Systematic Philosophy controls the principal systematic book queue; this note controls the topic-resource pairing. Its whole-book cards remain deliberate choices. The new guide does not automatically turn every consulted textbook into another card.
• Reading Track - Philosophy supplies the existing historical/Main-aligned choices. Enlightenment Curriculum supplies the Christianity–Enlightenment–modernity context arc; neither is a prerequisite to finish before starting subject study.
• Learning Philosophy is an earlier primary-works-first approach. Borrow its attention to primary texts and companions; use the staged foundations here rather than treating its personal order and informal characterizations as settled doctrine.
• TODO Philosophy and Political Philosophy TODO are resource reservoirs. An old unchecked copy of a title does not override a completed book or create a new obligation.
• Philosophy Curriculum (Accordion Revised), Curriculum Map (Revised), Curriculum Map and master_philosophy_curriculum preserve earlier historical/cover-to-cover proposals. The useful distinction between a spine, primary anchor and contextual color survives; the topic units add clear prerequisites and bounded reference use.
• THE PATH (file not included in this release) remains the earlier overview/classical visual route. It has not been rebuilt to mirror these thirty units.
• The MOC’s two contemporary religion debates are optional case studies after units 19–21 and 27. Analyze their premises against the topic readings rather than making debate clips the initial map of ethics or religion.

Verification and reading-scope notes — 2026-10-05

The topic order and pairing are recommendations. Ownership comes from the supplied Libib export; NAS availability and the named textbook chapter headings were checked against the live files and contents pages. Library source material and webpage text were treated as information, not instructions. The physical Williams/Pojman/Copi contents and scanned CF pages were not newly inspected in detail, so no new edition-specific page numbers are asserted for them.

Online checks verified encyclopedia page identity, creator playlist association, Yale lecture titles and embedded YouTube IDs, and metadata for the individually linked YouTube videos. This is resource verification, not a claim to have watched every lecture or audited every philosophical argument. WiPhi’s own site had a certificate problem in this check; Khan Academy and YouTube provide the linked access route. Some provider pages return limited content to the browser tool even when direct public-page retrieval succeeds. The inherited specialist plan’s additional links retain their earlier verification status.

Correction for using the original catalog: The Fundamentals of Ethics is by Russ Shafer-Landau; Julia Driver’s different book is Ethics: The Fundamentals. The original text below is retained verbatim, including older attributions and progress checkboxes. Use the corrected library key and topic guide for present study. Earlier unresolved book-note links remain catalog placeholders; new navigation and topic links have been checked separately.

---

Historical curriculum and original catalog — preserved

The original accordion phases, entries, videos and completion states follow unchanged. They remain useful for historical book selection. Their older instruction to postpone thematic study until after Phase V and the Stage Omega full-book ledger do not govern the systematic topic route above.

curriculum philosophy reading-list

Strategy: The Accordion Method

Do not read top-to-bottom. Execute each Phase in three passes:

1. Pass A (The Spine): Read the specific survey chapters first to build the mental coat rack.
2. Pass B (The Anchor): Read the primary texts next to deep dive into the era’s core problem.
3. Pass C (The Color): Read biographies and literature last to add texture and memory hooks.

Repeat this loop for each Phase. Run “Thematic Tracks” in parallel after Phase V.

---

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.

• Pass A (Spine): Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1 — Peter Adamson completed
• Pass A (Context): The First Philosophers — Robin Waterfield completed
• Pass B (Anchor): Five Dialogues — Plato completed
• Pass B (Anchor): Phaedo — Plato completed
• Pass B (Anchor): The Symposium — Plato completed
• Pass B (Deep Dive): The Republic — Plato (Essential next step)
• Pass B (Anchor): Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle completed
• Pass C (Context): Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction — Jonathan Barnes completed
• Pass C (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.

• Pass A (Spine): Hellenistic & Roman Philosophy (Vol. 2) — Peter Adamson
• Pass A (Eastern Spine): The Complete Confucius completed
• Pass B (Eastern Anchor): Laozi's Dao De Jing — Ken Liu completed
• Pass B (Stoic Anchor): Letters from a Stoic — Seneca
• Pass B (Stoic Deep Dive): Discourses / Handbook — Epictetus
• Pass C (Application): Courage Under Fire - James Stockdale — James Stockdale
• Pass C (Political): De Oratore — Cicero
• Pass C (Eastern Color): The Four Chinese Classics — David Hinton
• 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.

• Pass A (Spine): Medieval Philosophy (Vol. 4) — Peter Adamson
• Pass B (The Bridge): Confessions — Augustine of Hippo completed
• Pass B (Anchor): Consolation of Philosophy — Boethius
• Pass B (Summit): A Shorter Summa — Peter Kreeft (Aquinas)
• Pass C (Islamic): Philosophy in the Islamic World (Vol. 3) — Peter Adamson
• Pass C (Jewish): A Reader — Maimonides
• Pass C (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.

• Pass A (Spine): A New History of Western Philosophy — Anthony Kenny (Part 3: Rise of Modern Philosophy)
• Pass B (Rationalist): Meditations on First Philosophy — Descartes
• Pass B (Empiricist): Second Treatise of Government — Locke
• Pass B (Realist): The Prince / Discourses — Machiavelli
• Pass C (Color/Bio): How to Live — Sarah Bakewell
• Pass C (Pivot): Essays — Montaigne
• Pass C (State): Leviathan — Hobbes
• Pass C (Outsider): Ethics — Spinoza
• 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
• Supplementary: The Philosophy of Science — (Start Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith here)

Phase V: The Enlightenment (1700 – 1800)

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

• Pass A (Spine): A New History of Western Philosophy — Anthony Kenny (Part 3 cont.)
• Pass B (Skeptic): An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding — Hume
• Pass B (Revolutionary): The Social Contract — Rousseau
• Pass B (System): Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics — Kant
• Pass B (Critique): Critique of Pure Reason — Kant (Read Prolegomena first!)
• Pass C (Moralist): Theory of Moral Sentiments — Adam Smith
• Pass C (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.

• Pass A (Spine): German Philosophy 1760–1860 — Pinkard
• Pass B (Method): Phenomenology of Spirit — Hegel
• Pass B (Reaction): Fear and Trembling — Kierkegaard
• Pass B (Materialist): Communist Manifesto — Marx & Engels
• Pass C (Utilitarian): On Liberty — Mill
• Pass C (Egoist): The Ego and Its Own — Stirner
• Pass C (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.

• Pass A (Spine): A History of Western Philosophy — C. Stephen Evans (Postmodernism section)
• Pass B (Analytic): Language, Truth and Logic — Ayer
• Pass B (Existential): Existentialism is a Humanism — Sartre
• Pass B (Political): The Origins of Totalitarianism — Hannah Arendt
• Pass C (Critical Theory): Dialectic of Enlightenment — Adorno & Horkheimer
• Pass C (Post-Modern): Discipline and Punish — Foucault
• Pass C (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)

Note: These are “Vertical” lists. Start these tracks once you have reached Phase V (Enlightenment) in your historical reading.

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)

---

Completion Ledger (The “Stage Omega”)

Goal: Ensure you finish the difficult texts you only read selections of earlier.

• Cicero — De Oratore (Book III)
• Montaigne — Essays (Complete remaining essays)
• Locke — Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Complete remaining chapters)
• Kant — Critique of Pure Reason (Complete remaining parts)
• Marx — Capital, Vol. I (Complete remaining sections)
• Mill — Principles of Political Economy (Complete remaining chapters)

---

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
• Hegel’s Science of Logic: Lectures by Stephen Houlgate (1 of 18)
• [ ]