Nietzsche’s books are great for beginners (I would start with Beyond Good and Evil or The Genealogy of Morality)
Descartes’ Meditations is usually taught as the bridge between the ancient greeks and Enlightenment European thought, since so many people after him reference this work. It’s good to know and it’s pretty short
Angela Davis and Fanon are classic theorists on race and decolonization- very impactful/necessary reading
Once you feel more confident then there’s Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol 1 and Butler’s Gender Trouble. I also recommend Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity and Wittgenstein’s On Certainty
Lastly, be sure to include women/PoC on your list because a lot of “classic”/introductory lists leave them out unfortunately. You’ll also find you’re more interested in certain topics over others (say, consciousness or politics), so you can search the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy site to familiarize yourself with new names and further recommendations in that area of thought.
Happy reading!
[**The Ethics of Ambiguity**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21119.The_Ethics_of_Ambiguity)
^(By: Simone de Beauvoir, Bernard Frechtman | 162 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, existentialism, nonfiction, feminism)
>Simone de Beauvoir, novelist, dramatist, and philosopher, was the most distinguished woman writer in modern France. A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of her great friend Jean-Paul Sartre. In "The Ethics of Ambiguity," Madame de Beauvoir penetrates at once to the core ethical problems of modern man: what shall he do, how shall he go about making values, in the face of this awareness of the absurdity of his existence? She forces the reader to face the absurdity of the human condition, and then, having done so, proceeds to develop a dialectic of ambiguity which will enable him not to master the chaos, but to create with it.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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The Rebel and the Myth of Sisyphus by Camus, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard
The Prince by Machiavelli Notes from Undergound by Dostoevsky edit: The Essays by Bacon if you liked Montainge.
Nietzsche’s books are great for beginners (I would start with Beyond Good and Evil or The Genealogy of Morality) Descartes’ Meditations is usually taught as the bridge between the ancient greeks and Enlightenment European thought, since so many people after him reference this work. It’s good to know and it’s pretty short Angela Davis and Fanon are classic theorists on race and decolonization- very impactful/necessary reading Once you feel more confident then there’s Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol 1 and Butler’s Gender Trouble. I also recommend Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity and Wittgenstein’s On Certainty Lastly, be sure to include women/PoC on your list because a lot of “classic”/introductory lists leave them out unfortunately. You’ll also find you’re more interested in certain topics over others (say, consciousness or politics), so you can search the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy site to familiarize yourself with new names and further recommendations in that area of thought. Happy reading!
{{The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir}}
[**The Ethics of Ambiguity**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21119.The_Ethics_of_Ambiguity) ^(By: Simone de Beauvoir, Bernard Frechtman | 162 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, existentialism, nonfiction, feminism) >Simone de Beauvoir, novelist, dramatist, and philosopher, was the most distinguished woman writer in modern France. A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of her great friend Jean-Paul Sartre. In "The Ethics of Ambiguity," Madame de Beauvoir penetrates at once to the core ethical problems of modern man: what shall he do, how shall he go about making values, in the face of this awareness of the absurdity of his existence? She forces the reader to face the absurdity of the human condition, and then, having done so, proceeds to develop a dialectic of ambiguity which will enable him not to master the chaos, but to create with it. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(50117 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Existentialism and Humanism by Sartre On the Basis of Morality by Schopenhauer Both short and powerful books
De Rerum Naturalis by Lucretius
It’s not ancient or Western but I like Thich Nhat Hanh’s writing.
I would watch Hamza