The first 7 philosophy texts you should read 

Awesome video! Here is the list: 1. Plato's Eythyphro; 2. Decartes' Meditations on First Philosophy 3. Princess Elizabeth's Letter to Decartes; 4. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; 5. H. P Grice's Logic and Conversation; 6. Ch. 2, 3, 4 of H. L. A. Hart's Concept of Law; 7. Peter Singer's Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Aristotle wrote dialogues too. They are all lost, but were very highly regarded in antiquity. The most famous was "On Justice." What we have of his writing today are his lecture notes (or so say most scholars). That's why they read so strangely.

Please post more often, Professor Kaplan! I had you as a GSI during my undergraduate years at UC Berkeley, and I am so happy to have found your RU-vid channel. You were the best GSI I had at Cal! The clarity of your teaching (as I remember it from section years ago and still in these videos) is truly a gift. You have the ability to make learning anything really fun (let alone philosophy which I enjoy). UNCG and all your students are lucky to have you. Thank you!!!

I love that you seem to genuinely love teaching and imparting knowledge to students. I think it would be great to be a student in your class.

I found _Russell's Paradox_ in my suggested feed a few days ago and loved it. I'm working my way through the rest of your catalog now. I can't believe I (and apparently many others) have been sleeping on your channel for so long. This is really good stuff! And the presentation is easy to follow and engaging. Absolutely love it. I wish I had resources like this when I first began to dive into philosophy. So many "masterpiece" works are incomprehensible drivel to the average Joe, who knows how many people have been turned off to philosophy as a whole because they didn't start in a good place. I know I was almost one of them. I'm so glad something like this exists to help people begin from a solid starting point. I'm sure there's a tired joke to be made about _what else would he do with a philosophy degree other than teach philosophy_ but it's clear that you've got a real talent and passion for it. I'm probably gushing a little much here, but hopefully this helps to get mor3 attention from The Algorithm™ to spread your stuff around some more.

Brilliant! Great approach towards making philosophy fun, clear, approachable! I enjoy your videos immensely! The energy and passion you keep putting into explaining these concepts - remarkable! Transparent whiteboard making it even better. Great work, man!

I have been looking for this channel for more than a decade. Not in name, but in spirit. Glad to have finally found it.

Stumbled on this and other videos of yours, and they are fantastic. Feeds a strong interest of mine and will guide my ongoing deep dives. Thanks so much!

Great stuff! Your energy and way of explaining things makes a lot of these more complicated issues way easier to understand as a relative newcomer and your students are very lucky.

Plato is actually extremely fun to read. I listened to a lot of his works in audiobook form, with different narrators for the different people participating in the dialogues. It almost made it sound like a modern day podcast in a way, I would recommend this to everyone.

Very nice choice and great presentation. Descarte's Discourse on Method is mandatory reading in French high school and the cornerstone of logical thinking, at the origin of both abstract scientific research and French Enlightement. Having a "cartesian spirit", searching for the principles behind the symptoms, is deeply engrained in French minds. I would add Louise Labbé's Debate of Folly and Love, pursuing Plato's Symposium to analyze how love, even disappointed, creates the impulse for creativity, achievement, mixing illusion and aspiration to perfect harmony.

Descartes‘ Meditations was one of the first things I read when majoring in philosophy. It is a great Text because of its simplicity and because you can really follow the argument and see where the premise stops and the conclusion starts.

Can’t wait to start reading these! I’ve been wanting to start reading philosophy, but had no idea where to start. Thank you sooo much!

Thanks for acknowledging Princess Elizabeth!!😍😍👏👏👏God bless you!!

Ran across your channel through your video on set theory and Russell's Paradox. Amazing work. Addictive binge watching.

Man had been posting mad videos for the past 3 years. How am I just getting recommends now. Instant new subscription!

So glad I found your vids through your reddit post. Your sense of humor and ability to make topics easily digestible, if you had the chance to write a book on philosophy I would buy it in an instant lol

This guy is great. I watched his videos on how to be a better student, and I managed to go from C's and B's to one B and all A's in college.

Thanks very much for recommending Famine, Affluence, and Morality! I read it right after watching this. What an incredible paper, certainly a lot to grapple with.

I'm so glad I've found this channel. Thank you.

Thank you Professor Kaplan so much for sharing this. I am just wrapping up a Philosopy 101 course that covered the first 4 items. I have added the last three items on your list to my future reading list.

Professor Kaplan, I you read these comments then I get to reiterate what many others have said; you are very good at what you do. I had to subscribe.

My man, you have found your calling. Thank you for your work.

Excellent, thank you. Grice and Implicature have always astounded me for the charity of thinking that his analysis needed, and yet it is so obviously true that you think, how could we possibly have not understood that before? Wonderful.

could you do a video on how to object to philosophical arguments by attacking premises, using counterexamples, spotting logical flaws or attacking metaphysical underpinnings?

I’ve wanted to access philosophy for years. Thank you for this video.

Thanks for the video, now I know what to read to start learning philosphy

I have never read any of these but thanks for the nice short introductions, they seem succinct and precise 😅

I like that you jump around and point out the most talked about and undersrandable portions of works. Too often, people suggest you read one 500+ page book after another. That approach can be fine, if you are already super motivated to read philosophy. Most people aren't that robot like though.

I am bored and stumble upon this video through algorithm. And it's not disappointing at all. I have read one of these reading list (like meditation by Descartes). This guy open possibilities for me to read similar tone of works in philosophy reading that is so beginner friendly yet intriguing at the same times. Thanks, professor :)

I didn’t have you as a GSI at Berkeley, but I’m so glad you included Princess Elizabeth’s letters to Descartes. They were part of the readings in Crockett’s Descartes course and I remember thinking why doesn’t anybody ever mention these letters when discussing Descartes. They’re so important!

Great video! This was a well thought out list, and I surprisingly haven't read all of these books. Can't wait for new videos

You are an excellent teacher. Please continue making these videos.

I’m so glad to see a new video of you😍

It should be noted that Plato wrote the texts bearing his name. Aristotle's texts are probably compilations of notes taken by his students. The texts are redactions.

A fellow Philosophy RU-vidr! Keep on doing the good work.

I enjoy your content; thank you for helping me progress in my learning journey.

Good evening sir! I am a student of UCP and attended your lecture on Law and Morality. I wanted to thank you for imparting your knowledge and expressing philosophy so well!

I concur with you on Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason._ Also with your quip about Singer's _Famine, Affluence, and Morality,_ as I have a hard enough time getting enough quality sleep. By the way, thank you for introducing me to that last work.

This is such an interesting video, I was fascinated by your beautiful tie! :>

Love H. L. A. Hart's little book (the only J. L. Austin book I've ever read is the even smaller How to do Things with Words). So far as 'legal studies' in general are concerned I also dug a few very different, perhaps more 'literary' as opposed to 'technical,' texts: Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law, Oliver Wendell Holmes' Breakfast Table series, and a mammoth biography of Learned Hand I read a few years back, the author of which now escapes me! Will check out the Grice paper --thanks!

I consider chapters 1 and 2 of Aristotle’s Metaphizica to be the best starting point as he literally comes with a genealogy of knowledge

I hope it isn't unwelcome for me to make requests like this in your comment section, but I would love to see a video series on James's Pragmatism lectures at some point! No other philosopher seems to shoot himself in the foot so often to actually make himself understood by his readership, a fact made all the more troubling by how clean his prose is. Whereas other philosophers are challenging because their writing is dense or even obscurantist, James's is hard to understand because it so radically appears otherwise. I have a bias here in that I'd consider myself a pragmatist, so of course I want to see content on James, but this is an influential piece of writing whose unassuming appearances make it prone to dramatic misinterpretation. Regardless, adore your videos!

Greatly appreciate the Hart suggestion. Might have my students look at this.

Thank you, my thinking self feels much better situated.

When I was adrift doing my masters with one abandoned thesis topic under my belt, I had a vague idea to write about first aid ethics, inspired by my time volunteering with my campus first aid team. My advisor gave me Singer's Famine and told me to respond to it. It ended up being the crux of my first chapter as I tried to argue that Singer's requirements to act are too strong and narrow to be a useful framework when examining actions along a beneficence continuum. I argued that knowledge (specifically phronesis, or practical wisdom) is the key to selecting morally appropriate actions in emergencies (that's the gist, but there was a lot more that went into fleshing it out). I found Singer super frustrating because of how good his argument is, and it took me a long time to turn my vague hunch into a defensible position. Anyway, this video was a great walk down memory lane for me!

I first read Singer in the early 80‘s. I’ve carried his views with reflection since, with some affection.

Was just watching this and thnking Professor Rosencrantz had me read all those back when I took his philosophy classes at UNC-G. And then you said the thing about UNC-G:)

Good shit. Keep'em coming doc

Man, amazing video, almost convinced of reading his recommendations, never philosophy in my readings..thanks.

Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", as well as Saint Gregory Palamas's “Triad” and “Apology”.

Truly amazing presentation and selection. Can't thank you enough for directly aknowledge and then just cut off all the bloating usually invade any text about thinking.

Hi, i've just subrcribed. I studied philosophy of science and politics for my degree in Behavioural sciences - you are persuading me to take up more readings in other areas

Your channel is amazing man!

A really fun text I read in philosophy class on highschool was Anselm's Ontological Argument. It's simple but kinda weird and you can also do as we did in class and make your own critique of it.

Your channel is a goldmine

I was wondering only yesterday about something along the lines of Singers reasoning. basically... why is it ok to justify just about any policy that is in the national interest, no matter how damaging it might be for others. Glad I found this, I will read it.

Fantastic! Could you do a part 2 with your recommended introductions into Islamic and Eastern philosophy?

I love your lectures. Let me put a bug in your ear to do a presentation on Robert Prisig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and his philosophy of Quality.

Thanks for the Grice. I hadn't heard of him, and in fact when you said it, I thought _Greiß._ Anyway, I just read the paper. One good recommendation deserves another. Along these lines, here are two: The former is _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_ by George Lakoff. It gives a description from a cognitive science perspective of something called _Idealized Cognitive Models,_ which are related to an older idea by Chuck Fillmore called _frames._ Grice's _maxims_ could be massaged into a CONVERSATION ICM, but there are many others. This gets very interesting. Consider the utterance _John isn't stingy; he's thrifty._ Note that _isn't_ does not negate any predicate. It negates the ICM or frame, suggesting that a different one is better. The latter is Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense." This presages a lot of cognitive science by a century. Very few philosophers seem to know about it, and the ones who do seem not to focus on the parts relevant to CS.

I have studied philosophy for more than half my life recreationally and in academia. All your recommendations are great and I to recommend that you read all of. That being said the bible has some of the most elegant answers to all of these questions. Especially when it comes to number 3

Would consider making a video on philosophy book recommendations covering metaphysics, epistemology, axiology and logic??

I might just read Logic and Conversation first because the concept of it intrigued me so much! But hey, did you notice that while the first texts are somewhat "western-global", the last ones are mostly from the English speaking world? Don't you think there might be a bias at work here, that one believes that ones surroundings are of more "general importance" than they really are, as in, in 500 years from now, professor Jeffrey Kaplan VII might be recommending texts from today that are "western-global" rather than the anglosphere ones you're recommending? I'm just rambling here, great video none the less!

My plunge into philosophy occurred in the Seventies, but bypassed all the names listed in this piece and instead led to De Beauvoir, Sartre, Camus, Russell and various writers whose works involved philosophy, but were not in themselves philosophical treatises, Hesse, Huxley, Kafka among others. De Beauvoir's "The Blood of Others" kept me awake at nights in an existential dilemma! 😅

Thank you for this amazing list. I was wondering if there were any accessible reading materials you would suggest to get into Eastern Philosophy?

Fantastic ! I miss when philosophy channels were more about philosophy and less about performance.

This is actually pretty cool. My introduction to Philosophy was Nietzsche (like so many other people) and even if I like his work I have to say that it’s not for everybody. Also the recommendation changes if you want to understand whats Philosophy all about or you want to understand a particular topic. Great video by the way

I love linguistics and structuralism, and I have not read Grice. Thanks for the reccomendation!

The Eloquent Peasant from The Middle Kingdom of Egypt is an excellent philosophical piece regarding the obligations that the wealthy and powerful have towards society.

I just found this channel and absolutely love it. As far as is being could you touch upon the theory that the universe as we know it could be the creation of a highly advanced computer programming set to create a universe based on evolving programming?

Grice's "Logic & Conversation" is something of a surprise as a recommendation for introductory readers. Grice's conception of implicatures makes more sense in the context of the linguistic turn in early 20th Century analytic philosophy, especially post-Wittgenstein.

the question about where you should start with reading philosophy is what it is that you want to gain from it. there is no singular answer, though this is a fairly good list for people wanting to understand several key points in the history of philosophy

LMAO I had that Aristotle style rigidity issue hit me in the face like a brick after I finished City of God by St. Augustine and started Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas. Augustine has this swaggering form of rhetoric that's really fun to read and Aquinas would list out a question, write out each detailed objection to the question, followed by his argument which neatly addressed every single objection that was previously raised. Aquinas was extremely rigorous, well thought out, and that's why he's this titanic monolith in Catholic theology. But he can be so dull. Fun fact, Aquinas refers to Aristotle only as "The Philosopher." That is a massive compliment and makes a lot of sense considering the obsession with rigor that both men shared.

Hey, Loving your work after watching your video on Peter Singer. Was just wondering if you would recommend After Virtue by Alasdair Macintyre, or know of any texts I should also read alongside it?

thank you for the advices!

I would think An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding would be a better choice for Hume since it has most of the same points as the Treatise, as well as some of the points on religion in the On Miracles section. In general I think a lot of people getting into philosophy are interested in Existentialism, and since most of the existentialists are also very literary in the same vein as Plato, I think they are good places to start.

Thank you, Jeffrey!

Nice move to highlight Princess Elizabeth at '#3', depite the fact that you neglect to say whether they're in order of importance. The Princess was no doubt a 'super-smart cookie' but her entanglement with Descartes makes it almost impossible to decide who influenced whom on many different issues.

Indeed, a must ;)...Great suggestions ;)

I just started started college, I'm majoring in philosophy and I completely agree, my curriculum has me reading Aristotle's Metaphysics as my first philosophy book and it's been confusing to say the least, the fact that the book is trilingual (greek, spanish and latin) does not help at all.

I do understand a little, but it helps me to expand my logic. Subscribed with pleasure♥. May I ask you to explain the mathematic Discriminant? I was pretty good in school at calculating it, but I never understood the reason why I do it.

Philosophy works best when you read it in chronological order , getting an idea of how and when certain concepts came to be

Wow there were ads at the beginning of this video. I hope you are getting a share of the monetization... Your videos are great.

I'm reading coherence of the cohorance by Averroes, I find it so good.

You had me at Euthyphro

As an attempt at a solution to the Euthyphro, there is an interesting article called "Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro" by Norman Kretzmann that is worth checking out.

I would say read process and reality first, it’s clear concise and short!

Hey! ASD Level 1 here..... I totally didn't understand "Student has excellent handwriting" meant they were a bad philosophy student. But I can understand why it means that after it being pointed out . Now I want to read all of that guy's (Griggs?) Work on communication

I'm liking your clear cut and well explained videos on philosophy, but if I may recommend using a better microphone. The audio is ok but even a slightly better mic could make it sound a lot better.

+10 for Euthaphro you draw much better than I do

The most influential (fo me) philosophical treatise was Being and Nothingness by J.P. Sartre. I had read Kant before, so it wasn't impossibly hard, but I got slapped with so many terms of art to start with that I had to read it alongside a digested form. I'd take a chapter, read the original, then the digest, then the original again. Most people don't -- or at least I don't -- know what a "thetic pole" or "ipseity" is, let alone all the German terms that had been invented since Kant, without help. By the time I got through it -- the first 2/3rds which is the general ontology; the last third of the book is the weakest part -- I was a much stronger person. If self-consciousness is your problem, that book will destroy that part of you down to the roots.

Thank you for this very helpful video. I am more interested in metaphysics, ontology and the philosophy of self, rather than ethics or law or morality. Can someone please recommend good, well translated introductory texts on this matter? The older the better.

Thank you Professor

Simply fantastic.

Plato's entire work is one unique long argument to describe what is justice, and it doesn't start in Eutiphro but in The Republic. The Republic is created as a though experiment to find what is justice for a man, as if the man is made by several conflicting and complementing parts that are hard to see in the man, but easier in a republic made from different sectors with different objectives. He recognizes that a man is complicated and he contradicts himself, so he could be divided in simpler parts, according with the notion that a simple object should do just a single thing. And the argument about the Republic starts because Thrasymachus gives a notion of justice that seems impossible to argue against. Everything that comes after just follows this line.

I recommend Georges Politzer's courses of philosophy....sure is very marxist, but it does help to find a solid overview on materialism, which works excellently after studying idealism and you want to balance both philosophies equally

Very helpful, although I would also want some which serve as well formed counterpoint. Such as an attack on the existence of God.

Please, don't ever go away. Your channel is THE only channel that explains philosophy concepts so well.

As someone that started philosphy by reading Kant's critique of pure reason, I can confirm I understood next to norhing

Make a part 2 please!