Philosophical reading

[Angrboda]

Oh, one of my philosophy groups discussed Heidegger recently. Although I only read a 100 page primer on Heidegger, having read Sartre (Being and Nothingness, La Nausee, Huis Clos), having learned a bit about Husserl, and setting aside Nietszche for the moment, I would have to say that Heidegger stands head and shoulders above anyone else of the existentialists I'm familiar with. I was told by some of the others that the gaps or failings I saw in Heidegger were fleshed out by Merleau Ponty, but that's just their opinion. I don't dislike Sartre, and indeed, there are some key insights that I've gained from reading him — but those insights were gleaned from his penetrating insight and talent for phenomenological analysis, not from his "systeme". If I were to choose, I'd say Nietzsche and Heidegger, and skip Sartre. Sartre is but a Lilliputian in Heidegger's shadow. I read that Heidegger's "A History Of Time", or what is sometimes labeled as the prolegemona to the History, is essentially an early, shorter draft of Being and Time; so if you want a cheap date... The primer also pointed out some intriguing later papers, which, all have titles which tell you absolutely nothing about what their real content is, but I would say some are worth following up on independently.

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I notice your interests extend beyond philosophy. Not sure what you mean by "theoretical" psychology, but I would recommend:

Kahneman and Tversky, primarily for Prospect Theory (aka error theory) but they've done other work.
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, The Righteous Mind
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)
And something in the bounded rationality field; Gerd Gigerenzer is noteworthy.

What else. I'm interested in Graham Priest's dialetheism ("In Contradiction" and "Beyond The Limits Of Thought")
The third edition of Leo Strauss, ed., "History Of Political Philosophy" looks good
I'm a big fan of Daniel Dennett, "Consciousness Explained", "The Intentional Stance" and "Elbow Room" being seminal (and "Quining Qualia' for noteworthy paper's; speaking of Quine, the paper "The Two Dogma's of Empiricism"); I've yet to read Freedom Evolves.

And lest I forget, Laozi's Tao Te Ching, The Zhuangzi (Chuang Tse's inner chapters), and Sun Tzu's Art of War
Patricia Churchland, Neurophilosophy (probably the most important non-religious book I've read)

Oh, and for readers, I'm finding Blackwell is outstanding. Cambridge, hit and miss. Oxford, don't know (OUP Handbook of Free Will is good). Routledge, looks promising, but no real boots on the ground yet.