Philosophical reading

[liam]

My first ever philosophy book was Russell's essay "Why I Am Not A Christian"

At University I read Plato; 'Crito' and 'The Republic'.

Also used John Hospers "Introduction to Philosophical Analysis" a lot.

Only a few months ago I found Bertrand Russell's 'History Of Western Philosophy' in a second hand bookshop for 50 cents. Great stuff;such a lucid thinker.

All of those books should be available at any decent library. The Plato free on line in pdf form.

I'm not a fan of Plato, there's a lot lost in dialogues and his ideas, while obviously very important, seem to be the foundations of the subject and I am currently more occupied with the supposed 'footnotes on Plato' as Whitehead phrased it, sycophant.

Oh how I wish I could find one for the equivalent of 50 cents

While they are all available at the library, as my librarians have recently found out, I would rather own a personal copy, there is something so lovely about knowing that the knowledge you can collect in the books is yours and needn't be returned. Besides, a library copy wouldn't be much use at university next year

Also, JJC Smart and Bernard Williams' 'Utilitarianism: for and against' is a good read just for the established arguments for and against utilitarianism and generally speaking, consequentialism and deontology