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His Practical Ethics [0] and other books are excellent.
Primarily, I think it's important to very seriously think about our moral obligations to others, especially in today's interconnected world (where we not only can, but inevitably do affect others whether we like it or not).
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521...
Note that philosophy requires a significant amount of thought on your own part. There are parts of these three (and many others that follow) that are absurd. See Aristotle on many scientific matters. They lived in a society with slaves, so you’ll find some hierarchical views of humans that we now reject.
What’s most important from there is what you care about.
Is it epistemology — the study of knowledge? Or ethics — what is right, wrong, just? Is it political philosophy, be it democracy or monarchy or anarchy? Are you curious about power? Want to explore consciousness, what it is to be a “self” and the repercussions of those answers? Maybe linguistics, how we communicate, use language, and the strengths/weaknesses of it.
There is philosophy of sport, of war, of aesthetics; on gender and race; on the meaning (or not!) of things; on life and death and god(s) and spirituality; on machines, computers, and artificial intelligence.
I believe that the Greeks are important because they are so foundational to what comes after. Everything, the saying goes, is a footnote to them.
But after that, follow your questions. You can spend a hell of a lot of time reading things you don’t deeply care about. It will be a slog and without an external forcing function, you’ll probably lose interest and give up. For me that is philosophy of language, specifically a fair bit of what I consider to be nonsense in the past sixty years.
A good way to find who to read is to first know what people call it (e.g. epistemology) and then either find college courses or online lists. Go back to the early work and work your way through the Core. From there you’ll know enough of what the questions are that you can branch out.
* A very detailed and useful resource for a lot of topics is also the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2].
* You can also try the Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction series [3]. These cover a broad range of topics, not just philosophy; plus, you can approach each topic separately, without having to go through things that might not interest you.
Of course, these recommendations completely ignore non-western philosophical traditions. Hindu and Buddhist traditions might also be interesting to explore.
Personally I have approached philosophy strictly as an autodidact, hence quite haphazardly. After having explored a bunch of topics I however find most use and interest in those more modern and analytical parts of philosophy that touch on science, mathematics, cognitive science, logic.
Political and moral philosophy are also quite important because they allow you to get a grasp of the intellectual framework modern institutions are built on. A lot of the things that we take for granted (e.g. representative democracy, the ubiquity of nation-states, the central role of economic institutions in society) are actually not at all dictated by nature, but more by cultural norms and various philosophical ideas and systems.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...
[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/
[3] https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/v/very-short-...
So a lot of philosophical writing references a sort of general canon, at least as far as western thinking is concerned. Other traditions I'm sure have their own details but I can't speak intelligently to them. The field is enormous, and without more specific information regarding your goals it is difficult to pinpoint the classics in subfields that may interest you. That said, there are a few highlights I think you'r…
Why no Greeks? Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics at least!
I would add Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” as a short and readable intro to existentialism, followed by kierkegaard’s Being and Nothingness and Nietzche…maybe The Gay Science? (I am biased towards existentialism)
EDIT
I’m sure to get carried away, but some utilitarians would be good. Bertrand Russell is quite readable. His essays on Happiness are quick and impactful. John Stuart Mill, too, is a marvel of rationality (and progressivism (not on everything)) and sometimes prophetic. There’s value, I think, especially for those in tech to see the limits of rationality.
Spicy hot take, I think Ayn Rand is great for this. She takes hyper rational philosophy as far as it can go. It ends up being absurd precisely because it is so divorced from the irrational sides of humans. She’s fascinating, in my opinion. Understanding why she’s both revered in some parts of society and a bit of a meme in “serious” philosophy is a valuable exercise.
So a lot of philosophical writing references a sort of general canon, at least as far as western thinking is concerned. Other traditions I'm sure have their own details but I can't speak intelligently to them. The field is enormous, and without more specific information regarding your goals it is difficult to pinpoint the classics in subfields that may interest you. That said, there are a few highlights I think you'r…
You can safely ignore hegel as I am afraid that if you don't ignore hegel you may think philosophy is useless after you get through 20 pages of any of his works. Kant may also be a stretch for someone whose new - even the "idiots guide" versions of his works that he wrote because his other works were criticized in his own time for being hard to read The rest listed here are good - but IMHO you should always start wit…
Similar with Kant. Bang your head against the categorical imperative at least. It’s a concept to be familiar with. I agree that a deep read of Kant is too far down the rabbit hole to start with.
Learning philosophy or philosophy history is one thing (I'd guess it is more about discussing texts with others than acquiring encyclopedic "knowledge").
To develop your own "philosophy", you need to get rid of other philosophies. Then maybe you will become another philosopher or not. Check my answer on how to think for yourself for the details.
So a lot of philosophical writing references a sort of general canon, at least as far as western thinking is concerned. Other traditions I'm sure have their own details but I can't speak intelligently to them. The field is enormous, and without more specific information regarding your goals it is difficult to pinpoint the classics in subfields that may interest you. That said, there are a few highlights I think you'r…
This is a great list. Why no Greeks? Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics at least! I would add Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” as a short and readable intro to existentialism, followed by kierkegaard’s Being and Nothingness and Nietzche…maybe The Gay Science? (I am biased towards existentialism) EDIT I’m sure to get carried away, but some utilitarians would be good. Bertrand Russell is quite…