Common threads · 6 books
Move from doubt and experience to the harder question of what separates knowing from being right by accident.
Books, curator notes, and what to read next.
Bertrand Russell
Start with Russell's questions about appearance, reality, and what a convincing answer would need to establish.
Next: Meditations on First Philosophy
René Descartes
Follow the six meditations in order. Mark where doubt gives way to claims about the self, God, and the external world.
Next: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
John Locke
Focus on Books II and IV: where ideas come from, and how far those ideas can support knowledge.
Next: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
David Hume
Read Hume's treatment of causation and induction slowly. Separate habits of expectation from demonstrative proof.
Next: On Certainty
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Read these remarks as an investigation of what inquiry takes for granted, rather than a list of final definitions.
Next: Knowledge and Its Limits
Timothy Williamson
Williamson treats knowledge as a starting point. Compare that move with attempts to build knowledge out of belief.
Also includes Meditations on First Philosophy
Trace disputes about knowledge and reality across rationalist, empiricist, and critical philosophy. Read each system as a response to a problem rather than a label.
Also includes The Problems of Philosophy
Illusion, appearances, bodies, and the external world. Compare six ways of asking what perception actually gives us.
Also includes The Problems of Philosophy
A first philosophy course in six books: knowledge, mind, morality, justice, and the possibility of changing how you live.
