Generally, I start on page 1 and go from there!

Seriously though, chronologically - by year of publication!

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Hume is missing, I'd read some of him first. And yes I'd always just start with Plato, if you haven't already.

Kant is very difficult to read. It's probably better to get a book about Kant than a book by him. Schopenhauer was a terrible person who wrote terrible philosophy.
Kierkegaard is at least entertaining.
Heidegger is too heavy with the jargon. In order to understand Heidegger, you have to accept Heidegger. All that 'being in the world' bollocks drove me nuts.
But all in all, a finer collection of subjectivists, metaphysical nutjobs and sexual deviants has never been assembled! What's missing is epistemologists. Locke, Moore, Ayer, Bohm - and Hume.
I'd read chronologically, to understand the development of philosophy - and where further reading can be placed in that order.

So which works of them would you recommend? Sorry, I'm just really confused. I'm a psychology student, I read Dostoevsky and Kafka. Their works made me curious of existentialism. I want to educate myself in philosophy and I'm wondering from where to start and what to read exactly.

Kant is fine to just read directly if you're used to long and compex sentences and if you're fine with getting the gist of the philosophy rather than trying to follow the entire argument step-by-step. If you do want to understand it step by step, you'll probably need some kind of glossary of terms (or make one while you read) to get all the connections.

A good way to figure out whether you want to directly read Kant is to read his "groundwork of the metaphysics of morals". It technically comes after the critique of pure reason, but it's a relatively short, accessible and self-contained text.

Also just starting out with a general history of philosophy will get you exposed to a lot of ideas in a short time, so that you can better place the primary texts when you read them.

Plato, Hume, Nietzsche and then straight to existentialist if that is your interest... i'd skip all the rest.

Hume, "an inquiry concerning human understanding", his later book (not the big tome) is enough to get a decent understanding of his philosophy.

Nietzsche, "Genealogy of morals", and "beyond Good and Evil", are maybe the two books that I definitely would read.

Just read - anything, everything. Make up your own damn mind. The books you've cited all lead to a very left wing, subjectivist, metaphysical understanding. To be fair - it's the majority of philosophy. But there are exceptions. Read Atlas Shrugged - see what you make of that. Read - Rawls: A Theory of Justice, but then read Nozick: Anarchy, State and Utopia. I hate metaphysics in general, and existentialism in particular, but read it anyway. Just read.

If you're reading it in terms of who reacts to who:

Schopenhauer reacts to Kant.
Heidegger reacts to Kierkegaard and Kant and Schopenhauer (though I can't remember if his Schop or Kierkegaard reaction is in being and time).

So probably: Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger.

he books you've cited all lead to a very left wing, — counterpunch

>Includes Heidegger (Nazi) and Schopenhauer (Pessimist conservative).

:roll:

Forgot to say, if you're trying to find your way around philosophy, check out the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - they're free, extensive, peer reviewed and up to date. Introductory sections in them tend not to be mercilessly technical either (except formal logic articles).

I say to read them in the order you listed them. But I would also read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit after Schopenhauer, and listen along to the Bernstein tapes. I say this because Hegel utterly demolishes Kant, seting up a new philosophical framework that is rather thought provoking, imho.

Thanks all. Plato and Seneca really got me into philosophy while Dostoevsky and existential psychology made me want to learn about existentialism. I think I will start with Kant then continue with Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

(instead of CPR)

A. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
(esp. from § 57 onward), Immanuel Kant

B. The World As Will And Representation
(esp. "Appendix: Critique of the Kantian philosophy", vol. 1), Arthur Schopenhauer

(instead of E/O or BT)

C. The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt

There's a pretty good online version of Prolegomena here.

@deusidex There is no particular order in which you should read the philosophers...or rather, the order should be determined in this way...

When you, inquisitive soul that you are, frequenting libraries and bookstores, have found a certain one that has impressed upon you that he holds the key to understanding life and the world you live in, then of course you will dwell with him a while and absorb his wisdom and attempt to live according to his (or her) precepts. Invariably, he will reveal in his writings those who have influenced him, and, should you sense that his ideas are lacking, or spurred on to investigate the origins of his thought, you will read those and, perhaps, supplant his thought with one of them...

This typically continues through a couple of iterations until you find the soul that you will trust in for the rest of your life.

But as you and others suggested, they reacted to one another. So there is a continuation, one is inspired by the other before him. For this reason, I have been searching and trying to make a list of writers which of course, represent my interests and taste as well. After reading more comments and history of philosophy, I think this list might be good for me: Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kirkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus. To me, the thing is that my philosophy readings need to be somewhat psychological since that's what I'm interested in and enjoy reading. Also, I want to understand them and learn, so I wish to start with the philosophers that had a profound influence on the 19th and 20th-century existentialists.

Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kirkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus. — deusidex

This is a good list. However, you ought to be prepared by a rather large jump in the order of difficulty once you reach Heidegger. I'd suggest looking around for some secondary reading to help you as well. Richard Polt's intro is particularly good.

So until Heidegger, no other writer needed than those I listed? I'm familiar with Plato, Heraclitus and Seneca but probably among these only Plato needed. I'm not really interested in Aristotle and Descartes so that's why I skip them. I suppose reading a summary about them could prove to be enough in my case.

It depends. Kant is by no means easy for someone who has not read alot of philosophy before, and neither Kierkegaard nor Nietzsche are a walk in the park. Heidegger just happens to be on another level entirely. The only way to know is to dive in and just read and see how your fare.

If you have any suggestions, I'd be grateful to hear it. I got Montaigne and Pascal at home and I see Descartes' magnum opus is not lengthy at all so I might read it as well. I plan to read Kant's easier works first such as the Prolegomena, hope that could make him more accessible to me.

For relative beginners, I'm always a fan of comparative introductions, so you get a feel for the contexts between different philosophers, the wider debates in which which they participated (and more importantly, the difference between those debates and contexts, which is not something always available if you're reading single authors). To that end, there are two book I might recommend to help 'situate' the philosophers you're interested in -

First, Sarah Blakwell's At The Existentialist Cafe, which covers most of the major existentialists in a very accessible and entertaining way. Second, Raymond Geuss's Changing the Subject, which covers a bunch of Western philosophy beginning with Socrates and ending with Adorno (Heidegger and Nietzsche are in there too). The only problem with these suggestions is that neither Kant nor Schopenhauer are covered. Schopenhauer is readable on his own though. Kant I really don't know. Most of the secondary works on him I know are big and dry.

Thanks for the help. I got Socrates to Sartre by Samuel Enoch Stumpf which covers Kant and the rest above. That might come in handy. Also, I heard David W. Hamlyn's History of Western Philosophy is great as well but I don't know it yet.

@deusidex just a couple admonitions...

Are you reading translations or do you read in the originals?...because you can’t trust translators, who tend to translate key words differently in different contexts, or, worse, interpret what they think the author meant. There is, however, a tradition of literal translation, from William of Moerbeke to the 20th century Straussians, so I would recommend you either (worse) read good literal translations, or (better) learn the original languages.

Finally, just remember in your study of philosophy, that any learning not motivated by the felt need to understand how the world works and the meaning of life is mere pedantry.

So to read and understand Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and other German philosophers, I should learn to speak German? English is not my native language. I read translations always except when the author wrote in English because I can read in English, but definitely not in German nor French. Do you have any suggestion on this matter?

I'm absolutely motivated by that, I can get really focused while reading philosophy. It fascinates me and I enjoy learning.

@deusidex Are you good at learning languages? Not just the spoken ones, but the “dead” ones? Then I suggest you do. If you’re young you have plenty of time...but Tolstoy began to learn Greek in his eighties (!).

Otherwise, seek out the literal translations. There was an efflorescence of them in the 20th century by disciples of Leo Strauss in English. Allan Bloom did an excellent one of Plato’s Republic and Rousseau’s Emile. Harvey Mansfield translated Tocqueville’s Democracy in America literally late last century...

But you cannot trust the translators for, as I said, they tend to interpret rather than translate. As far as German translations go, I have no personal knowledge.

It takes years to learn a language to the level needed to read philosophical texts. At this rate the poor guy will never get started.

Out of curiosity, which language(s) should be learned to read philosophical texts? I could read Hume and other English philosophers at least but it's true that I'm more interested in the Germans and their language seems like a pretty hard to tackle.

perhaps you meant to highlight

In any case, you can cover most of the modern Western Canon (Descartes onwards) with English, French and German. Bonne courage.

Aside from philosophy graduates and professors, why should one learn three different languages for the sake of philosophy? No offense but cannot philosophy be comprehended by reading translations? What is the general notion of this?