Comprehensive Reading List

TTPer Tom Howard asks:

“Can you post a comprehensive, recommended reading list from Dr. Wheeler? Particularly on logic and philosophy?”

Wow, Tom, can you give me a break on the “comprehensive” part?  What I did was to nose around in my library at home, and came up with the books that have meant the most to me personally in these areas (both dear to my heart!).  Let’s start with logic.

When I was in high school, I found the coolest book that explained in plain language all sorts of logical fallacies with impressive Latin names.  It really helped me to think far more clearly, and it sure was great for arguments.  It was:

Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument, by W. Ward Fearnside & William B. Holther (Prentice Hall, 1959). (Amazon lists four copies available.)

For the classic exposition of philosophical logic (not the symbolic logic pretentiousness of linguistic philosophers who want logic to be a branch of mathematics), there’s nothing better than:

An Introduction to Logic, by H.W.B. Joseph (Oxford, 1906 but still in print and on Amazon)

Now on to philosophy.  First, there are two histories.  My favorite for the whole sweep from Ancient Greece through today is:

An Introduction to Western Philosophy:  Plato to Sartre, by Antony Flew (Bobbs Merrill 1971)

And absolutely the most incisive explanation of philosophy from the Rennaissance through the 19th century, enabling you to understand what Hume, Kant, Hegel and their peers are really talking about, is:

A History of Modern European Philosophy, by James Collins (Bruce Publishing: Milwaukee, 1965; Amazon has a reissue from 1987))

Then there is philosophy itself, what philosophy is and how to understand the world from a philosophical viewpoint.  For this, you can’t do better my mentor and friend, the former Chairman of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, John Hospers:

An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, by John Hospers (Prentice Hall, 1967 — that’s my edition; Amazon has the 4th edition from 1996)

John also has the best book on the philosophy of ethics, with virtually every ethical position discussed in depth:

Human Conduct, by John Hospers (Harcourt Brace, 1972; Amazon has a 1982 reissue)

As for individual philosophers, my two favorites are Aristotle and Ayn Rand.  With Aristotle, you should focus on the Nicomachean Ethics and the Metaphysics.  Rand’s magnum opus is Atlas Shrugged, but a lot of folks prefer The Fountainhead.

To understand the culture from which Aristotle (and Western Civilization) emerged, there is Werner Jaeger’s brilliant Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (3 vols., Oxford 1943;  Amazon has a 1986 reprint).

Finally, there is the masterwork of one of the 20th century’s intellectual giants, social philosopher and economist Ludwig Von Mises.  This is Human Action (Yale, 1963, Amazon reprint 1997).  One of my most prized possessions is my copy of Human Action, autographed by Von Mises when I spent a weekend with him and his wife Margit during the summer of 1969.  It sits right next to my signed copy (#29) of the 10th Anniversary Edition of Atlas Shrugged.