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Summer reading lists?

Brian Leiter

A philosopher at a top department relays the following request from one of her graduate students:

I had a question about the summer. As we're narrowing down our field of study, some of us were hoping to spend some time in the summer reading core articles in our field – i.e. ones that we really should read if we want to converse intelligibly with contemporary philosophers. However, some of us are a bit at a loss as to what these articles are. Would it be possible for you to put us in contact with philosophers in our department working in our fields, who could come up with 10-20 contemporary articles that they think we should read?

 My correspondent thought that readers of the blog could contribute many useful suggestions on this score.  I take it what's called for would be something like this (I'll use one of my fields as an example):

A student thinking of working in 'core' legal philosophy ("general jurisprudence," the nature of law and morality) should obviously have read the major books (Raz, Hart, Dworkin, Finnis), but also these articles:  Soper, "Legal Theory and the Obligation of a Judge:  The Hart/Dworkin Dispute"; Coleman, "Negative and Positive Positivism"; Postema, "Coordination and Convention at the Foundations of Law"; Raz, "Authority, Law and Morality"; Green, "Positivism and Conventionalism"; Shapiro, "On Hart's Way Out"; and then possibly some or all of the following, depending on the student's particular interests:  Perry, "Interpretation and Methodology in Legal Theory"; Leiter, "Beyond the Hart/Dworkin Debate:  The Methodology Problem in Jurisprudence"; Dickson, Evaluation and Legal Theory (a short book!); Greenberg, "How Facts Make Law"; Toh, "Hart's Non-Cognitivism and His Benthamite Project"; Murphy, "Natural Law Theory."

Readers are, of course, invited to add journal and other precise publication information.     

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30 responses to “Summer reading lists?”

  1. beginning grad student

    I'm beginning a grad program this fall and would love to see lists like these for epistemology and other areas I'm interested in. I'm at a complete loss as to how to use the summer to prepare for my graduate studies in phil.

    Reply
  2. Peter Ohlin

    One suggestion is to access (via your subscribing library) Oxford Bibliographies Online, which is designed to provide exactly this kind of information:
    oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/browse?module_0=obo-9780195396577

    Reply
  3. Bradley

    The following is a good start for metaphysics, though of course in offering such a list one no doubt leaves off many deserving papers.

    Black – "The Identity of Indiscernibles"
    Carnap – "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology"
    Fine – "Essence and Modality"
    Kripke – Naming and Necessity
    Lewis – On the Plurality of Worlds
    Lewis – "New Work for a Theory of Universals"
    McDaniel – "Ways of Being"
    Paul – "Logical Parts"
    Quine – "On What There Is"
    Rea – "The Problem of Material Constitution"
    Schaffer – "On What Grounds What"
    Sider – Four Dimensionalism
    van Inwagen – "Two Concepts of Possible Worlds"
    Williamson – "Necessary Existents"

    *I know I have left off many papers that are deserving, but I doubt I've included any that aren't. (Also I don't know enough of the causation or metaphysics of mind literature to pronounce judgment on it.) In general I've tried to go by papers that are often brought up in conference talks, familiarity with which papers seem to be taken for granted. I've also tried to limit it to one paper per author, though Lewis gets an exception.

    Reply
  4. Matthew Simmermon-Gomes

    I dare say that a lot of us embarking on graduate studies would appreciate such lists for our field(s)of studies/interests. I have found it very difficult to keep on top of the current conversation in my field while also working to acquaint myself with the older, major relevant works. One can readily become so time-consuming as to exclude the other. I tend to privilege the latter task, of reading the venerable tomes of my actual period of study and the more established studies, to the loss of keeping up with the current conversation, if only because the conversation itself is so active and wide-ranging as to be difficult to keep on top off. While I think that the route I have taken is the better one for where I am in my academic career, it would be helpful if someone better entrenched in the field could provide such a list that would allow me to follow the general thrust of the current academic conversation.

    BL COMMENT: This is the last comment I'm going to approve asking for these lists. I think there's no doubt this could be very valuable, and now we need some seasoned philospohers to provide the information!

    Reply
  5. later graduate student

    Beginning grad student,

    I think you're overstating things when you say you're at a complete loss. Pick an SEP article on some general topic in epistemology, then look at the bibliography. More generally, grad students enter programs with differing areas of strengths and weaknesses in their reading backgrounds. And fortunately so–I like learning from my peers. As long as you're reading consistently, that's a good way to spend the summer, in my opinion.

    Reply
  6. Brian Weatherson

    As well as the Oxford Bibliographies mentioned above, the Philosophy Compass teaching and learning guides are useful too. Many of them are open access, though sadly not all.

    Reply
  7. Brad

    I prepared the following list for students who are interested in learning more about philosophy of science, after taking one undergraduate course in the subject. The list is based, in part, on various graduate school area examination reading lists. It is a useful first place to start.

    Philosophy of Science Reading List

    Confirmation and Falsification

    Hempel, C. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, especially Chapters 2-4 (pages 3-46).
    Popper, K. R. 1963. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, New York: Basic Books Inc., Publishers, especially Chapters 1 and 10 (pages 33-59 and 215-250).
    Duhem, P. 1914/1954. Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton: Princeton University Press, especially Chapter VI: “Physical Theory and Experiment” (pages 180-218).

    Quine, W. V. 1951/1953. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    Goodman, N. 1955. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 4th edition, Chapter 4.

    Kuhn and the Historical Turn

    Kuhn, T. S. 1962/1996. Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, especially Chapters 9-10 (pages 92-135).
    Lakatos, I. 1970. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pages 91-196.
    Kuhn, T. S. 1977. Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, especially Chapters 9-13 (pages 225-339).
    Feyerabend, P. 1975/1988. Against Method, Revised edition. London: Verso, especially Chapters 1-5 (pages 14-54).
    Shapere, D. 1966/1981. “Meaning and Scientific Change,” in I. Hacking, (ed.), Scientific Revolutions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pages 28-59.

    Realism and Anti-realism

    Van Fraassen, B. C. 1980. Scientific Image, Oxford: Clarendon Press, especially Chapter 2 (pages 6-40).

    The various papers in
    D. Papineau’s (ed.), 1996. Philosophy of Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    especially:
    Laudan, L. 1981/1996. “A Confutation of Convergent Realism,” pages 107-138.
    Fine, A. 1984/1996. “Natural Ontological Attitude,” pages 21-44.
    Lipton, P. 1993/1996. “Is the Best Good Enough?,” pages 93-106.
    Worrall, J. 1989/1996. “Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?,” pages 93-106.

    Hacking, I. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, especially Chapter 16 (pages 262-275).

    Reply
  8. Dale Dorsey

    This isn't so much a list of articles, but I daresay that a graduate student with interests in ethics could do a hell of a lot worse than spending a summer grappling with Sidgwick's Methods. It is arguably the most important work in the field and provides a very good introduction to much of the contemporary agenda.

    Reply
  9. Epistemologicallywise

    It's a few years old, but I found Steven M. Cahn and Joram Haber, Twentieth Century Ethical Theory (Prentice Hall: 1995) a good anthology.

    For Chinese philosophy, the following secondary works represent four very different approaches to the tradition:

    Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (Open Court Press, 1989).

    David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking from the Han (State University of New York Press, 1998).

    Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation, 2nd ed. (Hackett Publishing, 2000).

    Liu Shu-hsien, Understanding Confucian Philosophy (Greenwood, 1998).

    Reply
  10. David Gray

    The London Philosophy Study Guide is a useful place to start for several subjects (although it is a couple years out of date for some of the more contemporary articles you might want to add to your summer reading list).

    http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/contents.htm

    Reply
  11. another beginning graduate student

    The best method I've found is to get your hands on the one of the better anthologies in the field (I've enjoyed Metaphysics: The Big Questions, Martinich's Philosophy of Language compendium, and Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings), and then to search for syllabi for associated courses from departments or professors you respect. I'm personally curious as well about (and at first I thought the student was asking for) lists of contemporary/current papers, from say the past decade or two, that are guiding research agendas for young professors working right now.

    Reply
  12. Anon ABD

    Surprised no one has mentioned Phil Papers, which keeps expert-curated bibliographies in 3,000 subfields of philosophy (e.g. under Metaphysics/Causation Laws, etc/Theories of causation is a bibliography curated by Helen Beebee (who is of course a major figure in the causation literature)). This is an excellent resource, particularly if the student has some idea what their projected course of study is likely to be or what seminars they'll be taking in the Fall.

    Here's the link: http://philpapers.org/categories.pl

    BL COMMENT: The only worry about PhilPapers is that it may be too comprehensive for a student starting out in an area, who might be seeking a more selective reading list.

    Reply
  13. Kurt

    Whenever I am looking to enter a new field/subfield, I find it helpful to google "[insert subject] syllabus" + pdf. Or I will search a targeted professor's home page to see if they make available previously used syllabi.

    Reply
  14. Mischke

    This is an excellent idea and easily could be turned into a website of its own. I'm applying for doctoral studies this year, anticipating the start of my studies to commence in the fall, 2013. However, in the meantime, I'm reading as much as I can in the area of German Idealism with a focus on Hegel. I'm having a similar quandary as stated above, namely, it's easy enough to work through the classics of German Idealism/Hegel, but I'm only familiar with contemporary Hegel studies being done by the likes of Zizek. I would welcome a list of key articles on German Idealism/Hegel written by contemporary scholars in the field(s).

    Thanks,

    Mischke

    BL COMMENT: Hopefully a specialist will respond, but you should look for books by Frederick Beiser, Allen Wood, Michael Forster, and Robert Pippin (esp. his 1989 Hegel's Idealism), among others.

    Reply
  15. John Schwenkler

    Re: PhilPapers, a request went out a while ago to section editors to write up summaries and lists of key works (including surveys and introductory articles) for their topics, which will be displayed at the top of the category pages. I am not sure how widely this has been done yet, but here is an example: http://philpapers.org/browse/knowledge-of-action/

    Reply
  16. Jon Cogburn

    I'm not a specialist but am a huge fan of the authors that Brian listed. Beiser is a fantastic read and combines historical fidelity with great philosophical depth. To Brian's list, I would also add the Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, edited by Karl Ameriks.

    More generally, an entering grad student could do much worse than reading the relevant Cambridge Companions and Blackwell Handbooks.

    Reply
  17. J.C. Berendzen

    For someone in Mischke's position, I would highly recommend the essays in two edited collections: Moyar and Quante's _Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide_ and Beiser's _Cambridge Companion to Hegel and 19th Century Philosophy_. (Note that there is also an older _Cambridge Companion to Hegel_ also edited by Beiser. It has some useful essays, but I think the newer volume would be much better for Mischke's purposes).

    Reply
  18. Matthew Simmermon-Gomes

    Just to clarify: I wasn't seeking to request such a list for myself, merely to endorse the idea.

    Reply
  19. CA

    Not a direct answer to the question, but perhaps the relevant volumes in Routledge's "New Waves in Philosophy" series or the most recent annual volumes in "Oxford Studies in X" would be a good place for a snapshot of what's current. Oxford Studies in Norm. Eth., Metaeth and Ancient Phil. are all state of the art and I presume that the others are as well (epistemology, metaphysics, religion, law, and maybe others?) and the New Wave volumes I've seen seem strong as well, though I can't speak about many of them.

    http://amzn.to/JFinEc

    http://amzn.to/IEteg4

    Reply
  20. CA

    Oops. Macmillan/palmgrave not Routledge

    Reply
  21. matt

    I really liked another beginning graduate student's comment. Martinich's anthology is fabulous. Other such anthologies that I've found invaluable include van Heijenoort's "From Frege to Godel" for logic (philosophy and history of) and Benacerraf and Putnam (1964) for philosophy of mathematics.

    Reply
  22. Rich Booher

    To add to the excellent works already mentioned, anyone interested in German Idealism should read Paul Franks' "All or Nothing".

    Also, for Hegel in particular, you would do well to look at the bibliography and 'further reading' sections of Fred Beiser's "Hegel". The reading suggestions are organized by topic, which is very helpful.

    Reply
  23. another beginning graduate student

    It's also worth noting that, more and more, you can find philosophy lectures online – for example, John Searle's Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Language classes (and maybe a couple others) are hosted on the Berkeley website somewhere. They're excellent. For people who learn better in an aural format, like myself, those might be a great option.

    Reply
  24. James

    The lists provided so far are great, and much appreciated. In the off-chance a philosopher of biology or cosmology were to still be reading these comments, and felt like providing a list, that would be awesome. There's a lot of work coming out regularly and recently in both thee topics that makes it difficult to rely even on anthologies, so expert advice is appreciated.

    Reply
  25. Michael Cholbi

    PEA Soup had a discussion several years ago of groundbreaking books in ethics. I initially proposed this list:

    Parfit, Reasons and Persons
    Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
    Smith, The Moral Problem
    Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity
    McNaughton, Moral Vision
    Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other
    Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism
    Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings
    Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics
    Harman, The Nature of Morality (this misses my own 25-year cutoff by two years)

    Some runners-up: Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment; McDowell, Mind and World; Dancy, Practical Reality; Rawls, Political Liberalism; Darwall, Impartial Reason; Nagel, The View from Nowhere; Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics; Slote, From Morality to Virtue.

    The full discussion is here: http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2005/01/agendasetting_b.html

    Reply
  26. Paul Franks

    In response to Mischke, here's a list — by no means exhaustive — of readings related to contemporary analytic readings and renewals of Hegelianism and, more generally German Idealism. I'm sure there are important things I left out, so please feel free to add! Another list would certainly also be required, dealing with analytic readings and renewals of Kantianism . . .

    Anthologies
    Karl Ameriks (ed.), Cambridge Companion to German Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
    Karl Ameriks, Jürgen Stolzenberg, Paul Franks and Dieter Schönecker (eds.), International Yearbook of German Idealism, Volume III, German Idealism and Contemporary German Idealism (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005)
    Frederick Beiser (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Hegel and the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2008)
    Espen Hammer (ed.), German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2007)
    Angelica Nuzzo (ed.), Hegel and the Analytic Tradition (New York, NY: Continuum, 2007)

    Monographs
    Karl Ameriks, Kant and the Fate of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
    Kant and the Historical Turn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
    Fred Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1994)
    Hegel (London: Routledge, 2005)
    German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 (Cambridge, MA; Harvard, 2006)
    Robert Brandom, Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays on the Metaphysics of Intentionality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2002)
    William Bristow, Hegel and the Transformation of Philosophical Critique (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
    Michael Forster, Hegel and Skepticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1989)
    The Idea of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998)
    Paul Franks, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2005)
    John McDowell, Mind and World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1994)
    Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2009)
    Wayne Martin, Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte’s Jena Project (Stanford, 1997)
    Fred Neuhouser, Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge, 1990)
    Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2003)
    Robert Pippin, Hegel’s Idealism (Cambridge, 1989)
    Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations (Cambridge, 1997)
    The Persistence of Subjectivity: The Hegelian Aftermath (Cambridge, 2005)
    Paul Redding, Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought (Cambridge, 2010)
    Robert Stern, Hegelian Metaphysics (Cambridge, 2009)
    Allen Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge, 1990)

    Reply
  27. Preparing a sample paper for graduate school…

    I'm looking to read some literature in the philosophy of perception and philosophy of time this summer. I'm particularly interested in the experience of time in perception. Any suggestions?

    Reply
  28. Polo

    Can someone recommend recent literature in the philosophy of time? I'm currently reading 'Time and Realism' by Yuval Dolev and am interested in the experience of time in perception.

    Reply
  29. SM

    I'm a prospective graduate student interested in the philosophy of history. Does any one have any suggestions on recent articles related to the philosophy of history more generally? The role of history in philosophy, the role of philosophy in engaging with the past, etc.
    Thanks.

    Reply
  30. Grad Student

    I'd like to point out that the following websites, while great, do not respond to the original request:

    PhilPapers: As BL already pointed out, epistemology? OK, here are 11,000+ articles. Epistemic internalism and externalism? A mere 131? We're looking for must-reads, not everything that's been published.
    Philosophical Compass: The finest comb yields categories like "Ethics" and "Epistemology", which would be fine except that there are 800 pages of articles in them, and the articles aren't exactly the classics of the field.
    Oxford Bibliographies: Too much. Instead of a list of 10-20 must read articles, you get 15-30 lists of 5-10 articles each. This is, however, the best of the three for the grad student in question.

    Also, the lists of 10-30 books, while perhaps helpful to some students, are probably way too long to be of use to the student who provided the prompt.

    Thanks to Bradley and Brad (same person?) for providing very helpful lists.

    Reply

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