During my visit to Chicago, I had several good book conversations with Fr. Robert Barron. In one of them I asked him to recommend some introductory philosophy books for someone like me who has no formal training in philosophy but wants to dive deeper into it.
He offered many great titles. Since I didn’t have a pen or paper around, I used my iPhone voice recorder to take them down. At the time, I wasn’t planning on publishing the recording, but since I think others will enjoy Fr. Barron’s suggestions, here it is:
[audio:http://brandonvogt.com/wp-content/uploads/BarronPhilosophyBooks.mp3]
Download the short clip here (1 minute)
Here are his recommended titles:
- The God of Faith and Reason by Robert Sokolowski
- Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper
- The Four Cardinal Virtues by Josef Pieper
- The Silence of St. Thomas by Josef Pieper
- Aquinas by Fr. Frederick Copleston, SJ
- The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
- The Dialogues of Plato by Plato
- On Being and Essence (De Ente Et Essentia) by St. Thomas Aquinas
In another conversation, Fr. Barron also praised Fr. Copleston’s nine-volume History of Philosophy series:
- Volume 1 – Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus
- Volume 2 – Medieval Philosophy
- Volume 3 – Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
- Volume 4 – Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Leibnitz
- Volume 5 – Modern British Philosophy from Hobbes to Hume
- Volume 6 – Modern Philosophy from the French Enlightenment to Kant
- Volume 7 – Modern Philosophy from the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche
- Volume 8 – Modern Philosophy – Empiricism, Idealism, and Pragmatism in Britain and America
- Volume 9 – Modern Philosophy from the French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss
What are your favorite philosophy books?