Reading List

These primary texts form the philosophical backbone of the Core, Logic, and Ethics section. Reading them in full is ambitious; reading the indicated chapters is not.

Plato, Meno and Theaetetus — The two dialogues where Plato wrestles most directly with what knowledge is. Meno introduces the paradox of inquiry (“How can you look for something if you don’t know what it is?”); Theaetetus systematically demolishes candidate definitions of knowledge, arriving at justified true belief.
Plato, Apology (esp. 20c–24b, 29d–30b) — Socrates’ speech at his trial. The model of cross-examination as a method of inquiry: every claim challenged, every authority subjected to questioning, the philosopher’s life redefined as the pursuit of arguments rather than the production of conclusions.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I (chs. 1–3) and Book II (chs. 1–2) — The function argument and the doctrine of virtue as habituated character. The founding text of virtue ethics, and the model for any ethical theory that begins from “what kind of life goes well for a human being?” rather than “what rule should I follow?”.
Confucius, Analects, Books 2, 4, and 12 (selections) — Confucius’ account of ren (humaneness) and li (ritual propriety) is not a parallel to Western virtue ethics but a different theory altogether about what knowledge of the good consists in. Read the brief sayings alongside Aristotle and notice what each tradition cannot say.
Bhagavad Gītā, Chapter 2 (selected verses on dharma and action) — Krishna’s response to Arjuna’s refusal to fight. The locus classicus of karma yoga — action performed without attachment to its consequences — and one of the few classical formulations that takes seriously the possibility of right action under irreducible moral conflict.
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) — The founding text of modern epistemology. Meditations I and II give you radical doubt and the cogito. Required reading for any serious TOK student.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) — Sections IV and V on induction; the appendix to the Treatise on personal identity. Hume’s fork (relations of ideas vs. matters of fact) is one of the most important tools in epistemology.
Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) — A shorter and more readable entry into Kant than the Critique of Pure Reason. Focuses on how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible — the question that reshapes all post-Humean epistemology.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Preface and Section I — The categorical imperative and the argument that moral worth lies in the will, not the consequences. Kant’s deontological case in its most concentrated form. Required for any serious engagement with the ethics of duty.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1861), Chapter 2 — The single most accessible statement of consequentialism. Mill defends utilitarianism against the standard objections (that it is “swinish”, that it sets the bar too high) with a clarity rare in ethical writing.
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912) — Chapters 1–5 on the nature of matter, appearance vs. reality, and induction. Remarkably accessible; written explicitly for non-specialists; still philosophically serious.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), middle section — Sartre’s claim that “existence precedes essence” — that humans first exist and then make themselves through their choices — is the founding statement of existentialist ethics. Reads as a public lecture; that is, accessibly.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953) — §§1–65 on meaning, use, and language games. His later work dismantles the picture theory of language he himself put forward in the Tractatus. One of the most influential philosophical texts of the 20th century.
Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (1963) — Three pages long. One of the most consequential papers in 20th-century philosophy. Available online in full.
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (1963) — The introduction and Chapter 1. Popper’s criterion of falsifiability and his critique of inductivism. Essential for the Logic unit and the Natural Sciences unit.
Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” (1972) — Eight pages. Singer’s argument that we are morally required to give until giving more would harm us as much as our giving helps others. The cleanest example in modern ethics of an argument that no one fully accepts and no one can fully rebut.
Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974) — A short paper on the limits of objective knowledge when applied to subjective experience. Raises the question of whether there are things that simply cannot be known from the outside.
Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (2007) — Chapters 1–2 on testimonial injustice (Ch. 1 introduces the concept; Ch. 2 analyses identity prejudice as its source) and Chapter 7 on hermeneutical injustice. Connects epistemology to power, identity, and justice in ways that matter for TOK.
Anil Seth, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (2021) — Seth’s argument that consciousness is best understood as a “controlled hallucination” — the brain’s best guess about its own and the world’s state. The most accessible recent overview of the neuroscience of consciousness, written by an active researcher.
Peter Weir (dir.), The Truman Show (1998) — A man discovers his life is a televised reality show. Drives a cluster of cases in this course, from radical scepticism to the legal handling of the “Truman Show delusion” first reported by Joel and Ian Gold. The cleanest popular-cultural staging of the Cartesian thought experiment, with the question of who benefits from the deception added.