 | The Republic (Penguin Classics) by Plato
Buy new: £4.99 / Used from: £2.90 It is misleading to called it a philosophical 'Genesis', but most courses start here
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 | The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics) by Plato
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.02 Plato's account of Socrates' trial; possible insights into the historical Socrates
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 | The Nicomachean Ethics (Penguin Classics) by Aristotle
Buy new: £5.41 / Used from: £3.41 One of the greats, demonstrates the flaws of Plato's philosophy and offers an improved view of moral action
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 | Discourse on Method and the Meditations (Classics) by Rene Descartes
Buy used from: £0.11 Undeniably the most important work in modern western philosophy, if magnificently flawed
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 | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Penguin Classics) by John Locke
Buy new: £8.62 / Used from: £5.99 The first of the British Empiricists, this essay is famed for Locke's epistemological distinction between primary and secondary qualities
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 | Principles of Human Knowledge: AND Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (Classics) by George Berkeley
Buy new: £5.97 / Used from: £3.80 The Principles is Berkeley's admirable response to Locke; the Dialogues supplements the conclusions of the Principles
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 | A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (Penguin Classics) by David Hume
Buy new: £8.47 / Used from: £2.16 The most brilliant philosopher of the early modern era, and still today students and philosophers are continually challenged and influenced by this most sensible, profound and genius of philosophers.
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 | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
Buy new: £3.47 / Used from: £1.50 The Enquiry seeks to improve upon the earlier Treatise; in conjunction with the Treatise it constitutes the most brilliant and lucid example of empiricist philosophy
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 | Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and The Natural History of Religion (Oxford World's Classics) by David Hume
Buy new: £7.19 / Used from: £2.47 Still the most brilliant work in the philosophy of religion
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 | Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays: Discourse on Metaphysics; On the Ultimate Origination of Things; Preface to the New Essays; The Monadology by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Buy new: £4.17 / Used from: £3.50 Continental, rationalist response to the Empricists (especially Locke)
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 | Critique of Pure Reason (Penguin Modern Classics) by Immanuel Kant
Buy new: £9.69 / Used from: £8.22 Many scholars consider Kant the greatest of them all; he has influenced pretty much every philosopher since his time. Very difficult, but with patience the rewards of Kant are endless
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 | The World as Will and Representation - Volume 1: v. 1 by Arthur Schopenhauer
Buy new: £8.69 / Used from: £6.99 An intelligent and wide-ranging, but much neglected, work that discusses Kant, perception, epistemology, metaphysics and the doctrine of the 'will'.
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 | World as Will and Representation - Volume 2: v. 2 by Arthur Schopenhauer
Buy new: £9.17 / Used from: £5.29 See above
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 | The Frege Reader (Blackwell Readers)
Buy new: £19.26 / Used from: £55.69 Logic has been largely unchanged since Aristotle, but the system of logic taught today in Universities is the result of Frege and his influence of future philosophers like Russell and Wittgenstein
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 | Principia Mathematica to *56 (Cambridge Mathematical Library) by Alfred North Whitehead
Buy new: £42.75 / Used from: £30.72 It's aim is to show the development of mathematics from logic, based on the idea that all propositions are reducible to simple ideas; inspired Wittgenstein to take up philosophy under Russell
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 | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Classics) by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Buy new: £7.39 / Used from: £5.20 A short but very complex work that continues the Russellian project, but ultimately shows its flaws and claims to put an end to all philosophizing
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 | Philosophical Investigations: The German Text with a Revised English Translation: German Text, with a Revised English Translation by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Buy new: £18.99 / Used from: £29.02 Wittgenstein's mature (but unfinished) work. Consists of a vigorous attack on his earlier philosphy and the rejection of the 'picture theory' of meaning, in favour of the more robust 'use theory'.
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 | G.E.Moore: Selected Writings (International Library of Philosophy) by G.E. Moore
Buy used from: £55.67 Moore is often labelled a 'common-sense realist' and strongly believed our immediate perceptions as a reliable source of knowledge. An interesting counterweight to some Wittgenstein's epistemology.
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 | Language, Truth and Logic by A. J. Ayer
Buy new: £3.67 / Used from: £0.99 A popular account of Logical Positivism: a movement influenced by Wittgenstein's early philosophy, but that seriously misunderstood it. It represents meaning in terms of empirical factual statements.
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