Hocbigg - Philosophy
Contents
Summary
This roadmap provides a structured, self-paced program equivalent to a 4-year undergraduate foundation in philosophy.
It assumes a commitment to rigorous reading, critical analysis, and written reflection to build analytical skills, ethical reasoning, and philosophical argumentation.
Organization
This repository is organized into three main components:
- Core Curriculum (this page): the foundational knowledge of the field;
- Advanced Topics: focused study in specific areas;
- Projects: support learning through practical application throughout the curriculum.
Process: Learners may work through the curriculum independently or collaboratively, and either sequentially or selectively.
- For simplicity, courses in the Core Curriculum are ordered according to their prerequisites.
- The Core Curriculum provides a shared foundation and is intended to be completed in full.
- Advanced Topics are optional; learners are encouraged to select one area of focus and complete all courses within that topic.
Practical work is integrated through the Projects section and may be undertaken alongside coursework.
Note: When there are courses or books that don't fit into the curriculum but are otherwise of high quality, they belong in extras/courses, extras/readings.
Communities
- Forums:
- Subreddits:
- Discord servers:
- Other:
- You can also interact through GitHub issues. If there is a problem with a course, or a change needs to be made to the curriculum, this is the place to start the conversation. Read more here.
-
Join our Discord server (for discussions around this and other curricula):
Curriculum
- Orientation and Philosophical Tools
- Historical Foundations of Philosophy Western
- Systematic Core Fields
Orientation and Philosophical Tools
Purpose: Introduce philosophy as a discipline, its methods, and the basic tools required for all further study.
| Subject | Book / Text | Online Resource |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Philosophy | The Problems of Philosophy — Bertrand Russell | MIT OpenCourseWare – Introduction to Philosophy |
| Philosophical Methods and Argumentation | Think — Simon Blackburn | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – “Philosophical Method” |
| Logic and Critical Reasoning (Foundational) | Introduction to Philosophy: Logic (Open Textbook) | MIT OCW – Logic I |
Historical Foundations of Philosophy (Western)
Purpose: Understand philosophy through its major historical developments before abstraction into fields.
| Subject | Book / Text | Online Resource |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Philosophy | Jonathan Barnes – Early Greek Philosophy (Archive.org) | Yale Open Courses – Ancient Philosophy |
| Medieval Philosophy | SEP entries on Augustine, Aquinas, Avicenna (curated reading list) | Oxford Podcasts – Medieval Philosophy |
| Early Modern Philosophy | Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Archive.org) | Yale Open Courses – Early Modern Philosophy |
| Nineteenth & Twentieth Century Philosophy | SEP entries on Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein | Yale Open Courses – Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature |
Systematic Core Fields
Purpose: Study philosophy by domain, informed by historical foundations.
| Subject | Book / Text | Online Resource |
|---|---|---|
| Ethics | Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics (Archive.org) | Harvard – Justice |
| Political Philosophy | Plato – Republic (selections) + SEP Political Philosophy | Yale Open Courses – Introduction to Political Philosophy |
| Epistemology | Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction — Jennifer Nagel | MIT OCW – Theory of Knowledge (closest match for Epistemology) |
| Metaphysics | Alyssa Ney – Metaphysics: An Introduction (Archive.org) | Open University – Introducing Philosophy |
| Philosophy of Mind | Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Archive.org) | Oxford – Philosophy of Mind |
| Philosophy of Religion | SEP – Philosophy of Religion | Yale Open Courses – Philosophy of Religion |