Reading Paths
Like a very short introduction you walk through: each path is a sequence of pages and books, in order, with the reason for every step. Tick steps off as you go — your progress stays in this browser.
First Steps in Philosophy
The ten pages to read first if you have never studied philosophy — the questions that started it, the people who changed it, in order.
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Thinker · 25 minSocrates
Start with the man who wrote nothing and asked everything. Philosophy as a way of life — and a death.
- AoScene · 10 min
The Allegory of the Cave
The single most famous image in philosophy, and the key to Plato.
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Thinker · 25 minGautama Buddha
The same century, the other side of the world — suffering, impermanence, no-self.
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Thinker · 45 minDavid Hume
The sceptic who showed reason cannot justify causation, induction or the self.
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Thinker · 40 minImmanuel Kant
The hinge of modern thought — what the mind brings to experience, and the dignity of persons.
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The Russian Novel and the Accursed Questions
How Russian novelists argued about God, nihilism and revolution — read the pages, then the books.
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Shakespeare for Thinkers
The philosophical Shakespeare — consciousness, nothing, power, meaning — in the order that builds understanding.
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Indian Philosophy from Zero
Twelve pages that take you from the first hymn to the Constitution — the questions, the schools, and the arguments that still divide India.
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Work · 35 minThe Bhagavad Gītā
A soldier refuses to fight; God answers with three paths to freedom.
- Read · 10 min
The Darśanas — the map of the schools
See the whole family of schools at once, and where each stands.
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The Bhakti Movement
When love became the path, and the saints sang in the people’s languages.
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Existentialism in Twelve Stops
From a Danish believer and a Russian novelist to the cafés of post-war Paris — freedom, anxiety, the absurd.
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The Indian Road — From the Upanishads to Vedānta
The Self, Brahman and liberation — following the great conversation from the forest sages to Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja.
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The Indian Philosophy room
Begin with the map — the Vedas, the six darśanas, the epics, the great debates. (Philosophy → Indian Philosophy)
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East Meets West — The Great Parallels
Pairs of thinkers who never met but asked the same questions — read each pair side by side with the Compare tool.
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