Recommended Reading for Beginners in Philosophy

The following lists will be divided into four sections: general philosophy primers, surveys in the history of philosophy, introductions into great thinkers, and introductions into crucial ideas. Some of these are intellectually thicker than others; but all of these are accessible. I have placed an asterisk besides those that one should begin with if they have no background at all in these subjects. While not every emphasis below can be endorsed—whether Gilson’s innovations in Thomism, other Roman Catholic authors such as McInerny, Kreeft, or Feser, who keep dogmatic material to a minimum, or presuppositionalist elements in the volumes by Clark and Poythress—nonetheless I have excluded works that are sufficiently problematic.

General Philosophy Primers

Norman Geisler & Paul Feinberg, Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective*

Steven Cowan & James Spiegel, The Love of Wisdom: A Christian Introduction to Philosophy*

Daniel J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition*

Étienne Gilson, God and Philosophy

Surveys in the History of Philosophy

R. C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas*

Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?*

Gordon Clark, From Thales to Dewey

F. C. Copelston, History of Philosophy

Étienne Gilson, Christianity & Philosophy

Étienne Gilson, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages

Armand Maurer, Medieval Philosophy: An Introduction

Introductions to Great Thinkers

Louis Markos, From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith*

Lloyd Gerson, From Plato to Platonism

Lloyd Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists

Louis Markos, From Aristotle to Christ: How Aristotelian Thought Clarified the Christian Faith*

Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody*

Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine

Étienne Gilson, The Philosophy of Saint Bonaventure

Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas

Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide*

Ralph McInerny, St Thomas Aquinas

Ralph McInerny, First Glance At Thomas Aquinas (A Handbook for Peeping Thomists)*

Important Ideas

Henry J. Koren, An Introduction to the Science of Metaphysics

W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous*

Arthur F. Holmes, Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions*

Norman Geisler, Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking*

Peter Kreeft, Socratic Logic: A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles*

Gordon Clark, Logic*

Vern Poythress, Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought*

Edward Feser, Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner's Guide

Edward Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God