Humanities & Cultures

Bit different from what I read when I was a philosophy student, but am currently reading Wendell Berry and he is a pretty interesting thinker. Talks a lot about the nature and purpose of agriculture and work and life and shit, very insightfult and prescient. He's a big fan of Albert Howard, who's considered a father of the organic movement.

Nietzsche is fun but kind of crazy. Kant is very cool but extremely obtuse. Being and Time by Heidegger is similarly obtuse but I found it paradigm-shifting personally. Phenomonology in general is really profound, was introduced to the concept by an anthropologist named Timothy Ingold.

I don't know how easy it is to find but one of my favourite philosophy books is The Authority of Reason by Jean E. Hampton. It's really complex and it's been a long time since I've read it, but she makes really compelling and sophisticated arguments in favour of Kantian style moral realism.

In terms of political stuff, John Stuart Mill had a big impact on me when I was younger. David Graeber is technically an anthropologist but I find his political theory to be extremely compelling. As mentioned in another comment, Camus' The Rebel is one of my favourite books.

I actually quite enjoy Plato, though I appreciate the controversies. Pretty accessible stuff as well. I'm not well versed in the Greek stuff but I understand folks like Epicurus are super cool (very much unlike Plato he welcomed women and slaves into his school).

I also recently read the Tao Te Ching, which I think would be fair to describe as philosophy. I'm certainly no expert but I found it really interesting, the translation I read included a bunch of commentary from ancient and modern taoist thinkers for each chapter which made a big difference.