Back when I was still on reddit (and r/askreddit wasn’t a cesspool of AI ragebait) someone asked if there were books people recommended, everyone should read, and I came up with this list of 6 if you want a good basis for reasoned philosophical thought:
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Plato’s Republic
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Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
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Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
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Machiavelli’s The Prince (Machiavelli also wrote an “Art of War” and that’s also worth reading)
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Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations
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Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto
The Republic defines what society’s goals should look like
The Art of War defines how to resolve conflict
Meditations teaches one how to remain objective under pressure
The Prince defines that what is OBJECTIVELY TRUE is not always what is MORALLY CORRECT
The Wealth of Nations lays out a case against Feudalism and how a functional economy should operate.
The Communist Manifesto details the natural rights of everyone to equality and shared prosperity.
Marxist Communism is a bit myopic as it really deals with factory work, and the failures of a Capitalist system to deliver on the promise of class mobility. He and Engels envisioned a classless society, and while that is a fine ideal, historically, achieving that though strictly amicable means is a bit pie in the sky, not to mention the arguments against it citing human ambition as a stumbling block aren’t without merit.