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Classic papers every analytic philosopher should read? (and have they changed?)

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

What are some classic papers that every analytic philosopher should read, regardless of their specific area? I mean, for example, Frege’s “On Sense and Reference” and Russell’s “On Denoting” seem like papers one should have read even if one does not work in philosophy of language. If a metaphysics/epistemology professor had never read them, it might seem a little surprising. What other papers have a similar status?

I also have a related question. Some papers seem to have been canonical in the past, but are no longer regarded as required reading for everyone. For example, one of my professors told me that in his generation, everyone read Davidson, but for my generation this no longer seems necessary. Do people agree with this? And are there other texts that have this kind of status?

Thoughts from readers?

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14 responses to “Classic papers every analytic philosopher should read? (and have they changed?)”

  1. Anonymous

    Grice, “Logic and Conversation”

    Kripke, Naming and Necessity

    Strawson, “On Referring” (esp. if one is going to read Russell’s “On Denoting”)

    Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”

    Goldman, “What is Justified Belief?”

    Maybe also: Lewis, “Causation” or “New Work for a Theory of Universals” or parts of *On the Plurality of Worlds*

    Nagel, “What is it Like to be a Bat?”

    Reply
  2. Heather W. Hoyt

    I don’t think there are any papers that ever analytic philosopher needs to read. I would worry that any list of classical papers will focus on papers by white males, reinforce a narrow viewpoint, and exclude voices that are excellent but have been undervalued.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      I do not think it would be worrisome if the list included mostly white male authors. But on that note: have you got any classics in mind that are only (or mostly) considered canonical because they were authored by white males? Any that ought to be demoted?

      Even so, such a list would doubtless include several (e.g.) female philosophers. There are many women who have been extremely influential in analytic philosophy. To name a few: Anscombe, Murdoch, Korsgaard, Foot, Thomson, Thomasson, Rudder Baker, L.A. Paul, Fricker, Haslanger, etc. Some of these names are even in this thread.

      Reply
  3. Chris

    MIT has a fairly “stereotypical analytic” program – one of the few where the faculty seem to agree on a two term sequence of classics for PhD students . (I say this without agreeing or disagreeing with their list- though my own view is that it is good to have some departments like this and some that are not)
    https://opencw.aprende.org/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-400-proseminar-in-philosophy-i-fall-2013/Syllabus/

    And for term two
    https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/151762/24-401-spring-2020/contents/syllabus-and-calendar/index.htm

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    If there is such a list, I believe it would probably have philosophy of language papers/works such as “On Denoting”, “Naming and Necessity”, etc. Other classics such as “Two Dogmas” and “On What There Is” depend upon your research. Someone who’s not working with language or metaphysics may advance in their research without ever reading them (though it would be useful to read them sometime).

    Reply
  5. dazesensationallye39c0dc2cd

    Even if you’re not in value theory, I think you probably should have read these:

    Philippa Foot, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect
    Bernard Williams, Moral Luck
    Peter Strawson, Freedom and Resentment

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Just to give an example of how little agreement there is on canon…

      If you asked me to list canonical articles on the ethics of abortion, the Foot article would not be in my top five (and I work extensively on this topic). There is just so much good, important work out there on most subjects. So, it is really hard to settle on a small subset that is truly canonical work. And it is even harder to make the case that one MUST read these specific canonical works.

      (I am thinking now that you might have recommended the Foot article for the double effect aspects, rather than the abortion aspects. If so, my comment is less relevant.)

      Reply
  6. Anonymous

    Philosophy is such a huge and diverse field, there is no such thing as “required reading.” Read what interests you, and what helps you understand things. Sometimes that involves looking back at older work in your subfield, sometimes it doesn’t. Don’t confuse scholarship with identity, as if someone can’t be a real philosopher (or analytic philosopher, or whatever) without having read specific things. No gatekeeping! Let a thousand gardens bloom! Read widely!

    Reply
  7. Anonymous

    Every analytic philosopher should read everything I’ve ever written, obviously!

    Reply
  8. Daniel

    It’s more important to read stuff in the fields adjacent to yours than to read famous philosophy just for the sake of reading famous philosophy, especially if you are going to be so parochial as to narrow philosophy down to analytic philosophy specifically.

    (I realize the question does not specify analytic philosophy only, but that is how most people are answering it. If the question is “what philosophy should every philosopher read, if we are not limiting ourselves just to analytic philosophy” then the list will be too long for anyone to read, even if they avoid reading other stuff they have to read for their own research. And of course nobody can avoid reading what they must read for their own research!)

    So, for instance, if you do social and political philosophy, it’s more important to read some political science, sociology, etc. If you do philosophy of mind, it’s more important to read some neuroscience etc. My knowing about the essential indexical or having read Carnap’s Aufbau has done little for me. The political science etc. that I’ve read has been very helpful.

    That’s not to say it’s pointless to have a broad base in philosophy. My answer to the question is that it’s more important to read stuff in adjacent fields, not that it’s completely unimportant to read stuff in philosophy. It’s good to read broadly in graduate school and it’s good to keep up that reading sporadically. But there’s no list of papers or works that everyone should read, and people who are too insistent about something being a must-read are being too close-minded. People should read what they are interested in reading. If it’s a famous and influential work you might find it more rewarding, but maybe not! Sometimes reading an unknown, entirely forgotten paper will be much more rewarding than reading something everyone else says you should read.

    I do however agree with Anonymous above that everyone should read all of my stuff.

    Reply
  9. dazesensationallye39c0dc2cd

    I think many on this thread are missing the question. Nobody is suggesting people should be required to read these classics, or excluded in some way if they don’t, or that failing to do so will cause them harm or is worthy of disapproval. Not even close. It’s simply starting with the observation that analytic philosophy is — largely, roughly, in the family of — an academic field. Like many others. And fields have classics — whether or not they should — they really do. They have papers that are, as the OP says, “canonical,” something we’d find “surprising” to learn a colleague didn’t read. They have important, memorable papers that shifted the paradigm in some way or another, and that many seem to know and refer to often, even when they’re in a different area from that of the classic. To really know and understand the field, then, it would be helpful to have read these papers. The OP is asking the straightforward and uncontroversial question: what are they for the field of analytic philosophy?

    Whether they should be, or whether there should be any at all, are entirely different questions.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      I like the way you think, but don’t agree with your position. “And fields have classics — whether or not they should — they really do.” Do they really? Literature (critics) used to have the classics on the pedestal. But even that, these days no one would find any particular book not read by a serious student of literature “surprising” as you put it. I, for one, don’t find reading any of the classic papers listed in this thread helpful for me, having been in the field for 15 years.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        What about Plato’s Republic or Descartes’ Meditations, Zhuangzi, etc? Surely philosophy does have classics. They don’t have to be put “on a pedestal” whatever that means.

        To answer the question about papers no longer canonical in a subfield, here is an example:
        Gettier’s paper used to be canonical for those who work on contemporary epistemology; now I’d say Williamson is more standard. For social epistemology, I think Miranda Fricker on epistemic injustice and Charles Mills (“White Ignorance”) are now cannonical. Sure, you can do philosophy without reading these (including Plato!) but that doesn’t mean they are not cannonical within the relevant subfield, if you work on the relevant topics. No one is saying people should be required to read Fricker or Mills (or Plato) – only that these are cannonical within a certain subfield.

  10. Genre Analysis

    The question should be reframed because it is not so much about having read certain papers but having read a wide array of papers to sample the ways analytic philosophy can be done: how many papers do you need to read carefully to be able to understand and apply the genre? Or what are the main archetypes (e.g., counter-example paper, explicit P1, … Pn C argument, novel position paper, etc.) of philosophy papers that need to be read?

    Reply

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