Every now and then, if you're lucky, you'll encounter a book that changes your life. History's great novels have earned a reputation in this regard. While the stories of Homer, Virginia Woolf, Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Jane Austen may not be for everyone all the time, an education in the classics can change people in profound ways and give our minds a meeting place in the world of ideas.
Imagine you're shopping for your next read. You scan the bookstore shelves, registering the promising titles and colorful covers as you go. Among them are several older classics you promised yourself you'd read one day, and you feel a familiar pang of guilt over having not picked them up yet. Is today the day? No, you decide, and opt for a newer book that is currently trending on social media.
One espe­cial­ly appeal­ing aspect of phi­los­o­phy, as a field of study, is that you don't have to go any­where to learn it but the library. And these days, you don't nec­es­sar­i­ly have to go there, now that so many philo­soph­i­cal texts have become freely avail­able on the inter­net. In the video above, phi­los­o­phy YouTu­ber Jared Hen­der­son rec­om­mends sev­en books through which any­one can get a sol­id intro­duc­tion to the sub­ject.
I'm convinced, by the way, that we'll continue to do very well collectively, without Remco. Albeit in a slightly different way than we've been used to in recent years,