5 Essential Great Books for a Classical Education
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- What five classic books are indispensable from a classical education? Christian highlights five great books spanning various time periods and subject matter that can't be overlooked.
ABOUT THE CHANNEL
ThinkingWest: Great Books Explored revives the “Great Conversation” in our digital age through exploring the great books of the western world. We dive deep into the most influential books of all time, read short essays and letters from the greatest thinkers, and discuss timeless ideas that continue to shape our culture today.
ABOUT THINKINGWEST
ThinkingWest aims to revive the “Great Conversation” in our digital age through promoting the study of the great books of the western world, classical approaches to education, and through thoughtful commentary on current events, history, philosophy, culture, education, and religion.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren: amzn.to/3NOLCrm
How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom: amzn.to/3J69V0y
The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer: amzn.to/3LB5Djq
LINKS
Website: thinkingwest.com/
Donate to support this work: thinkingwest.com/donate/
Classic book lists: thinkingwest.com/book-lists/
Relevant articles: thinkingwest.com/2021/12/12/t...
Intro music produced by Adam Drakos.
#classicaleducation #greatbooks #booktube
Great list. Mine is The Iliad/Odyssey, History of the Peloponnesian War, The Aeneid, The Bible, The Divine Comedy, The Brothers Karamazov.
Nice list!
Videos like these are so valuable to someone like me, who has not read most of the classics. Growing up in the public school system and graduating with degrees from state schools did not expose me to most of the great works of western literature. As an adult, I am just now getting into all of the works I've missed out on. I'm starting very basic and working through Plato's Republic and The Iliad right now!
We are on the same boat Mitchell. On top of a similar educational experience, I've been heavily invested in the sciences and have only begun to appreciate these works over the past few years.
I upvoted you. Read “Closing of the American Mind,” and you’ll understand why you’re learning this now. It’s never too late; but earlier isn’t exactly bad either.
It’s not ENTIRELY a bad thing that you guys didn’t get the modern take on the great works. Academia nowadays is poisoned with the cancer of Marxism. You’re much better off studying these on your own. 👍🏼
@@ericb2409how exactly is Marxism used in today’s education? I’ve never been exposed to Marxist themes in my US public education on purpose. We compared and contrasted Marxism with Stalinism, Socialism, capitalism, etc. in high school. I also read the communist manifesto in its original German and discussed it (in German) in a German literature course. However, neither the professor or anyone in my class praised it.
@@startledmilk6670 It entirely depends on the school you attend, the profs you have at those schools, and the books assigned by the profs you have at that school. Material conditions of yours and their labour.
1. Bible
2. Iliad & Odyssey
3. Plato & Aristotle
4. Confessions
5. Consolation of Philosophy
I totally agree with you putting the bible as the number one classical book. I think it’s often overlooked even though it is literally the most influential book in human history.
Good list!
I’ve never read the Consolation although I run across it mentioned from time to time.
@@TrevorHOLHow is it overlooked? It is still read more than any other classic book.
Do you mean the book by Allien de Button ? I like it
I'm pleased I've read one classic on your list..Don Quixote...loved it!
Thank you for the recommendations, as someone who is widely read of more modern literature, I’ve always struggled to find an ‘in’ into the world of the true classics - subscribed, thank you! 👍🏻
Great! Your best reading is ahead of you.
Can't disagree with any of your choices! I'm currently working my way through Plutarch's Lives.
My favorite!
Thank you for the recommendations. I really appreciate it.
You're welcome!
Good list. I enjoy the great books. I was a teacher at a classical school for a few years and we would have these same conversations. My list would be The Illiad/Oddessy (as they are one oral piece). City of God. Euclid Elements, Shakespeare's works (yes I know this is a bit of a cheat), and The Brother's Karamozov. Thanks for the video.
Nice list, and I like that it contains some mathematics in there.
Great work ! Really appreciate what you are doing for people - introducing them to the joys of classical readings 😊I was in splits seeing Montaigne's quote about the throne and the bottom 🤣
Thanks! Montaigne had a sense of humor.
Great video. I can't wait to start my journey into the classics.
I wish you the best in your reading!
Agree, and agree also with the restrained delivery of yours.
Thanks David.
I agree with your picks especially St. Augustine and Aristotle Ethics.
Thanks!
Tysm. You and Benjamin Evory are rlly teachers by character
Much appreciated
Bravo - I completely agree with this list with the bonus that with Montaigne you will get a good amount of Titus Lucretius Carus who I believe every educated person should read.
This is an interesting list, I have just recently gotten into classical literature and have not yet gone through many of the books mentioned. I think the biggest book you overlooked for the area of theology and religion is the bible (although it is technically a collection of books). Unfortunately I feel there is a stigma around the bible in modern times, where even if you where to look at it through a strictly secular lens you would still find an amazing story about the development of morality, distributed systems of governance, poetry, and the most compelling story of the ideal man ever written. It has shaped the world today to a greater extent than any other book in history, and for that alone it deserves number 1 on my list.
I think you'll enjoy Benjamin McEvoy in England, a young, brilliant man who has the hard-core literature book club. Check out his summaries of classics.
excellent choices, bravo
Many thanks!
I am from east but I think this is really a marvellous selection. I didn't see Plutarch coming as I don't know much about him. Out of the five books I will only replace Montaigne with Descartes.
That makes your insight very valuable, as you can view these western works from a different viewpoint. Good suggestion!
None of these”great books” type channels ever mention Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. So I will.
Great list! Thanks for sharing it. We need more online prodcutions dedicated to the Great Books. I wonder though, if you had to add a couple of medieval works (I know Saint Agustine is sometimes labelled as a medieval author, but I think of him more as a late antique one), what would they be?
I actually have a video coming in the next couple weeks going through our picks for the great books of various periods, including Medieval. I agree Augustine is not Medieval. Off the top of my head: Aquinas and Dante are hard to beat.
Love your approach. I will purchase each as a find each n used book stores. Please specify translator when more than one. Looking forward to digging in. Guess I can't put off Don Quixote any longer. Boohoo
Don Quixote is great! I enjoyed it a lot. One I did not enjoy was Gargantua and Pantagruel...
Another option is, you can check them out from your local public library. That way, you won't have to wait!
Fine list. I'm working my way through the great books and you managed to pick all ones that I own but haven't yet read (well, I've read halfway through Confessios). That said I would probably swap in Thucydides and shoehorn Dante's Commedia in there somewhere.
I think those are fine substitutions.
1. The Iliad -- Homer
2. Don Quixote -- Cervantes
3. Anna Karenina -- Tolstoy
4. The Tractatus -- Wittgenstein
5. 1984 -- Orwell
Good list!
If there's only one philosopher your ever gonna read it should definitely be wittengstein.
@@Laocoon283 I feel you, man, but if you only read one philosopher ever, you ain't gonna understand Wittgenstein.
And if you wanted to understand your one philosophy book, the Tractatus is perhaps the worst choice.
after first two entries I thought this will be really about classical work :)
My Five:
1. The Bible
2. Homer, Iliad and Odyssey
3. St. Augustine, Confessions
4. Shakespeare, Complete Works
5. Dante, Divine Comedy
Ha, "Complete works" of Shakespeare is cheating!
Great video! This is a very, very difficult question to answer. My instinct was to take a foundational approach, which concentrates on early works. I also admit to a Western-centric bias that omits, for example, the Bhagavad Gita/Mahabharata, Tao Te Ching and other works that also deserve attention and respect. I would choose the Bible, Plato's Republic, Plutarch's Lives, St. Augustine's Confessions...and I guess Aristotles' Ethics, that's a good one. Maybe Suetonius, maybe pre-Socratics. Only five, that's tough.
Yes, 5 is low enough to leave everyone answering the question feeling like something is missing. A good exercise to run through.
Excellent
Thanks!
Great video, can I ask what painting is in the background?
Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, one of my favorite painters. He is known for his work portraying Jesus' life in "modern" (1600s) times.
I like your 5. I would say St Thomas More 'Utopia.' Why? Because when desire is weaponized you become enslaved to the passions and thus the material world. Also, ' Robinson Crusoe.' This novel is the most important one ever written, after 'Utopia,' on what economics, society, man himself really means. ' The Count of Monte Cristo' because like Edmond, we all want say, see, this is me, Edmond Dantes. 'Brave New World' because it sort of updates everything 'Utopia' says. The 'The 48 laws of power' by Robert Greene because human nature is unchanging.
Thanks for the thought provoking video. Here are my top 5:
1. The King James Bible
2. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
3. Rhetorica ad Herennium by Pseudo-Cicero
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
5. Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Great list...except for #4! Seems like one of those books you either love or hate.
I just found your channel, watched 2 videos. Nothing more, because I am on the internet for 30 minutes a day at most (and often not!). Whether I have a list? Sure, but am not going to publish them. When I was young (I live in Europe - Belgium) I traveled all over Europe in search of what you show in Thinking West. If I may give everyone one piece of advice? If You still want to see something of that Europe come here quickly, because it is disappearing at breakneck speed. The light of Europe is dying out. Sad but worth it. (And one more thing: read books!)
Well that’s heartbreaking. I won’t be able to visit Europe for quite a while. Hopefully there is still something to see of its history by the time I can go.
3:09 saving this quote
*currently reading the iliad* well you didn't make the list but I still like you.
It definitely could be on this list, easily.
Great channel, one of the few on You Tube to cover this ground. I would list mine as follows:
1. Homer's The Illiad & The Odessey (I consider them one epic really .. sorry)
2. Plato's Republic
3. Aurielus' Meditations
4. Complete works of Shakespeare (going to try and get away with that as one book).
5. Cormac Mccarthy's The Road
Great list! Like the addition of the Road
1.Metamorphoses of Ovid
2.Histories of Heredotus
3.Divine Comedy
4.Aeneid
5.Count of Monte Cristo
Good solid books. A very good list. I'd say my list would include Plutarchs Lives, The Odyssey, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, and very likely The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides or the King James Bible. I admit to being biased in regards to ancient literature though.
Great choices. The Bible certainly should be on any such list, but I always subconsciously put it in its own category.
The KJV stands as a pinnacle of the English language. But like Mr. Thinking West it is a given. I picture my list being held in my hands as my Bible is tucked under my arm
@@chadpoorman5055 Agreed.
@@ThinkingWest I think the only other one that I would want on my list as a tie would be the complete works of William Shakespeare.
5:02 YES! I have read quite a bit of Montaigne, and good heavens is it a source to mine for wit, wisdom, and a jumping off point for further research and leanrning. I made a list of some of the less used notable people he references in his essay "On Vanity": 11 different ancient Greeks I had never heard of, 5 ancient Romans, and a Bishop from the 400s.
I stopped the video as soon as I saw this. Interested to see what you have to say.
Okay, so here is my list.
-the Essays of Montaigne, of course
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
- a selection from the Discourses of Epictetus and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- I suspect Plutarchs Lives, though I haven't yet read it. Its near the top of my list
- not sure what to pick for number five. There are so many good additions! Herodotus? Thoreau? Bastiat? Boetie? Paine? Milton? Virgil?
Okay, my choice is... Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. Not of the western world, but many of the great thinkers of the east should be studied as well, and I dont think any of them quite exemplifies the wisdom from the east like Lao Tzu does.
I smiled when you gave criteria;
Spread out in time and subject matter,
Not bunched up in same time period,
Treating different things like philosophy and history for example…
THE BIBLE was the first, and best, “great books” series.
I would add the Principia by Newton for science
Oh yes. Great addition.
Which classic?
Excellent list. Superb list. I might replace Plutarch with Thucydides, and Augustine's "Confessions" with his "City of God", and I definitely would add a sixth book to the list: "INSIGHT: A Study of Human Understanding" by Bernard J. F. Lonergan.
Good swaps. I know less of Lonergan and need to read your suggested work.
@@ThinkingWest ... INSIGHT is a formidable book. The best way into it is to first read "Understanding and Being", a series of lectures in which Lonergan explains what the book, INSIGHT, is about.
Aristotle isn't 'arguably' one of the greatest minds of all time: he most definitely is.
As to Aristotle being the cornerstone of western philosophy: that is highly debateable. "Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato" (Whitehead). I'd say the works of both form the bedrock of western philosophy.
What age would you recommend students begin reading this list?
I think early high school for most of them. Fairy tales for much younger kids. I have to think more about what might be more appropriate for the middle school ages. I have to think more on what a realistic progression for kids might look like.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. Very interesting! Do you consider the Bible a "classic work?"
It is a collection of classic works.
The Bible is THE classic work of Western Civilization. It is so fundamental, I often leave it out.
Christian Bale discussing the classics over here
Now you've inspired to search for a video listing "5 Essential Great Cat Videos"!
Curious as to whether any of Adam Smith's works made it into the top 10.
I'm sure many would give it a spot in the top ten. Hard to compare the impacts of particular books across genres. But we can probably all admit it is easily top ten in among politics/economics.
I know one's outward appearance can affect his being accepted or rejected because which can be devastatingly wrong as analogous to judging a book by its cover. But it happens here in this video... I must apologize for my unintended impertinence.
No problem at all.
Great list....Still love cat videos though 😂
I dont count myself as having a very good education but ive read these.
You're doing better than most!
@@ThinkingWestI do take my Liberal arts and sciences very seriously nowadays. I shouldn't thi k so little of the knowledge learned from just these 5 works. They helped liberate my mind on a few issues I had.
I prefer book videos. Subbed
Amen.
Choices 3, 4 and 5 are spot on.
But Plato’s Republic should top any list and ought to displace the Nicomachean Ethics.
And Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War would be my personal choice for history.
Good suggestions! I'm partial to the Greek and Roman historians in particular.
Aristotle's Ethics (and poetics), Plato's republic, Plutarch', The Prince, Brothers K, and id add Aquinas;" Summa
Great choices
Why would any one read St Augustine's confessions without first reading the bible tho? That should be replaced with the bible considering like half of the western canon in some way plays off of it.
I agree. When talking about the Great Books, many (including myself) just assume that the Bible is first or foremost among them, and so forget to recognize it.
I’m surprised the Bible isn’t on the list and Plato’s the Republic.
I operate on the assumption the Bible is so obviously #1 that I usually ignore it. Many of the "Great Books" sets leave it out for the same reason...they assume everyone already had a Bible in their home.
Why did you completely ignore the great Russian writers, Tolstoy, Dostoeyevsky, Pushkin and Turgenev? Then in the modern era Solzhenitsyn, and Vasily Grossman. If writing is to be a study of human nature and suffering these qualify.
Certainly. I just limited myself to 5.
I've read them all except Don Quixote.
I usually hear the extremes with Don Quixote. You either love it or hate it.
Could we have a classical cat video
This channel will never take off until we do...
One swallow does not make a summer. Five books do not make a complete list. 😅
It's certainly difficult to drill down just 5......
I’m not sure you could make a list of great western books without the Bible itself. If that’s too much, at least the books of Genesis, Psalms, proverbs, the gospel of John, and the letter to the Romans.
I think most overlook it because it is assumed to be the greatest work already. Everything else is vying for places 2 through 6.
@@ThinkingWest Just so. In fact Mortimer Adler, principal editor of the GBotWW collection, specifically said in numerous talks that the Bible was included, but since the Bible was already in, or readily available to, every household in America, there would be no reason to include another copy of it in the set of GBofWW. And, of course, the Bible is indexed and cross-referenced in the his 2-vol. Syntopicon of the Great Ideas.
The King James Bible with Apocrypha
The Apostolic Fathers translated by J. B. Lightfoot
Lucretius' On the Nature of Things
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Bullfinch's Mythology
Basically, the entire Western Tradition summed up in five books.
If I could choose ten, the other five would be Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, War and Peace, Euclid's Elements and a composition of Three Chinese Classics (Confucian Analects, The Complete Mozi, The Sayings of Mencius).
The King James with Apocrypha I'd choose because it has everything relevant documented about history, from the time periods, and sourced from people who actually saw those things, from about 3000BC to 31AD. The Apostolic Fathers I'd choose because it, like the Apocrypha, carries the accurate nuances of Christianity, and it'd be critical for preserving the religion, in the way it's meant to be expressed. Lucretius, because Epicureanism is a common sense philosophy, and is the foundational philosophy of science and also ethics. Despite some arguments it makes against Theism--which are weak--it carries an important theme that would be important to retain. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, because it has all the history the Bible wouldn't. It delves in Classical and European History, and all the hallmarks of it. Bullfinch's Mythology, because it has all the history Shakespeare and the Bible doesn't. Lol. It talks about all the major themes in Western Literature, and retains the mythologies of the culture.
And my other five, would be important, too. Grimm's Fairy Tales has stories from the Neolithic Civilization, that would be imperative to remember. Hans Christian Andersen, because it has such depth and nuance, but also a certain naivety. War and Peace, because it's probably the single most human story ever told, and captures every single aspect of humanity there is. Euclid's Elements because that knowledge is foundational, and would preserve the other half of science that Epicureanism lacks. And the three Chinese Classics because they reinforce the ubiquity of the Bible, and its ideas. Just about every major idea in the Bible is reflected in Chinese philosophy. Save the atonement offered by Jesus Christ.
Which, I'd think every major theme in humanity is reflected in those ten books, and there's really nothing of use that's lacking.
Why I wouldn't choose Augustine or Plato or Aristotle, is because I just don't find them that important. Or Cervantes. Montaigne, though, is one I seriously considered. But, I mean, Plato and Aristotle confused more than they clarified, and Cervantes is just pointless suffering. Augustine I think everything useful he'd say is contained in the scriptures. And Montaigne, again, I'd seriously consider maybe in place of Hans Christian Andersen, if someone pushed me. But I find Hans Christian is inventive, and also very fundamental. But it'd be a coin toss between Montaigne and Andersen.
Plato and Aristotle not important? That's bizarre. They are the foundation of western thought.
@@donjindra Yeah, people have a tendency to gravitate toward the wrong thinkers.
I'm highly influenced by Plato's Forms for sure. Especially the Phaedo. But, consequentially, it's not that high on my list of priorities for a classical education.
Stories are more imperative for a culture than philosophy.
@@BKNeifert I've never believed in Plato's forms. In fact, I believe almost none of Socrates' arguments. Plato is important because he explores almost every philosophical issue known to mankind. He prompts ultimate questions.
Stories are trivial to a culture compared to philosophy. Besides, any culturally important story is bound to focus on philosophical issues. Btw, Plato's dialogues _are_ stories. You can't really understand the philosophy unless you see the story that is the framework.
@@donjindra Maybe. But I think Plato''s Forms are probably one of the most common sense parts of his philosophy. It's not really something we believe in, but it's something that tries to explain how communication works. It's a hint at the Jungian Archetype, and it's hinting at the Logos.
Of course, there's something that allows communication to happen. Plato's form is not necessarily a literal explanation, but like a story, it's a metaphor for how communication actually works. By shared essences that people see, and can relate to, and it helps make people able to see and understand, and share the same perceptions. There's some universal construct that helps people communicate with one another. I'd think it's embedded in reality, and when you divorce reality from communication--or even math and science--you begin to have communication break down. I'd think anyway.
That's generally what we're dealing with right now. Is breakdown of communication, because people are all in their heads, and aren't relating to the objective world around them anymore. Communication is built more around social constructs, rather than objective facts about reality. And that gets into Confucius's philosophy, which is similar to Plato's, that Names have to be rectified for anything in the State to function.
@@BKNeifert I'm a materialist, so forms strike me as non-stuff, almost theological -- far from objectivity. I see no common sense in them. Maybe you're referring to the problem of universals? I think universals -- or abstraction generally -- is just how brains work and probably the only way they could work in practice. The structure of our brains does naturally organize reality into universals (and also particulars) but that does not imply the universal has an existence outside our brains.
I do agree a lot of our problems are intensified by a breakdown in communication but I don't think that's a root cause. Mostly people don't want to consider other interpretations of reality. To me, that's not a communication problem but a desire problem. We can almost universally agree on definitions that don't have sociopolitical baggage -- like what a chair is. Regardless, reality doesn't offer us one story. We make up stories to reinforce our interests. Two people see the same facts but interpret the facts differently. I guess we could call stories underdetermined theories of reality.
This is not me denigrating stories, though.
Please check your pronunciation
AUG-us-teen is in Florida
au-GUS-tin is in Heaven
I've heard it both ways, but guess you're probably right. Not the first time I've been corrected.
😅
@tomcollen462 ---> Your pronunciation of the name is correct, but his eternal whereabouts is very doubtful. Disgustin' Augustin cooked-up the foul idea of "Birth Sin'. The Holy Bible does NOT teach "Birth sin" and nobody in the first five centuries of Christianity taught it. A hundred years after the heresiarch of Hippo died, Rome adopted the foul doctrine. The E.O. churches did not. Sin is something a human might do, it is NOT what all humans are. "Sin" means "Missing The Mark", as an archer sending an arrow towards the bullseye but hitting the bale of straw instead.
In undergrad school, I had two profs who were constantly arguing over the correct pronunciation. I agreed with the one who argued that if the Bishop of Hippo would want his name pronounced like "-tin" (or "-ten"), he needs to lose the ending "e." Otherwise, if his name is going to end with "-tine," he's going to be pronounced like "teen" -- which is closer to "-tinus," the last syllable of his name, "Aurelius Augustinus."
Kierkegaard’s Plum
The Apocryphal Platonic Dialogue, The Bathhouse Tapes
Kant’s The Critique of the Groundwork for the Future of a Metastises
Huizinga, The Amsterdam Problem: IKEA Ed.
Walter Benjamin: My Dolls are Dead: My Life in Port Bous.
G.W.F. Hegel’s G.W.F. Hegel’s Owls in the Pool.
Translated by Razz Drummer.
Love the choices, because I'm familiar with almost none of them. Will check out.
Oh damn Don Quixote and Montaigne before the KJV, Plato, and all of Shakespeare?? Idk man. Seems a reach.
It's tough! But yes, any of those could easily be substituted here.
Plutarch's Lives is right, but the rest not. The Histories of Herodotus, the Annals of Tacitus, Guicciardini's History of Italy, and Dostoevsky's Demons.
The Republic and Brothers Karamazov.
All else is fluff.
Mark Twain defined a classic as a book that is widely praised and seldom read. I doubt any of the commentators here who praise the Bible have ever read it in its entirety. Much of it is moral abomination. The only edifying part I have found is the sermon on the Mount. Gospel of Saint Matthew chapters 5,6, and 7.
Don Quixote is not even slightly an important book to read. Personally, I wish I had the time back, that I wasted reading it. It's mediocre, even for what it is, a fictional story. Anyone could write that nonsense. Sit down and write a rambling adventure with silly characters doing random things. It's the Monopoly of literature. Oldest, most well-known, lengthy, and pointless crap by today's standards.
I enjoyed it a lot. But, I appreciate that virtually any fiction work could hit someone as pointless. A lot of it is. I think it's fairer to judge something like Dox Quixote in comparison to its time and what came before it. Prior to Cervantes, few (if any - I can't think of any) books resembled a modern novel. Don Quixote is one of the earliest books that nominally reads like a modern novel, instead of an epic poem for example. Regardless, I can't convince you to like it. I feel the same way about all of Dickens' works.
I fear these books are a bit dated. The world has moved far ahead with advances in biology, chemistry, math, astronomy and, dare I say, theological thought. Certainly these books should be read, perhaps even in their original languages. What we need, however, are modern views on classical ethics and morality.
Since I read all five books when I was younger, do I receive a certificate of classical education from you??😂
Here you go 📜 🤝
Gianni, getting a classical education is a bit like Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. We constantly strive for it as a GOAL, but we'll never get there. I've read at least once almost all of the Great Books of the Western World collection, and the Gateway to the Great Books, and the Harvard Classics books, and each time I sit down with a volume my Kindle) or pdf reader, I find more new things, and things I missed (or misunderstood) on prior reading. It's an adventure, THE QUEST of a lifetime.