Philosophy Classics in Easy English: Where to Start

Why read philosophy in English?

Philosophy is a strange gift for a language learner. The sentences are often harder than in a novel, but the ideas are ones you already care about: how to be happy, how to deal with worry, what makes a good leader, why we do the things we regret. When you care about the idea, you push through the grammar.

The problem is that most English translations of the classics were written a hundred years ago or more, in long sentences full of old words. On SeoJae Story every work on the Philosophy & Psychology shelf is retold in clear B2 English. The famous lines are kept, every sentence has a Korean translation, and each part ends with a short In plain words card that says what the thinker means in three or four easy sentences. If you want the real thing, most parts also open the unabridged public-domain translation.

Start here: the most readable four

If you have never read philosophy before, begin with books that speak directly to everyday life. These four are short, practical and full of lines you will want to remember.

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: a Roman emperor's private notes to himself about staying calm. Try the inner citadel.
• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca: life is long enough, if you stop wasting it. Start with Life Is Long Enough.
• The Analects by Confucius: sayings Koreans grew up with, now in English. Begin with the joy of learning.
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau: two years in a cabin and a call to live simply. Written in English, so the famous lines are Thoreau's own words.

Next: the big questions

Once the practical books feel comfortable, move to the works that shaped how the world thinks about truth, goodness and power.

• The Apology by Plato: Socrates on trial, ending with 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle: happiness, habit and the golden mean.
• Discourse on the Method by Descartes: doubt everything until only 'I think, therefore I am' is left.
• The Prince by Machiavelli: is it better for a leader to be loved or feared?
• Tao Te Ching by Laozi: be like water, and start great things while they are small.

Freedom, society and the self

These books argue about how people should live together, and how much of yourself you owe to the crowd.

• The Social Contract by Rousseau: 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.'
• On Liberty by John Stuart Mill: the harm principle and the case for free speech.
• Self-Reliance by Emerson: trust yourself, and don't fear being misunderstood.
• Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant: treat people as ends, never only as means.

The mind: psychology classics

The shelf also holds the founders of modern psychology, whose ideas you meet in self-help books every day.

• Talks to Teachers by William James: the laws of habit, in James's own English.
• A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Freud: slips of the tongue, dreams and the unconscious.
• Understanding Human Nature by Alfred Adler: inferiority, birth order and community feeling, the ideas behind The Courage to Be Disliked.
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and The Wisdom of Life by Schopenhauer: for when you want something darker and more poetic.

How to read a philosophy part

Read the English once for the main idea, without stopping. Then read the In plain words card, and only then go back to the hard sentences with the Korean translation. Philosophy rewards a second read more than any novel: the argument that confused you the first time often clicks once you know where it is going.

Keep a note of one sentence per part that you want to remember, and say it aloud with the narration. A short line from Seneca or Confucius is easier to recall, and more useful in conversation, than a word list. For more on this habit, see how to remember English words without word lists.