Theory of Knowledge Reading List



Theory of Knowledge Reading List (v. 1.1)

The books on the list are not exhaustive nor are they listed with the suggestion that you should or even need to read them all. They are there for you to use as a reference point if you feel you would like or might need further reading on a topic. My recommendations for using this list are as follows:

• Try and read at least one of the books on this list each term, and during the longer school holidays whilst studying the IB TOK Program. In particular the summer holidays are a great time to get in to some decent reading.

• Focus on books that are in areas you are already interested in order to deepen your knowledge of how that subject works, to give you a better idea of the history of the subject or to provoke new and interesting ideas within the subject.

• Or, you might wish to focus on books that are in areas you are not already familiar with in order to broaden your academic understanding.

• Try and look at the book before you get hold of a copy as the books are at a range of different levels and it is important to find a book you a comfortable with if you are to make much progress.

• Enjoy what you read! If you don’t like it, find it boring or don’t understand it, persevere. If you still aren’t happy with the book, read something else. Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy, there are plenty of alternatives.

Books are available in the school library and the department and, of course, cheaply online ( and Amazon.co.uk are two of the best) and departmental books can be borrowed with my agreement (there is a books sign out sheet).

If you find a good book, please let me know and I will add it to the list and if you would like any more reading on a certain topic you need only ask.

As well as non-fiction there is a fiction section of this list, which continues works of fiction which encompass or explore a range of philosophical issues relevant to the course

At the end of this list is also a film list. Many films have great philosophical issues at their heart and some particular examples are highlighted in the Film section of the list.

Knowers and Ways of Knowing (Language, Reason, Emotion, Perception)

o What Does It All Mean? by Thomas Nagel.

o Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge by A.C. Grayling

o Think by Simon Blackburn.

o Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton.

o Epistemology: The Theory of Knowledge by Daniel Cardinal, Gerald Jones, and Jeremy Hayward

o Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy!: An Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology by Stephen Cade Hetherington

o Making Up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World by Chris Frith

o The Stuff of Though by Steven Pinker

o The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

o The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks

o The Meditations by Renee Descartes

o Epistemology: A Beginner's Guide by Robert M. Martin

o Language, Truth and Logic by A. J. Ayer

Areas of Knowledge

Mathematics

o G H Hardy by A Mathematician's Apology

o Alex's Adeventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos

o Zero by A Biography of a Dangerous Number by Charles Seife

o The Music of the Primes by Marcys de Sautoy.

o Brief History of Infinity by Brian Clegg

o Where Mathematics Comes from: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being by George Lakoff and Rafael Nunez

o 1089 and All That by David Acheson

o Flatland by Edwin Abbott

o How Math Explains the World: A Guide to the Power of Numbers, from Car Repair to Modern Physics by James D. Stein

o Nature's Numbers: Discovering Order and Pattern in the Universe (Science Masters) by Ian Stewart

o The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless by John D. Barrow

o The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics by Steven E. Landsburg

History

o The Big Questions in History by Harriet Swain

o What If? and More What If? by Robert Crowley

o The Philosophy of History by Mark Day

o In Defence of History by Richard J Evans

o History: A Short Introduction by John Arnold

o The Pursuit of History by John Tosh

o A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow

o A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

Natural Sciences

o What is this thing called Science? by A F Chalmers

o Why Does E=mc2? by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

o The Logic of Scientific Discoveries by Karl Popper

o Against Method – Paul Feyerabend

o The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.

o The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

o Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

o The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition by Richard Dawkins

o Six Easy Pieces: Fundamentals of Physics Explained by Richard P Feynman

o Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara

o A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

o Creations of Fire: Chemistry's Lively History from Alchemy to the Atomic Age by Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite

Human Sciences

o Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years by Jared Diamond

o Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered by E F Schumacher

o Quirkology: The Curious Science Of Everyday Lives by Prof. Richard Wiseman

o Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail by and Why We Believe them Anyway by Dan Gardner

o The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

o Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

o Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Penguin Social Sciences) by Michel Foucault and Alan Sheridan

o The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-human Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama

o Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

o Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

o Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox

o Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace

o Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World by Stephen Oppenheimer

o Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism by Laurie Penny

Ethics

o The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

o Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics by Simon Blackburn

o The Puzzle of Ethics by Peter Vardy

o Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal, Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober

o Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality by Patricia S. Churchland

o Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-first Century? by David Fisher

o On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic by Friedrich Nietzsche

o A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change by Stephen M. Gardiner

o Practical Ethics by Peter Singer

o Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics: An Introduction to Theories of Right and Wrong by Steve Wilkens

The Arts

o What Good are the Arts? by John Carey

o The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich

o Design as Art by Bruno Munari

o Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes

o The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

o The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution by Denis Dutton

o But Is It Art?: An Introduction to Art Theory by Cynthia Freeland

o Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Berger

o The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross

o Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks

o Art: The Whole Story by Stephen Farthing and Richard Cork

o From Plato to Postmodernism: The Story of the West Through Philosophy, Literature and Art by Christopher Watkin

Fiction

o Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaader

o The Trial by Franz Kafka

o Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

o The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

o Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick

o 36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Goldstein

o The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

o Candide by Voltaire

o Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

o Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

o Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre

o The Plague by Albert Camus

o The Stranger by Albert Camus

o Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

o Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Films

o Memento

o Moon

o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

o Examined Life

o A Clockwork Orange

o Dr Strangelove

o Bladerunner

o Waking Life

o Fight Club

o Dark City

o Pi

o Being John Malkovich

o Minority Report

o Brazil

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