Justice, Knowledge, Life and Death: Philosophical Revelations from Plato, Ayer, Sartre and Heidegger Some Suggestions for Those New to Philosophy

"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by John Keats, may seem archaic now, especially its language. But it expresses the poet's delight and excitement when he discovers a new literary revelation, hitherto hidden from him. He makes an intellectual discovery. I've had this sense of discovery when reading philosophy. Some new approach, some new idea, has made me see a concept I thought I understood in a different and more rigorous way; made me re- examine what I thought I'd understood perfectly well before. It's not so much that the authors I was reading offered the last word on the subject, more that they offered the first word. Here are four examples.