Nietzsche had some groundbreaking ideas but it is notoriously hard reading.

To dismiss him offhand one would say that he believed that some special beings would emerge to rule over us who he called the ubermensch (almost definitely not spelled like that) who would mistreat us for their own benefits, that it is inevitable and will be the best thing ever. So the Nazis took his ideas and maybe misinterpreted them. And he definitely influenced that nutter Ayn Rand. Probably AI will turn out to be the ubermensch that he didn’t realise he was talking of. The end.

Which is mostly bullshit... but also a good debater could argue that this interpretation is accurate, plus it makes for a better movie plot or genocidal motivation than what he really said.


Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel is quite a fun read. His most well known paper is in there “What is it like to be a bat?” which is great. His short book / long paper “The view from nowhere” is also interesting and quite readable if you enjoy his style.

Philosophy of mind: a guide and anthology by John Heil is a great collection of essays.
Philosophy of language by A P Martinich contains a lot of the stuff that influenced my own writings.

I can offer more suggestions in normative ethics or classical philosophy but I’m a philosopher of mind and language primarily and haven’t studied too deeply into other areas.


Peace,

kowalski