Certainly! Below is a reading plan for Year Four of a seven-year self-education journey using The Great Books of the Western World, Gateway to the Great Books, and related resources. The structure remains consistent with around 100 pages per week, balancing literature, philosophy, history, and science to provide a comprehensive liberal arts education.
Year Four: Weekly Reading List and Guide
Week 1
- Literature: Homer - The Odyssey (Books 1-4) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - Politics (Book 1) [~40 pages]
Week 2
- History: Herodotus - The Histories (Book 2, Sections 1-100) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (Preface and Introduction) [~50 pages]
Week 3
- Literature: Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy: Paradiso (Cantos 12-22) [~40 pages]
- Philosophy: John Stuart Mill - The Subjection of Women [~60 pages]
Week 4
- Science: Galileo Galilei - The Assayer [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (Book 4) [~50 pages]
Week 5
- Literature: Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote (Part 1, Chapters 11-20) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: René Descartes - Discourse on Method (Parts 4-6) [~40 pages]
Week 6
- History: Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 4, Chapters 1-10) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Sections 1-4) [~50 pages]
Week 7
- Literature: William Shakespeare - King Lear [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (Part 3: On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions) [~50 pages]
Week 8
- Science: Isaac Newton - Principia Mathematica (Book 2, Sections 1-2) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan (Chapters 22-26) [~50 pages]
Week 9
- Literature: Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities (Book 1 and 2, Chapters 1-6) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals (Second Essay) [~40 pages]
Week 10
- History: Livy - The Early History of Rome (Book 5) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Plato - The Republic (Book 2) [~50 pages]
Week 11
- Literature: Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment (Part 1) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Emile, or On Education (Book 1) [~40 pages]
Week 12
- Science: Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species (Chapter 5: Laws of Variation) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - The Phenomenology of Spirit (Part 2: Self-Consciousness) [~50 pages]
Week 13
- Literature: Herman Melville - Billy Budd [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation (Book 2, Chapters 3-4) [~50 pages]
Week 14
- History: Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Chapters 20-21) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Book 2, Chapters 1-5) [~50 pages]
Week 15
- Literature: Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary (Part 2, Chapters 1-8) [~70 pages]
- Philosophy: Michel de Montaigne - Essays (Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions, Of Repentance) [~30 pages]
Week 16
- Science: Sigmund Freud - The Ego and the Id [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Søren Kierkegaard - Either/Or (Part 1: The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage) [~50 pages]
Week 17
- Literature: Marcel Proust - Swann’s Way (Part 2: Swann in Love) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Simone de Beauvoir - The Ethics of Ambiguity (Chapters 1-2) [~40 pages]
Week 18
- History: Plutarch - Lives (Life of Brutus) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Immanuel Kant - Critique of Practical Reason (Preface and Introduction) [~50 pages]
Week 19
- Literature: Franz Kafka - The Trial (Chapters 6-10) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Karl Marx - Capital (Volume 1, Chapters 1-3) [~40 pages]
Week 20
- Science: Albert Einstein - Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (Appendices) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (Sections 41-100) [~50 pages]
Week 21
- Literature: James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Chapters 1-2) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica (First Part, Questions 11-15) [~40 pages]
Week 22
- History: Tacitus - The Annals (Books 4-5) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Edmund Burke - A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful [~50 pages]
Week 23
- Literature: Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Part 2, Sections 3-4) [~50 pages]
Week 24
- Science: Francis Bacon - The Advancement of Learning (Book 1) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (Part 1, Chapter 2) [~50 pages]
Week 25
- Literature: Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (Part 1) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: John Stuart Mill - The Utility of Religion [~40 pages]
Week 26
- History: Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 5, Chapters 1-10) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (Part 4: Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions) [~50 pages]
Week 27
- Literature: Thomas Mann - Death in Venice [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Blaise Pascal - Pensées (Sections 4-7) [~50 pages]
Week 28
- Science: Isaac Newton - Principia Mathematica (Book 3, Sections 1-2) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Søren Kierkegaard - The Concept of Irony (Introduction and Part 1) [~50 pages]
Week 29
- Literature: Jane Austen - Emma (Chapters 1-10) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (Chapters 4-6) [~40 pages]
Week 30
- History: Herodotus - The Histories (Book 3, Sections 1-100) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - Metaphysics (Book 2) [~50 pages]
Week 31
- Literature: William Shakespeare - Othello [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan (Chapters 27-31) [~50 pages]
Week 32
- Science: Charles Darwin - The Descent of Man (Chapter 2) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Immanuel Kant - Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Sections 3-5) [~50 pages]
Year Four: Weekly Reading List and Guide (Continued)
Week 33 (Continued)
- Literature: Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Chapters 1-15) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica (First Part, Questions 16-20) [~40 pages]
Week 34
- History: Plutarch - Lives (Life of Alexander) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (Preface and Part 1) [~50 pages]
Week 35
- Literature: Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights (Chapters 1-10) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: David Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature (Book 1, Part 4, Sections 1-2) [~40 pages]
Week 36
- Science: Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams (Chapter 4: The Distortion in Dreams) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: René Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditations 4-6) [~50 pages]
Week 37
- Literature: Henry James - The Turn of the Screw [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Book 2, Chapters 6-12) [~50 pages]
Week 38
- History: Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Chapters 22-23) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - On the Soul (Books 2-3) [~50 pages]
Week 39
- Literature: Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace (Book 1, Part 1) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Blaise Pascal - Pensées (Sections 8-10) [~40 pages]
Week 40
- Science: Galileo Galilei - Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Second Day) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - The Philosophy of History (Introduction) [~50 pages]
Week 41
- Literature: Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding Crowd (Chapters 1-10) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Søren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling [~40 pages]
Week 42
- History: Tacitus - The Histories (Books 1-2) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (Chapters 1-2) [~50 pages]
Week 43
- Literature: Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Book 1) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Arthur Schopenhauer - On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Preface and Part 1) [~40 pages]
Week 44
- Science: Isaac Newton - Opticks (Book 2, Part 1) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (Book 2, Chapters 1-2) [~50 pages]
Week 45
- Literature: Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary (Part 3, Chapters 1-5) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy [~40 pages]
Week 46
- History: Herodotus - The Histories (Book 4, Sections 1-100) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (Part 5: On the Power of the Intellect, or On Human Freedom) [~50 pages]
Week 47
- Literature: Herman Melville - Moby-Dick (Chapters 1-10) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Michel de Montaigne - Essays (Of Experience, Of Friendship) [~40 pages]
Week 48
- Science: Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species (Chapter 14: Recapitulation and Conclusion) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - Rhetoric (Book 1) [~50 pages]
Week 49
- Literature: James Joyce - Ulysses (Episodes 1-2) [~60 pages]
- Philosophy: Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica (Second Part of the Second Part, Questions 1-5) [~40 pages]
Week 50
- History: Livy - The History of Rome (Book 6) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Judgement (Preface and Introduction) [~50 pages]
Week 51
- Literature: Leo Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyich [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols [~50 pages]
Week 52
- Science: Albert Einstein - The Meaning of Relativity (Part 1: Space and Time in Pre-Relativity Physics) [~50 pages]
- Philosophy: Aristotle - The Nicomachean Ethics (Book 5) [~50 pages]
Final Notes for Year Four:
Year Four continues to build on the intellectual foundation laid in the previous years, with a diverse selection of texts across literature, philosophy, history, and science. This year introduces increasingly complex ideas and encourages deep engagement with the material. The balance between disciplines ensures a comprehensive and enriching educational experience, setting the stage for the continued exploration in the following years.