Hi,
I take it that
your area of interest is concerns observational knowledge and the relation between knowledge and perception more generally. Suggesting "the" books - not to mention the essays - would make a very long list. Here is a short one:
- Historical:
Descartes, Locke,
Berkeley, Reid, Mill
Kant, Kant, Kant
- Modern (analytic and other):
Logical
positivism (M. Friedman has useful historical stuff) esp. Carnap and Schlick. Ayer is related. Earlier empiricists include Moore, Broad, Price. The span between, say, Mill and Broad is complex and interesting. Similarly in Germany between, say, Lotze and
Heidegger (esp. Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology). Also the pragmatists, like Pierce and James, and work influenced by them, including C. S. Lewis: Mind and the World Order (1929).
- Modern (analytic):
Chisholm: Perceiving (1957), essays (and epistemology intro books)
Quine: Word and Object (1960), various essays
Strawson: Bounds of Sense (1966)
Sellars: Science,
Perception, and Reality (1963) (including "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind"), various essays
- Recent (analytic):
Much work esp. on knowledge, perception, justification. An example from only this year, presenting a comprehensive theory, is Burge: Origins of
Objectivity.
Best, J. D.