What are some of the hardest philosophical books to read?

By hill-mountain8664

Hey! So pretty recently one of my go-to book reviewers (the kind of person who can apparently chew through stuff like *Ulysses*, *Infinite Jest*, *Gravity’s Rainbow*, *The Recognitions*, *Don Quixote*—okay not that one, but you get me—those wildly hard, dense books) said there were some books that completely beat him. A couple of them sound like “yeah, that tracks,” like *The Dream of the Bottoms* (which I’ve heard is basically impossible) and also these super long ones—like over a million words. But the one he said really, truly crushed him wasn’t even the “most famous” hard pick. It was Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*. I’d heard of that book before, way back, and I remember people calling it a brain-melter. At the time I didn’t care much, because I was more into fiction than philosophy. But later I kept hearing this kind of claim like “someone who reads GR without much trouble got wrecked by Hegel,” and that made me curious. The more I’ve looked into philosophy, the more it feels like a lot of it is just… hard. People argue about “the hardest book,” and everyone has different answers: some say Kant (*Critique of Pure Reason*) because of the length and the way the ideas are laid out; some say Heidegger (*Being and Time*) because of the subject matter; others swear by Hegel and *Phenomenology*; some go for Sartre (*Being and Nothingness*); and I’m sure there are plenty I’m not even thinking of. And I’m not sure what to make of it. Like, is Hegel genuinely that deep and challenging, or does he just not explain things in a way that makes it easier for normal humans to follow? Also, if *Phenomenology* is like this, what about his other work—like the *Encyclopaedia* or *Science of Logic*—are those just as brutal? Same question for the stuff I mentioned and the stuff I didn’t. Some of these books might actually be “brain melters,” sure, but some might also just be written in a way that makes you feel totally lost (I’m thinking of things like *Finnegans Wake*, where the struggle is almost the point). And then sometimes I worry some “important” philosophy is hard just because it’s poorly done, not because it’s amazing. So basically I’m sitting here wondering: what’s the “definitive hardest” philosopher (or philosophical book) in your opinion? And if you pick one, I’d love to know how you’re judging difficulty—like, is it how much your mind wanders just trying to track the thought process, how hard it is to even follow where the book is going aesthetically, and also yeah, since I’m the type who likes big chunky books, how long it is too. Also, if you know any incredibly hard-to-understand books that are philosophical (please no hard science stuff), feel free to toss those in. Thanks in advance for any thoughts—sorry my English is a bit rusty, it’s my second language. Hope everyone has a good day, and good luck with the hard reads.