These are are probably the most significant works of Continental philosophy, and should definitely take precedence of Foucault, who's really the only representative of Continental philosophy (with the exception of maybe Hegel) on your list.

It should also be made clear that plato.standford.edu is a highly biased site that mostly depicts philosophy from an Analytic perspective, where Continental thought is barely represented (or misrepresented).

NOTE: As I tried to make clear in a later post in this thread, I'm not recommending Heidegger or Nietzsche for a beginner. I just think their works belong on the list of the person I replied to more than do a lot of the other people he lists (many of whom, by the way, also aren't good for beginners to start with).

As far as Nietzsche goes - by his own words (he is very clear about this in one of his books - I think it was ecco homo) - you're supposed to have read ALL of the works of Kant and then Schopenhauer before you can even understand Nietzsche. Not that many people agree with him about that, but it did color my perception of him (and the study of the two that he asks the readers to look into does a massive amount to explain why Nietzsche sounds like such an edgelord)...

They're not going to understand Hegel either, and probably not Kant, or a bunch of other philosophers on that list.

But Heidegger and Nietzsche were undeniably hugely influential on philosophy, so they belong on that list as much or more than many of the other people listed, who were of minor significance, at best.

Ecce Homo was written shortly before Nietzsche went insane, with chapter titles like "Why I am So Wise", "Why I am So Clever", and "Why I Write Such Excellent Books". I wouldn't take what he wrote there at face value.. and much of what he writes in other places should be taken with a grain of salt also, as he often wrote with tongue firmly in cheek, and it's often difficult to nail down exactly what Nietzsche thought or intended.

This is one of the reasons he's been so influential on modern Continental philosophy, some of which took on wholeheartedly his spirit of play and irony, which most of philosophy before Nietzsche was missing.

That's not to say that Nietzsche can't be serious.. much of his work is serious, but it's written in an aphoristic rather than a systematic way, which makes understanding what he's saying a lot more difficult than, say, many Analytic thinkers, who prize being clear and straightforward.

So, yeah, Nietzsche's not great for beginners either, and he's famous for being misinterpreted anyway, even by professional philosophers. But he's still highly significant, and for my money far more profound than all the Analytics put together.

And sticking with western philosophy, if you are suggesting Hegel and Nietzsche. I would also bring you into the (late) twentieth century with Deleuze & Guattari. But I also wouldn't recommend them to a beginner.

I also think as a start, knowing these figures, perhaps even tasting their work, lets you read around them. You see the way their ideas spread out into the world. I sometimes think there are more different takes on Nietzsche's work than ideas in them!

You can also read back and trace a line of thought through various philosophers from say, Deleuze back through Bergson, Nietzsche, Kant, Spinoza, Liebniz, all the way back to the Stoics. To understand Dennett, you need see the impact Descartes has on modern thought, and you can trace that kind of thinking back through to the Socratics. You start to see that these philosophical threads actually shape people's entire view of the world around them, and in some way the world itself.

Hegel, however, was clearly influential, so he shouldn't be left out of a list of influential philosophers. I'm just personally not a fan of his at all, and were it not for his significance I would skip him.

https://qz.com/480741/this-free-online-encyclopedia-has-achi...

Why no Greeks? Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics at least!

I would add Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” as a short and readable intro to existentialism, followed by kierkegaard’s Being and Nothingness and Nietzche…maybe The Gay Science? (I am biased towards existentialism)

EDIT

I’m sure to get carried away, but some utilitarians would be good. Bertrand Russell is quite readable. His essays on Happiness are quick and impactful. John Stuart Mill, too, is a marvel of rationality (and progressivism (not on everything)) and sometimes prophetic. There’s value, I think, especially for those in tech to see the limits of rationality.

Spicy hot take, I think Ayn Rand is great for this. She takes hyper rational philosophy as far as it can go. It ends up being absurd precisely because it is so divorced from the irrational sides of humans. She’s fascinating, in my opinion. Understanding why she’s both revered in some parts of society and a bit of a meme in “serious” philosophy is a valuable exercise.

(To this day, I feel like maybe one might…not imagine Sisyphus to be happy? But Camus getting there is valuable. And maybe he’s right!)

Source if you don't believe me (see conclusion and checkout a full copy for further context): https://www.bard.edu/library/arendt/pdfs/Sartre-Search.pdf

Here's another source in html: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/crit...

Kant may also be a stretch for someone whose new - even the "idiots guide" versions of his works that he wrote because his other works were criticized in his own time for being hard to read

The rest listed here are good - but IMHO you should always start with plato/socrates. I'd throw in Timaeus and the sophist and maybe even parts of republic (at least the chapter involving allegory of cave and allegory of divided line) to this list

Similar with Kant. Bang your head against the categorical imperative at least. It’s a concept to be familiar with. I agree that a deep read of Kant is too far down the rabbit hole to start with.