256 of the Best Philosophy Books

History of Philosophy

Western Civilization

1. A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Classical Philosophy

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
2. Symposium, Parmenides, Phaedrus by Plato

Christian and Medieval

1. Confessions, The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
2. Proslogion by Anselm of Canterbury

Early Modern

1. Novum Organum by Sir Francis Bacon
2. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham
3. Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson
4. Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley
5. Course of Positive Philosophy by Auguste Comte
6. Principles of Philosophy, Passions of the Soul by René Descartes
7. The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
8. Foundations of the Science of Knowledge by Johann Gottlieb Fichte
9. De iure belli ac pacis by Hugo Grotius
10. Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, The Philosophy of Right, The Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
11. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
12. A Treatise of Human Nature, Four Dissertationss, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume
13. A Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, A Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant
14. Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Anxiety by Søren Kierkegaard
15. Discourse on Metaphysics, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Théodicée, Monadology by Gottfried Leibniz
16. Two Treatises of Government, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
17. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
18. The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital by Karl Marx
19. On Liberty, Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
20. The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill
21. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
22. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
23. Pensées by Blaise Pascal
24. Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Emile: or, On Education, The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
25. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
26. The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick
27. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
28. System of Synthetic Philosophy by Herbert Spencer
29. Ethics, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza
30. The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner
31. A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft

Contemporary

Phenomenology and Existentialism

1. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
2. Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
3. Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
4. Logical Investigations, Cartesian Meditations, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy by Edmund Husserl
5. Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty
6. Being and Nothingness, Critique of Dialectical Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre,

Hermeneutics and Deconstruction

1. Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida
2. Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer
3. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation by Paul Ricœur

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

1. The Order of Things by Michel Foucault
2. Difference and Repetition by Gilles Deleuze
3. Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
4. Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray
5. Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault

Critical Theory and Marxism

1. Negative Dialectics by Theodor Adorno
2. Reading Capital by Louis Althusser
3. Being and Event by Alain Badiou
4. Theory of Communicative Action by Jürgen Habermas
5. Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno
6. History and Class Consciousness by Georg Lukacs
7. Reason and Revolution, Eros and Civilization by Herbert Marcuse

Eastern Civilization

Chinese Philosophy

1. The Record of Linji by XXX
2. Han Feizi by Han Fei
3. Analects, Five Classics by Kongzi
4. Dao De Jing by Laozi
5. Mengzi by Mengzi
6. Art of War by Sunzi
7. The Taiji Tushuo by Zhou Dunyi
8. Four Books, Reflections on Things at Hand by Zhu Xi

Indian Philosophy

1. The Upanishads by XXX
2. The Bhagavad Gita (“The Song of God”) by XXX
3. Nyaya Sutras by Aksapada Gautama
4. Sankhya Karika by Isvarakrsna
5. Vaisheshika Sutra by Kanada
6. Yoga Sutras by Patañjali
7. Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Swami Swatamarama
8. Brahma Sutras by Vyasa
9. Thiruvalluvar by Tami

Islamic Philosophy

1. The Incoherence of the Philosophers by Al-Ghazali

Japanese Philosophy

1. Wild Ivy by Hakuin Ekaku
2. One-Sheet Document by Honen
3. Attaining Enlightenment in this Very Existence by Kukai
4. Style and Flower by Zeami Motokiyo
5. The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
6. Kyogyoshinsho by Shinran
7. Shōbōgenzō by Dogen Zenji

Philosophy of Other Disciplines

Education

1. Democracy and Education by John Dewey
2. The Slow Death of the University by Terry Eagleton
3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
4. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha Nussbaum
5. Walden Two by B.F. Skinner
6. Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Charles Weingartner and Neil Postman

Religion

1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument by William Lane Craig
2. The Miracle of Theism by J. L. Mackie
3. Religion Without Explanation by Dewi Zephaniah Phillips
4. God and Other Minds, Is Belief in God Properly Basic by Alvin Plantinga
5. The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look by William Rowe
6. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason by J. L. Schellenberg
7. The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne

Science

1. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge by Paul Feyerabend
2. The Scientific Image by Bas C. van Fraassen
3. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast by Nelson Goodman
4. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Samuel Kuhn
5. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem by Larry Laudan
6. How to Define Theoretical Terms by David K. Lewis
7. The Grammar of Science by Karl Pearson
8. The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper
9. The Rise of Scientific Philosophy by Hans Reichenbach

Mathematics

1. Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
2. What Numbers Could not Be, Mathematical Truth by Paul Benacerraf
3. Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings by Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam
4. Logic, Logic and Logic by George Boolos
5. Science without Numbers: The Defence of Nominalism by Hartry Field
6. Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos
7. Second Philosophy by Penelope Maddy

Physics

1. Physics by Aristotle
2. Mécanique quantique : Une introduction philosophique, Schrödinger’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics by Michel Bitbol
3. On the Emergence of Time in Quantum Gravity by Chris Isham and Jeremy Butterfield
4. The Meaning of Science: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Tim Lewens

Computer Science

1. Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity by Scott Aaronson
2. Causality by Judea Pearl
3. The Philosophy of Computer Science, Computational Artefacts-Towards a Philosophy of Computer Science by Ray Turner

Neuroscience

1. Revisionary Physicalism, Psychoneural Reduction of the Genuinely Cognitive: Some Accomplished Facts, Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave, Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account by John Bickle
2. Brain-Wise : Studies in Neurophilosophy, Neurophilosophy : Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain by Patricia Churchland
3. Explaining the brain : mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience by Carl Craver
4. Philosophy of the Brain: The brain problem by Georg Northoff
5. Neurophilosophy of Free Will: From Libertarian Illusions to a Concept of Natural Autonomy by Henrik Walter

Chemistry

1. Philosophy of Chemistry by Jaap van Brakel

Biology

1. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel C. Dennett
2. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories by Ruth Garrett Millikan
3. What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell by Erwin Schrödinger
4. The Nature of Selection by Elliott Sober

Sociology

1. Science and Human Behavior by B. F. Skinner

Psychology

1. The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme by Donald Davidson
2. The Principles of Psychology by William James

Economics

1. Social Choice and Individual Values by Kenneth Arrow
2. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science by Ludwig von Mises
3. Value in Ethics and Economics by Elizabeth S. Anderson

Arts and Humanities

1. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline by Bernard Williams

Art

1. Art by Clive Bell
2. Art and the Aesthetic by George Dickie

Music

1. Music as an Art by Roger Scruton

Literature

1. Poetics by Aristotle

Language

1. A Plea for Excuses, How To Do Things With Words by J. L. Austin,
2. Making it Explicit by Robert Brandom
3. Must We Mean What We Say? by Stanley Cavell
4. Two Dimensional Semantics by David Chalmers
5. What Nonsense Might Be by Cora Diamond
6. Frege: Philosophy of Language by Michael Dummett
7. On Sense and Reference by Gottlob Frege
8. Logic and Conversation by H. P. Grice
9. Naming and Necessity by Saul Kripke
10. General Semantics by David K. Lewis
11. Word and Object by Willard Van Orman Quine
12. On Denoting by Bertrand Russell
13. Speech Acts by John Searle
14. Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein

History

1. The Idea of History by R.G. Collingwood
2. Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History by Karl Löwith

Medicine

1. Medical Philosophy: Conceptual Issues in Medicine by Mario Bunge
2. Philosophy of Medicines by R. Paul Thompson and Ross E. G. Upshur

Law

1. Law’s Empire by Ronald Dworkin
2. Natural Law and Natural Rights by John Finnis
3. The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller
4. The Concept of Law by H.L.A. Hart

Politics

1. Politics by Aristotle
2. Two Concepts of Liberty by Isaiah Berlin
3. Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
4. Republic by Plato
5. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper
6. A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
7. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice by Michael Sandel