This is a list of important publications in philosophy, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
- Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
- Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
- Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of philosophy.
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In addition to the topic divisions below western philosophers (after Kant) often divide themselves according to general methodology. This is noted next to the title as follows: [ C ] notes that a publication is read primarily by Continental Philosophers [ A ] notes that a publication is read primarily by Analytic Philosophers |
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This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. |
Historical texts
- Author: Plato
- Publication data: 427 BC – c. 347 BC; The Collected Dialogues of Plato (Bollingen Series LXXI), edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 1961.
- Online version: plato-dialogues.org
- Description: These classic dialogues are sometime considered to be the beginning of philosophy. Plato's Republic deals with political philosophy (presented, stylistically, via the concept of a Utopia), ethics, and his theory of universals (the 'forms')--among other things.
- Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence, Introduction
- Author: Augustine of Hippo
- Description:
- Online version: [3]
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- Author: Augustine of Hippo
- Publication data: circa 397 A.D.
- Description:
- Online version: [4]
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- Author: Augustine of Hippo
- Publication data: Early 5th century
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- Online version: [5]
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- Author: Thomas Aquinas
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- Publication data: circa 1260
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- Author: Thomas Aquinas
- Description:
- Online version: [6]
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- Author: René Descartes
- Description: A defining book in the rationalist tradition. Defines the "proper" method for uncovering truth.
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Author: René Descartes
- Description: A book primarily aimed at refuting radical skepticism.
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Author: Gottfried Leibniz
- Description:
- Online version: [7]
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- Author: Gottfried Leibniz
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- Author: John Locke
- Description:
- Online version: [8]
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- Author: Gottfried Leibniz
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- Author: George Berkeley
- Description:
- Online version: [9]
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- Author: David Hume
- Description:
- Online version: [10]
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- Author: David Hume
- Description: A book on epistemology which defines the empiricist tradition and is sometimes considered an early version of naturalism.
- Online version: [11]
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Author: Immanuel Kant
- Description: The Critique of Pure Reason is an attempt to answer two questions: "What do we know?" and "How do we know it?"
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Description:
- Online version: [12]
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- Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
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- Author: Miyamoto Musashi
- Publication data: approx 1600 AD
- Online version: http://www.samurai.com/5rings/
- Description: This book is considered a classic treatise on military strategy, much like Sun Tzu's The Art of War. A samurai guide to Zen swordsmanship and bushido.
- Importance: Introduction, Influence
- Author: Mencius, Zisi, Confucius, Zeng Zi
- Publication data: 371 BC – c. 289 BC ??
- Online version: English translations by Charles Muller: Great Learning; Analects; Doctrine of the Mean; Mencius
- Description: The Four Books, or the Four Classics, are the Chinese classic texts selected by Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty to serve as an introduction to Chinese philosophy and Confucianism. They are:
- the Great Learning
- the Analects of Confucius
- the Doctrine of the Mean
- the Mencius
- Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence, Introduction
- The Bhagavad Gita: Krishnas Counsel in Time of War
- Description: The Bhagavad Gita, भगवद् गीता, is part of the epic poem Mahabharata, located in the Bhisma-Parva chapters 23–40. A core sacred text of Hindu (Vedic) religion and philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita, often referred to as the Gita, is a summation of the Vedic, Yogic, Vedantic and Tantric philosophies. An avatar of Krishna attempts to convince Arjuna of his divinity.
- Importance: Influence, Introduction
- Tao Te Ching
- Author: Lao Zi
- Publication data: approximately 600 BC ??
- Online version: English translation by Charles Muller: [13]
- Description: The Tao Te Ching, a short and obscure book, is one of the most influential on Chinese philosophy and religion, especially through Taoism, but also through Buddhism, because this Indian religion shared many Taoist words and concepts before developing into Chinese Buddhism.
- Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence, Introduction
- Author: Plato
- Decription: A dialog of Plato describing the perfect state ruled by philosopher kings.
- Importance: Topic creator
- Author: Aristotle
- Decription: First surviving academic treatment of Virtue ethics
- Importance: Influence
- Author: Niccolò Machiavelli
- Publication data: 1532
- Online version: [14]
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- Author: Thomas Hobbes
- Publication data: 1651
- Description: Defends the absolute monarch by appealing to individual self interest.
- Importance: Influence
- Author: John Locke
- Publication data: 1689
- Online version: [15]
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- Author: Immanuel Kant
- Publication data: 1788
- Online version: [16]
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- Author: Immanuel Kant
- Publication data: 1785
- Online version: [17]
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Metaphysics and ontology
- Author: John Dewey
- Publication data: 2nd ed., La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1958 [c1929]
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- Pragmatism [ A ]
- Author: William James
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- "The Refutation of Idealism" [ A ]
- Author: George Edward Moore
- Publication data: Mind 12 (1903)
- Online version: [18]
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- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (a.k.a. The Tractatus) [ A ]
- Author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Description: An important work in logical positivism.
- Importance: Influence
- Process and Reality [ A ]
- Author: Alfred North Whitehead
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- Being and Time [ C ]
- Author: Martin Heidegger
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- Author: Alfred Ayer
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- "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" [ A ]
- Author: W.V.O. Quine
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- "On What There Is" [ A ]
- Author: W.V.O. Quine
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- Author: W.V.O. Quine
- Publication data: From A Logical Point of View, Second Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
- Description: Contains many of Quine's very influential essays, including his widely read "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Reasons and Persons [ A ]
- Author: Derek Parfit
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- See also Philosophy of psychology
- Author: Edmund Husserl
- Publication data: 1913
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- Author: Edmund Husserl
- Publication data: 1900-1901
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- The Concept of Mind [ A ]
- Author: Gilbert Ryle
- Publication data: 1949
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- Author: Wilfred Sellars
- Publication data: 1956
- Online version: [19]
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- "The Meaning of Meaning" [ A ]
- Author: Hilary Putnam
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- Author: Daniel Dennett
- Publication data: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press; ISBN 0-713-99037-6 (UK Hardcover edition, 1992), ISBN 0316180661 (paperback)
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- Author: Kierkegaard
- Publication data: 1843
- Description: Written pseudonymously as a series of letters between two private individuals, "Either/Or" consists of mainly two parts. Either, as represented in Volume One, represents the Kierkegaard's "aesthetic stage" of life. Or, as represented in Volume Two, represents the "ethical stage." Kierkegaard is widely regarded as the father of existentialism, and this, his first work, develops on the concept that "truth is subjectivity" and one must make a "leap of faith" to proceed among stages of life's development.
- Importance: Topic creator, Influence
- Fear and Trembling [ C ]
- Author: Søren Kierkegaard
- Publication data: 1843
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- Author: William James
- Publication data: 1901-1902
- Online version: [20]
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- Author: Karl Popper.
- Publication data: The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1959.
- Description: Sets forward logical positivist assessment of science, establishes criterion of falsification.
- Importance: Breakthrough, Impact, Influence
- Author: Thomas Samuel Kuhn.
- Publication data: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
- Online version: Summary of book by the author
- Description: Sets forward the theory that science undergoes paradigm shifts rather than a linear accumulation of truth. Often cited as justification for late 20th-century skepticism towards scientific progress.
- Importance: Breakthrough, Impact, Influence
- Author: Hans Reichenbach
- Publication data: The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.
- Description: An introduction of scientifically informed philosophy, describes results and differences with prior philosophical methods
- Importance: Introduction
- Against Method [ A ]
- Author: Paul Feyerabend.
- Publication data: Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Humanities Press, 1975.
- Description: Controversially argues that the scientific method was more of a hinderance for gaining knowledge than a boon. Seen as most radical of the attacks on logical positivism.
- Importance: Breakthrough, Impact
- Author: Bas C. van Fraassen
- Publication data:' The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
- Description: Introduces a brand of scientific anti-realism or instrumentalism called constructive empiricism.
- Importance: Impact
- The Nature of Selection [ A ]
- Author: Elliot Sober
- Description: Discusses may different controversies in the philosophy of biology. Also describes natural selection as a theory of forces.
- Importance: Influence
- What is Life?
- Author: Erwin Schrödinger
- Publication data: What is life? The physical aspect of the living cell. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1945.
- Online version: Available as Word DOC
- Description: Physicist Schrödinger encouraged biologists to think about life from a physical and chemical point of view, opening up the idea of molecular biology.
- Importance: Influence
- The Philosophy of Space and Time [ A ]
- Author: Hans Reichenbach
- Description: Claims that the choice of a geometry for space is a convention.
- Importance: Influence
- "On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox" [ A ]
- Author: John Stuart Bell
- Publication data: Bell, J.S. (1964), "On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox" Physics 1, 195-200.
- Description: This is the first publication of Bell's theorem.
- Importance: Influence
- Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science
- Author: Roland Omnes
- Publication data: Princeton University Press (1999).
- Description: Good explanation of how quantum physics affects the everyday world, determinism, epistemology.
- Importance: Introduction
- See also Philosophy of mind
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- The Concept of Law [ A ]
- Author: H.L.A. Hart
- Publication data: The Concept of Law, Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
- Description: A book which clearly articulates a legal postivist view of law.
- Importance: Influence
- Law's Empire [ A ]
- Authory: Ronald Dworkin
- Publication data: Law's Empire. Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1986.
- Description: Suggests a new theory of jurisprudence which has had substantial effect on the practice of law in the U.S..
- Importance: Influence
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- Author: John Stuart Mill
- Publication data: 1859
- Description: Provides a utilitarian justification for some individual rights.
- Importance: Influence
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- Justice as Fairness [ A ]
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- A Theory of Justice [ A ]
- Author: John Rawls
- Publication data: A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1971, 1999.
- Description: Uses a thought experiment known as the original position to define justice as fairness. Discusses justice as it pertains to political institutions.
- Importance: Influence
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- A System of Logic [ A ]
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- Begriffsschrift [ A ]
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- Authors: Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead
- Publication data: 1910-1913
- Description: It is an attempt to derive all mathematical truths from a well-defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic. The questions remained whether a contradiction could be derived from the Principia's axioms, and whether there exists a mathematical statement which could neither be proven nor disproven in the system. These questions were settled, in a rather disappointing way, by Gödel's incompleteness theorem in 1931.
- Importance: Influence
- Author: Kurt Gödel
- Publication data: "Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme". Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, vol. 38 (1931).
- Online version: Online version
- Description: In mathematical logic, Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two celebrated theorems proved by Kurt Gödel in 1930.
- Importance: Breakthrough, Influence
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- Truth and Method [ C ]
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- Truth and Meaning [ A ]
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- On Denoting [ A ]
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- Philosophical Investigations [ C ] [ A ]
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Further Reading
- The London Philosophy Study Guide
- What Are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, Douglas P. Lackey, Philosophical Forum 30(4): 329-346 (1999).