About this list

The Philosophical Forum, 27 Books

We asked respondents to name the five most important books in philosophy in the twentieth century, and also the five most important articles. Giving five choices permits discretion, but five is a small enough number to force voters to choose their selections carefully. Since we were interested in judgments of quality, we instructed respondents to make their choices on the basic of intrinsic merit, not on the basis of causal influence. (By the causal influence standard, Mein Kampf might be the most important book of the twentieth century.)

Using the Philosophers’ Email Directory, we mailed our questionnaire to 5,000 teachers of philosophy. About 1,000 emails bounced back for mis-typed or obsolete addresses, 4,000 reached their targets. We received 414 survey replies, a healthy response rate of better than 10%. Since there are about 10,000 teachers of philosophy in North America, we had replies from 4% of the entire profession.

This list was originally published in 1999 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.