The Greatest Philosophical Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
5023 Dying As A Country Dimitris Dimitriadis 1978 Greek Greek
5023 Στην Κοιλαδα Με Τους Ροδωνες Nikos Engonopoulos 1978 Greek Greek
5023 Deathfeast Takis Sinopoulos 1978 Greek Greek
5023 The Păltiniș Diary Gabriel Liiceanu 1983 Romanian Romanian
5034 Images And Symbols Mircea Eliade 1952 Romanian French
5035 Black Reconstruction In America W. E. B. Du Bois 1935 American English
5043 The Sandman E. T. A. Hoffmann 1816 German German
5043 Fantazius Mallare Ben Hecht 1922 American English
5043 Devil's Tor David Lindsay 1932 British English
5043 My First Two Thousand Years George Vierick 1928 American English
5043 The Invincible Adam George Vierick, Paul Eldridge 1932 American English
5043 Essays And Tales John Sterling 1848 British English
5043 The Well Of St. Clare Anatole France 1895 French French
5095 Where Do We Go From Here Martin Luther King 1967 American English
5096 The Disappearance Philip Wylie 1951 American English
5102 Антихрист Emilian Stanev 1939 Bulgarian Bulgarian
5103 Abel Sánchez Miguel de Unamuno 1917 Spanish Spanish
5104 Saving The Appearances Owen Barfield 1957 British English
5104 Zen Flesh, Zen Bones Paul Reps, Nyogen Senzaki 1957 Multiple English
5106 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Omar Khayyam 1859 Persian Persian
5108 The Ministry Of Pain Dubravka Ugrešić 2004 Croatian Croatian
5110 The Winter Of Our Discontent John Steinbeck 1961 American English
5111 The War Of Art Steven Pressfield 2002 American English
5121 Creation Gore Vidal 1981 American English
5124 Killing The Black Body Dorothy E. Roberts 1997 American English
5125 Ο Εχθρός του Ποιητή Giorgos Heimonas 1979 Greek Greek
5136 Before The Law Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
5157 With Love And Irony Lin Yutang 1934 Chinese English
5158 The Triumph Of Death Gabriele D'Annunzio 1894 Italian Italian
5171 Mosses From An Old Manse Nathaniel Hawthorne 1846 American English
5185 The World's Religions Huston Smith 1958 American English
5188 The Eternal Moment E. M. Forster 1928 British English
5188 A Strange Story Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1862 British English
5236 Deep River Shūsaku Endō 1993 Japanese Japanese
5259 Cockroaches Scholastique Mukasonga 2006 French French
5265 Accumulation On A World Scale Samir Amin 1970 French French
5282 The Complete Notebooks Of Henry James Henry James 1987 American English
5286 Gandhi's Truth Erik H. Erikson 1969 American English
5291 Notes On The Cinematographer Robert Bresson 1975 French French
5292 Der Kleine Unterschied Und Seine Großen Folgen Alice Schwarzer 1975 German German
5303 The Love Of Learning And The Desire For God Jean Leclercq 1960 French French
5318 The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Karl Marx 1852 German German
5346 New Seeds Of Contemplation Thomas Merton 1961 American English
5361 To Have Or To Be? The Nature Of The Psyche Erich Fromm 1976 German English
5361 On Suicide Jean Améry 1976 Unknown German
5361 Foundations Of Christian Faith Karl Rahner 1976 German German
5369 The Way the World Works Jude Wanniski 1978 American English
5392 New Atlantis Francis Bacon 1627 British English
5392 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne 1624 British English
5424 Religion And The Decline Of Magic Keith Thomas 1971 British English
5445 The Red Lion Mária Szepes 1946 Hungarian Hungarian
5447 The Politics of Ecstasy Timothy Leary 1968 American English
5470 Markings Dag Hammarskjöld 1963 Swedish Swedish
5470 Meetings With Remarkable Men George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff 1963 Unknown Russian
5473 The Unicorn Iris Murdoch 1963 British English
5474 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
5477 Fado Alexandrino António Lobo Antunes 1983 Portuguese Portuguese
5481 The Inferno Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
5486 Sillabari Goffredo Parise 1984 Italian Italian
5487 Body Rags Galway Kinnell 1968 American English
5496 Signs Of Fire Jorge de Sena 1979 Portuguese Portuguese
5499 After the Flood P. C. Jersild 1982 Swedish Swedish
5501 Steps To An Ecology Of Mind Gregory Bateson 1972 American English
5501 Does God Exist? Hans Küng 1978 German German
5515 Think On These Things Jiddu Krishnamurti 1964 Indian English
5522 The Logic of Scientific Discovery Karl Popper 1934 Austrian German
5528 The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee Jared Diamond 1991 American English
5530 The Essential Kafka Franz Kafka 1913 Czech German
5530 The Sufferings Of Prince Sternenhoch Ladislav Klíma 1928 Czech Czech
5530 Marketa Lazarová Vladislav Vančura 1931 Czech Czech
5530 Zapomenuté Světlo Jakub Deml 1934 Czech Czech
5530 Cesta K Mrazu Jiří Orten 1941 Czech Czech
5530 Prométheova Játra Jiří Kolář 1950 Czech Czech
5576 VALIS Philip K. Dick 1981 American English
5582 Professor Martens' Departure Jaan Kross 1984 Estonian Estonian
5582 The Young Man Botho Strauß 1984 German German
5589 The Chimera Sebastiano Vassalli 1990 Italian Italian
5606 The Imperative Of Responsibility Hans Jonas 1979 German German
5610 The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt 2012 American English
5613 The Mushroom At The End Of The World Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 2015 American English
5619 Wealth and Poverty George Gilder 1981 American English
5621 V for Vendetta Alan Moore 1982 British English
5629 Ego Monster Sayd Bahodine Majrouh 1985 Afghan French
5641 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
5663 An Experiment In Criticism C. S. Lewis 1961 British English
5666 The Loser György Konrád 1980 Hungarian Hungarian
5689 Sur La Philosophie Africaine Paulin Hountondji 1976 French French
5698 The Little Virtues Natalia Ginzburg 1962 Italian Italian
5706 Kafka Was The Rage Anatole Broyard 1993 American English
5707 Ο Λουσίας Nikos Houliaras 1987 Greek Greek
5715 On Stories And Other Essays On Literature C. S. Lewis 1966 British English
5716 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
5722 The Rosy Crucifixion Henry Miller 1949 American English
5723 Politics And The English Language George Orwell 1946 British English
5730 In The Presence Of Absence Mahmoud Darwish 2006 Palestinian Arabic
5748 The Message In the Bottle Walker Percy 1975 American English
5773 Jurnalul Unui Jurnalist Fără Jurnal Ion D. Sîrbu 1993 Romanian Romanian
5779 Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake 2020 British English
5781 The Maidens Of The Rocks Gabriele D'Annunzio 1895 Italian Italian
5781 Notturno Gabriele D'Annunzio 1916 Italian Italian
5781 Narrate, Uomini, La Vostra Storia Alberto Savinio 1942 Italian Italian
5781 Men And Not Men Elio Vittorini 1945 Italian Italian
5781 Dialogues With Leucò Cesare Pavese 1947 Italian Italian
5802 Illuminations Walter Benjamin 1968 German German
5809 The Insistence Of Horror Patricia Meyer Spacks 1962 American English
5811 The City Of The Sun Tommaso Campanella 1623 Italian Latin
5816 René François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1802 French French
5861 The Book Of The Courtier Baldassare Castiglione 1528 Italian Italian
5889 Sartor Resartus Thomas Carlyle 1836 British English
5894 A Confession Leo Tolstoy 1882 Russian Russian
5913 Our Lord Don Quixote Miguel de Unamuno 1935 Spanish Spanish
5903 Notes From Underground & Other Stories Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
5926 Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit 2004 American English
5930 King Kong Theory Virginie Despentes 2006 French French
5937 Hurramabad Andrei Volos 1998 Russian Russian
5937 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra 1982 American English
5937 Music As Speech Nikolaus Harnoncourt 1982 Austrian German
5937 The Spiral Of Silence Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann 1982 German German
5937 Der Bedrohte Friede Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker 1982 German German
5949 The Afternoon of a Writer Peter Handke 1987 Austrian German