The Greatest Philosophical Books of All Time

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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.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
7860 Language, Thought, And Reality Benjamin Lee Whorf 1956 American English
7876 Baumgartner Paul Auster 2023 American English
7899 The Gentrification of the Mind Sarah Schulman 2012 American English
7914 The Devil and Miss Prym Paulo Coelho 2000 Brazilian Portuguese
7925 Letters From The Earth Mark Twain 1962 American English
7930 Four Essays On Liberty Isaiah Berlin 1969 British English
7959 The Country Of The Blind H. G. Wells 1904 British English
7964 The Sociological Imagination C. Wright Mills 1959 American English
7966 Mountolive Lawrence Durrell 1958 British English
7977 Anthem Ayn Rand 1938 American English
7998 The Great Transformation Karen Armstrong 2006 British English
8018 Mirrors Eduardo Galeano 2008 Uruguayan Spanish
8031 An Area Of Darkness V. S. Naipaul 1964 British English
8031 A Barbarian In Asia Henri Michaux 1933 French French
8051 Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Paulo Freire 1970 Brazilian Portuguese
8063 A Paradise Built In Hell Rebecca Solnit 2009 American English
8075 The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead David Shields 2008 American English
8088 Process And Reality Alfred North Whitehead 1929 British English
8091 The Messianic Idea In Judaism, And Other Essays On Jewish Spirituality Gershom Scholem 1971 German English
8092 When God Was A Woman Merlin Stone 1976 American English
8142 Bathsheba Torgny Lindgren 1984 Swedish Swedish
8142 Down Girl Kate Manne 2017 American English
8142 Society Without The Father Unknown 1998 Unknown German
8185 Feminist Theory bell hooks 1984 American English
8188 Experience And Nature John Dewey 1925 American English
8191 The Order Of Time Carlo Rovelli 2017 Italian Italian
8192 Jesus Christ And Mythology Rudolf Bultmann 1958 German German
8198 Acasă, pe Cîmpia Armaghedonului Marta Petreu 2011 Romanian Romanian
8201 The Day I Wasn't There Hélène Cixous 2000 French French
8206 89 Poems Zbigniew Herbert 1956 Polish Polish
8211 Landscape Of Farewell Alex Miller 2007 Australian English
8216 Bells In Winter Czesław Miłosz 1978 Polish Polish
8227 The Rose Of Time Bei Dao 2005 Chinese Chinese
8231 The Unabomber Manifesto Theodore Kaczynski 1995 American English
8242 Bully For Brontosaurus Stephen Jay Gould 1991 American English
8259 The Poetry Of Thought George Steiner 2011 British English
8261 Ideas Edmund Husserl 1913 German German
8277 The Authoritarian Dynamic Karen Stenner 2005 American English
8286 The Interpretation Of Cultures Clifford Geertz 1973 American English
8290 Crónica De Un Iniciado Abelardo Castillo 1991 Argentinian Spanish
8291 Die Gesellschaft Der Gesellschaft Niklas Luhmann 1999 German German
8318 A Brief History Of Everything Ken Wilber 1996 American English
8340 Platform Sutra Huineng 713 Chinese Chinese
8359 On Being A Christian Hans Kueng 1974 German German
8359 Anarchy, State And Utopia Robert Nozick 1974 American English
8361 Moral Man And Immoral Society Reinhold Niebuhr 1932 American English
8361 Ethics Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1949 German German
8361 Dogmatics In Outline Karl Barth 1946 German German
8361 Integral Humanism Jacques Maritain 1936 French French
8361 Christianity And Liberalism J. Gresham Machen 1923 American English
8373 Jiryoku To Jūryoku No Hakken Yoshitaka Yamamoto 2003 Japanese Unknown
8396 The Failure Of The Gothic Elizabeth R. Napier 1987 Unknown English
8406 On Human Nature E. O. Wilson 1978 American English
8443 Identity Milan Kundera 1998 Czech French
8490 Underland Robert Macfarlane 2019 British English
8495 Transcritique Kojin Karatani 2003 Japanese Japanese
8509 Euthyphro Plato -399 Greek Ancient greek
8510 From A Logical Point Of View Willard Van Orman Quine 1953 American English
8554 Word And Object Willard Van Orman Quine 1960 American English
8568 The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism Daniel Bell 1976 American English
8568 Main Currents Of Marxism Leszek Kolakowski 1976 Polish English
8568 The Joyless Economy Tibor Scitovsky 1976 American English
8571 Fear Itself Ira Katznelson 2013 American English
8573 Deviations Gayle Rubin 2011 American English
8579 John Wesley's Sermons Albert C. Outler 1991 American English
8588 사람, 장소, 환대 김현경 2015 Korean Korean
8604 Fact, Fiction, And Forecast Nelson Goodman 1955 American English
8605 Lyrical And Critical Essays Albert Camus 1968 French French
8619 Carnality Lina Wolff 2019 Swedish Swedish
8620 Age Of Fracture Daniel T. Rodgers 2011 American English
8636 Somersault Kenzaburō Ōe 1999 Japanese Japanese
8643 Orality And Literacy Walter J. Ong 1982 American English
8662 Taking Rights Seriously Ronald Dworkin 1977 American English
8679 In Defense Of Sanity G. K. Chesterton 2011 British English
8704 Strategies Of Fantasy Brian Attebery 1992 American English
8715 La Cuadratura Del Círculo Álvaro Pombo 1995 Spanish Spanish
8721 The Social Construction Of Reality Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann 1966 German English
8749 The Creation Of Patriarchy Gerda Lerner 1986 American English
8754 Russian Thinkers Isaiah Berlin 1978 British English
8754 The Foundations Of Modern Political Thought Quentin Skinner 1978 British English
8765 War Diaries Jean Paul Sartre 1940 French French
8768 An Introduction To Zen Buddhism D. T. Suzuki 1934 Japanese English
8773 Eroticism Georges Bataille 1957 French French
8818 The Weird Tale S. T. Joshi 1990 American English
8830 Hiroshima Notes Kenzaburō Ōe 1965 Japanese Japanese
8833 The Flies Jean Paul Sartre 1943 French French
8839 The Chalice And The Blade Riane Eisler 1987 American English
8846 Philosophy of the Tourist Hiroki Azuma 2017 Japanese Unknown
8850 The Emperor's New Mind Roger Penrose 1989 British English
8860 The Warrior's Honor Michael Ignatieff 1997 Canadian English
8867 Crisis Of The House Divided Harry V. Jaffa 1959 American English
8878 Philosophy And The Mirror Of Nature Richard Rorty 1979 American English
8883 Black and Blur Fred Moten 2017 American English
8913 Staying Alive Vandana Shiva 1988 Indian English
8936 Seibutsu To Museibutsu No Aida Shinichi Fukuoka 2007 Japanese Japanese
8949 Time Without Keys Ida Vitale 2019 Uruguayan Spanish
8969 Myths Of Gender Anne Fausto-Sterling 1987 American English
8971 A Short History Of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 2003 American English
8970 The Society Of The Spectacle Guy Debord 1967 French French
8975 The Great Divide Joseph Stiglitz 2015 American English
9018 Climbing Mount Improbable Richard Dawkins 1996 British English
9033 The Thibaults Roger Martin du Gard 1922 French French
9034 From A To X John Berger 2008 British English
9044 L'amour, La Mer Pascal Quignard 2002 French French
9091 The Cunning Man Robertson Davies 1994 Canadian English
9090 Consuelo George Sand 1842 French French
9130 Through the Language Glass Guy Deutscher 2010 British English
9146 Physics In My Generation Max Born 1968 German English
9146 Language And Mind Noam Chomsky 1968 American English
9146 Knowledge And Human Interests Jürgen Habermas 1968 German German
9157 Decolonising The Mind Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1986 Kenyan English
9156 From The Beast To The Blonde Marina Warner 1994 British English
9158 Correspondance Avec Le Mur Hélène Cixous 2009 French French
9158 La Blessure Et La Soif Laurence Plazenet 2009 French French
9170 The Impulse Of Fantasy Literature C. N. Manlove 1992 British English
9183 A Theology Of Liberation Gustavo Gutierrez 1971 Peruvian Spanish
9191 The Accidental Universe Alan Lightman 2014 American English
9191 But What If We're Wrong? Chuck Klosterman 2016 American English
9219 On Tyranny Timothy Snyder 2017 American English
9223 The Passenger Cormac McCarthy 2022 American English