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
16642 Personal Knowledge Michael Polanyi 1958 British English
17125 The Raw and the Cooked Claude Lévi-Strauss 1964 French French
17125 Motivation and Personality Abraham Maslow 1954 American English
17125 The Power Elite C. Wright Mills 1956 American English
17125 Intelligent Life in the Universe Carl Sagan 1966 American English
17125 The Sacred and Profane Love Machine Iris Murdoch 1974 British English
17125 The Chymical Wedding Lindsay Clarke 1989 British English
17125 Hopeful Monsters Nicholas Mosley 1990 British English
17125 The Citadel of the Autarch Gene Wolfe 1983 American English
17125 You Bright and Risen Angels William T. Vollmann 1987 American English
17125 Taking the World in for Repairs Richard Selzer 1986 American English
17125 The Invented Part Rodrigo Fresán 2014 Argentinian Spanish
17125 Levels of Life Julian Barnes 2013 British English
17125 Women & Power Mary Beard 2017 British English
17125 Metaphor and Memory Cynthia Ozick 1989 American English
17125 Vn Madeline Ashby 2012 Canadian English
17125 Boomerang Helen Simpson 2000 British English
17125 Night Letters Robert Dessaix 1996 Australian English
17125 The Black Christ Kelly Brown Douglas 1994 American English
17125 Dark Matters Simone Browne 2015 Canadian English
17125 Red John Logan 2009 American English
16810 Judas Iscariot Leonid Andreyev 1907 Russian Russian
17125 Universal Consciousness alexis karpouzos 2016 Greek Unknown
17125 The Fate Of Reason Frederick C. Beiser 1987 American English
17125 The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750 1900 Michael J. Crowe 1986 American English
17125 The Science Of The Mind Owen J. Flanagan 1984 American English
17125 The Dreams Of Reason Heinz R. Pagels 1988 American English
17125 Defenders Of The Truth Ullica Segerstrale 1986 American English
17125 Paradigms Lost John L. Casti 1989 American English
17125 What Does It All Mean? Thomas Nagel 1987 American English
17125 Brother Astronomer Guy Consolmagno 2000 American English
17125 The Alchemy Of The Heavens Ken Croswell 1995 American English
17125 Phantoms In The Brain Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee 1998 American English
17125 The Freud Reader Sigmund Freud 1989 German English
17125 Hyperspace Michio Kaku 1994 American English
17125 The Age Of Entanglement Louisa Gilder 2009 American English
17125 Six Easy Pieces Richard P. Feynman 1994 American English
17125 The Cosmic Landscape Leonard Susskind 2005 American English
17125 Five Ages Of The Universe Fred C. Adams, Greg Laughlin 1999 American English
17125 Dignaga's Investigation Of The Percept Douglas Duckworth 2016 Unknown English
17125 Japanese Philosophy John C. Maraldo, Thomas P. Kasulis, James W. Heisig 2011 American English
17125 The Philosophical Works Of Al Kindi Peter Adamson, Peter E. Pormann 2012 Unknown English
17125 Sage Philosophy Henry Odera Oruka 1990 Kenyan English
17125 Against Method Paul Feyerabend 1975 German English
17125 Spurs Jacques Derrida 1976 French French
17125 Justice As Fairness John Rawls 2001 American English
17125 If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? G. A. Cohen 2000 British English
17125 The Trouble With Physics Lee Smolin 2006 American English
17125 The Panda's Thumb Stephen Jay Gould 1980 American English
17125 Darwin Among The Machines George B. Dyson 1997 American English
17125 Bright Air, Brilliant Fire Gerald M. Edelman 1992 American English
17125 The Undertaking Thomas Lynch 1997 American English
17125 The Beast In The Nursery Adam Phillips 1998 British English
17125 Explaining Hitler Ron Rosenbaum 1998 American English
17125 The View From Nowhere Thomas Nagel 1986 American English
17125 Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition Ed Regis 1990 American English
17125 1984 And After Nigel Calder 1984 British English
17125 Objectivity And Cultural Divergence Stuart C. Brown 1984 Unknown Unknown
17125 Relativism Refuted Harvey Siegel 1987 American English
17125 A Short History Of Modern Philosophy Roger Scruton 1982 British English
17125 The Tangled Wing Melvin Konner 1982 American English
17125 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler 1986 British English
16857 The Crisis Of The Modern World (Guenon, Rene. Works.) René Guénon 1927 French French
16833 Revolt Against The Modern World Julius Evola 1934 Italian Italian
17125 Time And Narrative (Time & Narrative) Paul Ricœur 1983 French French
16879 The Alienist Machado de Assis 1882 Brazilian Portuguese
16978 The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir 1967 French French
17125 Nothing Ever Dies Viet Thanh Nguyen 2016 American English
17125 Metamagical Themas Douglas Hofstadter 1985 American English
17125 Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, And The Sociology Of Knowledge Gerard Radnitzky 1987 German English
17125 The Allure Of The Multiverse Paul Halpern 2024 American English
17125 Men In The Off Hours Anne Carson 2000 Canadian English
17125 Chwila Wislawa Szymborska 2002 Polish Polish
17121 Trudno Być Bogiem Arkady Strugatsky 1964 Russian
17125 I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki Baek Se-hee 2018 Korean Korean
17125 Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson 1983 British English
17000 The Last Question Isaac Asimov 1956 American English
17079 The Portable Thoreau Henry David Thoreau 1947 American English
17125 Beyond The Fragments Lynne Segal, Sheila Rowbotham, Hilary Wainwright 1980 British English
17125 Twilight Of The Elites Christophe Guilluy, Malcolm Debevoise 2019 French French
17125 How Will Capitalism End? Wolfgang Streeck 2016 German English
17125 Atlas Of An Anxious Man Christoph Ransmayr 2016 Austrian German
17125 The Politics Of Thatcherism Stuart Hall, Martin Jacques 1983 British English
17125 The State We're In Will Hutton 1995 British English
17125 Political Recruitment Pippa Norris 1997 British English
17125 Unjust Rewards Polly Toynbee, David Walker 2008 British English
17125 Islam And The West Bernard Lewis 1993 British English
17125 From The Ruins Of Empire Pankaj Mishra 2012 Indian English
17125 The Endtimes Of Human Rights Stephen Hopgood 2013 British English
17125 The Black Atlantic Paul Gilroy 1993 British English
17125 Intercourse Andrea Dworkin 1987 American English
17125 The Road To Somewhere David Goodhart 2017 British English
17125 Godwin Joseph O'Neill 2024 Unknown English
17125 Waiting For The Fear Oğuz Atay 2024 Unknown English
17125 American Covenant Yuval Levin 2016 American English
17125 The Women Are Up To Something Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb 2022 Unknown English
17125 The End Of Law David McIlroy 2019 Unknown English
17125 Technofeudalism Yanis Varoufakis 2024 Greek English
17125 What Is It Like To Be Alive? Chris Arthur 2024 Unknown Unknown
17125 The Art Of Dying Peter Schjeldahl 2024 American English
17125 The Language Puzzle Steven J. Mithen 2024 Unknown Unknown
17125 Meditations For Mortals Oliver Burkeman 2024 British English
17125 Fratriarchy Juliet Mitchell 2024 British Unknown
17125 La Défaite De L'occident Emmanuel Todd 2024 French French
17125 Discounting The Future Liliana Doganova 2024 Unknown English
17125 Concerning The Future Of Souls Joy Williams 2024 Unknown English
17125 The Matter With Things Iain McGilchrist 2021 British English
17125 The Revolt Of The Public And The Crisis Of Authority In The New Millennium Martin Gurri 2014 Unknown English
17125 Faces Of Moderation Aurelian Craiutu 2016 Unknown English
17125 Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life Fintan O'Toole 2002 Irish English
17125 Justice And Hope Raimond Gaita 2024 Unknown English
17125 The City And Its Uncertain Walls Haruki Murakami 2023 Japanese Japanese
17125 The Garden Against Time Olivia Laing 2024 Unknown English
17119 Initiation Into Hermetics Franz Bardon 1962 Czech German
17125 Tactics Edward de Bono 1985 British English
17125 The Problem With Solutions Julie Guthman 2024 Unknown English
17125 Living On Earth Peter Godfrey-Smith 2024 Unknown English
17125 Why We Die Venki Ramakrishnan 2024 Unknown English
17125 Quantum Drama Jim Baggott, John L. Heilbron 2024 Unknown English
17125 Limitarianism Ingrid Robeyns 2023 Unknown English