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
16775 Las Confesiones Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 Genevan French
16763 The Essays Of Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
16746 Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο Nikos Kazantzakis 1961 Greek Greek
16641 The Brothers Karamazov Fedor Dostoyevsky 1880 Russian Russian
16680 Personal Knowledge Michael Polanyi 1958 British English
16713 The Rambler Samuel Johnson 1784 English English
16774 Elements Of Criticism Henry Home, Lord Kames 1762 Scottish English
16787 Psychology: Briefer Course William James 1892 American English
16808 Will To Believe And Other Essays In Popular Philosophy William James 1897 American English
17173 The Raw and the Cooked Claude Lévi-Strauss 1964 French French
17173 Motivation and Personality Abraham Maslow 1954 American English
17173 The Power Elite C. Wright Mills 1956 American English
17173 Intelligent Life in the Universe Carl Sagan 1966 American English
17173 The Sacred and Profane Love Machine Iris Murdoch 1974 British English
17173 The Chymical Wedding Lindsay Clarke 1989 British English
17173 Hopeful Monsters Nicholas Mosley 1990 British English
17173 The Citadel of the Autarch Gene Wolfe 1983 American English
17173 You Bright and Risen Angels William T. Vollmann 1987 American English
17173 Taking the World in for Repairs Richard Selzer 1986 American English
17173 The Invented Part Rodrigo Fresán 2014 Argentinian Spanish
17173 Levels of Life Julian Barnes 2013 British English
17173 Women & Power Mary Beard 2017 British English
17173 Metaphor and Memory Cynthia Ozick 1989 American English
17173 Vn Madeline Ashby 2012 Canadian English
17173 Boomerang Helen Simpson 2000 British English
17173 Night Letters Robert Dessaix 1996 Australian English
17173 The Black Christ Kelly Brown Douglas 1994 American English
17173 Dark Matters Simone Browne 2015 Canadian English
17173 Red John Logan 2009 American English
16844 Judas Iscariot Leonid Andreyev 1907 Russian Russian
17173 Universal Consciousness alexis karpouzos 2016 Greek Unknown
17173 The Fate Of Reason Frederick C. Beiser 1987 American English
17173 The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750 1900 Michael J. Crowe 1986 American English
17173 The Science Of The Mind Owen J. Flanagan 1984 American English
17173 The Dreams Of Reason Heinz R. Pagels 1988 American English
17173 Defenders Of The Truth Ullica Segerstrale 1986 American English
17173 Paradigms Lost John L. Casti 1989 American English
17173 What Does It All Mean? Thomas Nagel 1987 American English
17173 Brother Astronomer Guy Consolmagno 2000 American English
17173 The Alchemy Of The Heavens Ken Croswell 1995 American English
17173 Phantoms In The Brain Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee 1998 American English
17173 The Freud Reader Sigmund Freud 1989 German English
17173 Hyperspace Michio Kaku 1994 American English
17173 The Age Of Entanglement Louisa Gilder 2009 American English
17173 Six Easy Pieces Richard P. Feynman 1994 American English
17173 The Cosmic Landscape Leonard Susskind 2005 American English
17173 Five Ages Of The Universe Fred C. Adams, Greg Laughlin 1999 American English
17173 Dignaga's Investigation Of The Percept Douglas Duckworth 2016 Unknown English
17173 Japanese Philosophy John C. Maraldo, Thomas P. Kasulis, James W. Heisig 2011 American English
17173 The Philosophical Works Of Al Kindi Peter Adamson, Peter E. Pormann 2012 Unknown English
17173 Sage Philosophy Henry Odera Oruka 1990 Kenyan English
17173 Against Method Paul Feyerabend 1975 German English
17173 Spurs Jacques Derrida 1976 French French
17173 Justice As Fairness John Rawls 2001 American English
17173 If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? G. A. Cohen 2000 British English
17173 The Trouble With Physics Lee Smolin 2006 American English
17173 The Panda's Thumb Stephen Jay Gould 1980 American English
17173 Darwin Among The Machines George B. Dyson 1997 American English
17173 Bright Air, Brilliant Fire Gerald M. Edelman 1992 American English
17173 The Undertaking Thomas Lynch 1997 American English
17173 The Beast In The Nursery Adam Phillips 1998 British English
17173 Explaining Hitler Ron Rosenbaum 1998 American English
17173 The View From Nowhere Thomas Nagel 1986 American English
17173 Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition Ed Regis 1990 American English
17173 1984 And After Nigel Calder 1984 British English
17173 Objectivity And Cultural Divergence Stuart C. Brown 1984 Unknown Unknown
17173 Relativism Refuted Harvey Siegel 1987 American English
17173 A Short History Of Modern Philosophy Roger Scruton 1982 British English
17173 The Tangled Wing Melvin Konner 1982 American English
17173 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler 1986 British English
16885 The Crisis Of The Modern World (Guenon, Rene. Works.) René Guénon 1927 French French
16873 Revolt Against The Modern World Julius Evola 1934 Italian Italian
17173 Time And Narrative (Time & Narrative) Paul Ricœur 1983 French French
16920 The Alienist Machado de Assis 1882 Brazilian Portuguese
17052 The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir 1967 French French
17173 Nothing Ever Dies Viet Thanh Nguyen 2016 American English
17173 Metamagical Themas Douglas Hofstadter 1985 American English
17173 Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, And The Sociology Of Knowledge Gerard Radnitzky 1987 German English
17173 The Allure Of The Multiverse Paul Halpern 2024 American English
17173 Men In The Off Hours Anne Carson 2000 Canadian English
17173 Chwila Wislawa Szymborska 2002 Polish Polish
17152 Trudno Być Bogiem Arkady Strugatsky 1964 Russian
17173 I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki Baek Se-hee 2018 Korean Korean
17173 Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson 1983 British English
17041 The Last Question Isaac Asimov 1956 American English
17121 The Portable Thoreau Henry David Thoreau 1947 American English
17173 Beyond The Fragments Lynne Segal, Sheila Rowbotham, Hilary Wainwright 1980 British English
17173 Twilight Of The Elites Christophe Guilluy, Malcolm Debevoise 2019 French French
17173 How Will Capitalism End? Wolfgang Streeck 2016 German English
17173 Atlas Of An Anxious Man Christoph Ransmayr 2016 Austrian German
17173 The Politics Of Thatcherism Stuart Hall, Martin Jacques 1983 British English
17173 The State We're In Will Hutton 1995 British English
17173 Political Recruitment Pippa Norris 1997 British English
17173 Unjust Rewards Polly Toynbee, David Walker 2008 British English
17173 Islam And The West Bernard Lewis 1993 British English
17173 From The Ruins Of Empire Pankaj Mishra 2012 Indian English
17173 The Endtimes Of Human Rights Stephen Hopgood 2013 British English
17173 The Black Atlantic Paul Gilroy 1993 British English
17173 Intercourse Andrea Dworkin 1987 American English
17173 The Road To Somewhere David Goodhart 2017 British English
17173 Godwin Joseph O'Neill 2024 Unknown English
17173 Waiting For The Fear Oğuz Atay 2024 Unknown English
17173 American Covenant Yuval Levin 2016 American English
17173 The Women Are Up To Something Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb 2022 Unknown English
17173 The End Of Law David McIlroy 2019 Unknown English
17173 Technofeudalism Yanis Varoufakis 2024 Greek English
17173 What Is It Like To Be Alive? Chris Arthur 2024 Unknown Unknown
17173 The Art Of Dying Peter Schjeldahl 2024 American English
17173 The Language Puzzle Steven J. Mithen 2024 Unknown Unknown
17173 Meditations For Mortals Oliver Burkeman 2024 British English
17173 Fratriarchy Juliet Mitchell 2024 British Unknown
17173 La Défaite De L'occident Emmanuel Todd 2024 French French
17173 Discounting The Future Liliana Doganova 2024 Unknown English
17173 Concerning The Future Of Souls Joy Williams 2024 Unknown English
17173 The Matter With Things Iain McGilchrist 2021 British English
17173 The Revolt Of The Public And The Crisis Of Authority In The New Millennium Martin Gurri 2014 Unknown English
17173 Faces Of Moderation Aurelian Craiutu 2016 Unknown English
17173 Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life Fintan O'Toole 2002 Irish English
17173 Justice And Hope Raimond Gaita 2024 Unknown English
17173 The City And Its Uncertain Walls Haruki Murakami 2023 Japanese Japanese