The Greatest Books of All Time on Philosophy

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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
7216 The Expulsion Of The Triumphant Beast Giordano Bruno 1584 Italian Italian
7216 Poems Of Tommaso Campanella Tommaso Campanella 1601 Italian Italian
7216 Poetry Antònio Ferreira 1558 Portuguese Portuguese
7216 An Apology For Poetry Philip Sidney 1595 British English
7216 Poems Of Lord Brooke Fulke Greville Lord Brooke Fulke Greville 1601 British English
7216 The Poems Of Sir Walter Raleigh Walter Ralegh 1600 British English
7216 The Complete Works In Verse And Prose Of Samuel Daniel Samuel Daniel 1601 British English
7216 The Garden Of Cyrus Sir Thomas Browne 1658 British English
7216 The Journals Of James Boswell James Boswell 1791 British English
7216 The Works Of Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson 1787 British English
7216 The Lisbon Earthquake Voltaire 1756 French French
7216 Poems Of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1789 German German
7216 Venetian Epigrams Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1790 German German
7216 West Eastern Divan Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1819 German German
7216 On The Naïve And Sentimental In Literature Friedrich Schiller 1795 German German
7216 Selected Poems Freidrich Hölderlin 1800 German German
7216 Rhymes And Rhythms Giosué Carducci 1899 Italian Italian
7216 Selected Writings Jules Laforgue 1901 French French
7216 Emperor And Galilean Henrik Ibsen 1873 Norwegian Norwegian
7216 Imaginary Conversations Walter Savage Landor 1824 British English
7216 The Collected Writings Of Thomas De Quincey Thomas de Quincey 1889 British English
7216 Death's Jest Book Thomas Lovell Beddoes 1850 British English
7216 Essays Matthew Arnold 1865 British English
7216 Gryll Grange Thomas Love Peacock 1861 British English
7216 The Queen Of The Air John Ruskin 1869 British English
7216 Poems Of George Meredith George Meredith 1851 British English
7216 Essays Of Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson 1892 Scottish English
7216 Aphorisms Novalis 1798 German German
7216 Dialogue On Poetry And Literary Aphorisms Friedrich Schlegel 1800 German German
7216 From The Other Shore Alexander Herzen 1850 Russian Russian
7216 Representative Men Ralph Waldo Emerson 1850 American English
7216 Journals Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820 American English
7216 Clarel Herman Melville 1876 American English
7216 Essays And Reviews Edgar Allan Poe 1845 American English
7216 Eureka Edgar Allan Poe 1848 American English
7216 Poems Of Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau 1895 American English
7216 Maia Gabriele D'Annunzio 1925 Italian Italian
7216 The Keeper Of Sheep Fernando Pessoa 1925 Portuguese Portuguese
7216 Corydon André Gide 1924 French French
7216 A Vision William Butler Yeats 1925 Irish English
7216 Major Critical Essays George Bernard Shaw 1930 Irish English
7216 Back To Methuselah George Bernard Shaw 1921 Irish English
7216 Selected Prose Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1900 Austrian German
7216 The Blue Octavo Notebook Franz Kafka 1935 Czech German
7216 Reminiscences Of Tolstoy, Chekhov, And Andreev Maxim Gorky 1920 Russian Russian
7216 The Geographical History Of America Gertrude Stein 1936 American English
7216 Poems Of Robinson Jeffers Robinson Jeffers 1920 American English
7216 Lazarus Laughed Eugene O'Neill 1927 American English
7216 Man Against Himself Karl A. Menninger 1938 American English
7577 The Racial Contract Charles W. Mills 1997 American English
7589 Memoirs Of A Gnostic Dwarf David Madsen 1995 British English
7648 Hitch 22 Christopher Hitchens 2010 British English
7664 Against Interpretation Susan Sontag 1966 American English
7665 The Flowering of New England Van Wyck Brooks 1936 American English
7726 Stupidity Rafael Spregelburd 2007 Argentinian Spanish
7782 The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci Jonathan Spence 1984 American English
7796 In My Father's House Anthony Appiah 1992 Ghanaian English
7808 Products Of The Perfected Civilization Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort 1969 French French
7812 The Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery 2006 French French
7820 Hugo Von Hofmannsthal And His Time Hermann Broch 1949 Austrian German
7831 The Blue Flowers Raymond Queneau 1965 French French
7861 Selected Writings Paul Valéry 1950 French French
7861 A Rhetoric Of Motives Kenneth Burke 1950 American English
7915 How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read Pierre Bayard 2007 French French
7945 The Dark Tower And Other Stories C. S. Lewis 1977 British English
7967 Saint Genet Jean Paul Sartre 1952 French French
7967 The Shores Of Light Edmund Wilson 1952 American English
7999 The Great Transformation Karen Armstrong 2006 British English
8002 La Visita En El Tiempo Arturo Uslar Pietri 1990 Venezuelan Spanish
8032 A Barbarian In Asia Henri Michaux 1933 French French
8092 The Messianic Idea In Judaism, And Other Essays On Jewish Spirituality Gershom Scholem 1971 German English
8144 Jerusalem Commands Michael Moorcock 1992 British English
8144 Down Girl Kate Manne 2017 American English
8168 Returning To Reims Didier Eribon 2009 French French
8190 Experience And Nature John Dewey 1925 American English
8193 The Order Of Time Carlo Rovelli 2017 Italian Italian
8208 89 Poems Zbigniew Herbert 1956 Polish Polish
8233 The Unabomber Manifesto Theodore Kaczynski 1995 American English
8261 The Poetry Of Thought George Steiner 2011 British English
8280 Opus Posthumous Wallace Stevens 1957 American English
8308 A Life In The Twentieth Century Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 2000 American English
8320 A Brief History Of Everything Ken Wilber 1996 American English
8333 The Last Days Of Socrates Plato -399 Greek Ancient greek
8363 Integral Humanism Jacques Maritain 1936 French French
8389 Poems Of Edmond Jabès Edmond Jabès 1959 French French
8408 On Human Nature E. O. Wilson 1978 American English
8445 The Harvest Of Chronos Mojca Kumerdej 2016 Slovenian Slovenian
8473 Natural History Joan Perucho 1960 Spanish Catalan
8473 The Maximus Poems Charles Olson 1960 American English
8466 Being Wrong Kathryn Schulz 2010 American English
8511 Euthyphro Plato -399 Greek Ancient greek
8512 From A Logical Point Of View Willard Van Orman Quine 1953 American English
8542 Milton's God William Empson 1961 British English
8541 Peace Is Every Step Thich Nhat Hanh 1992 Vietnamese English
8553 Igur Neblí Miquel de Palol 1994 Spanish Unknown
8556 Word And Object Willard Van Orman Quine 1960 American English
8570 Main Currents Of Marxism Leszek Kolakowski 1976 Polish English
8575 Deviations Gayle Rubin 2011 American English
8585 Sermões Padre Vieira 1642 Brazilian Portuguese
8607 The Dyer's Hand W. H. Auden 1962 British English
8607 Lyrical And Critical Essays Albert Camus 1968 French French
8648 Treatises On Friendship And Old Age Marcus Tullius Cicero -44 Latin Latin
8664 Taking Rights Seriously Ronald Dworkin 1977 American English
8681 In Defense Of Sanity G. K. Chesterton 2011 British English
8681 Adapt Tim Harford 2011 British English
8704 W.E.B. Du Bois David Levering Lewis 2000 American English
8720 Prejudices H. L. Mencken 1919 American English
8732 Hymns And Fragments Freidrich Hölderlin 1984 German German
8739 The Dalkey Archive Flann O'Brien 1964 Irish English
8752 The Creation Of Patriarchy Gerda Lerner 1986 American English
8757 Russian Thinkers Isaiah Berlin 1978 British English
8768 War Diaries Jean Paul Sartre 1940 French French
8770 John Adams David McCullough 2001 American English
8789 The Diaries Of Emilio Renzi Ricardo Piglia 2015 Argentinian Spanish
8827 The Laws Of Hospitality Pierre Klossowski 1965 French French
8827 The Baphomet Pierre Klossowski 1965 French French
8852 The Emperor's New Mind Roger Penrose 1989 British English
8880 Philosophy And The Mirror Of Nature Richard Rorty 1979 American English
8885 Black and Blur Fred Moten 2017 American English
8887 Monsters Claire Dederer 2023 American English