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
8895 Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It Geoff Dyer 2003 British English
8949 Time Without Keys Ida Vitale 2019 Uruguayan Spanish
9007 T Zero Italo Calvino 1967 Italian Italian
9089 Pluto's Republic Peter B. Medawar 1982 British English
9114 Selected Poems Zbigniew Herbert 1968 Polish Polish
9146 Language And Mind Noam Chomsky 1968 American English
9146 Knowledge And Human Interests Jürgen Habermas 1968 German German
9184 Untitled Subjects Richard Howard 1969 American English
9191 The Accidental Universe Alan Lightman 2014 American English
9191 But What If We're Wrong? Chuck Klosterman 2016 American English
9191 The Death Class Erika Hayasaki 2014 American English
9254 To Your Scattered Bodies Go Philip José Farmer 1971 American English
9258 Moving Beyond Words Gloria Steinem 1993 American English
9274 Invisible Reality Juan Ramón Jiménez 1983 Spanish Unknown
9292 Findings Richard Howard 1970 American Unknown
9310 Wholeness And The Implicate Order David Bohm 1980 British English
9310 On The Edge Of Paradise David Newsome 1980 Unknown English
9314 Hamlet On The Holodeck Janet H. Murray 1997 American English
9356 The Family Idiot Jean Paul Sartre 1971 French French
9375 Saint Leon William Godwin 1799 British English
9517 Memoirs Raymond Aron 1983 French French
9517 Spheres Of Justice Michael Walzer 1983 American English
9528 Feminists Theorize The Political Judith Butler, Joan Wallach Scott 1992 Multiple English
9548 Guillén On Guillén Jorge Guillén 1972 Spanish Spanish
9548 The Owl's Insomnia Rafael Alberti 1972 Spanish Spanish
9548 Selected Poems Lars Gustafsson 1972 Swedish Swedish
9548 Poems Of John B. Wheelwright John B. Wheelwright 1972 American English
9585 Lord of Light Roger Zelazny 1967 American English
9611 The Three Paradoxes Paul Hornschemeier 2007 American English
9628 Largo Desolato Vaclav Havel 1985 Czech Czech
9627 The Less Noble Sex Nancy Tuana 1993 Unknown English
9633 The Collected Works of Paul Valéry Paul Valéry 1957 French French
9637 Being There Andy Clark 1996 Unknown English
9638 Unbearable Weight Susan Bordo 1993 American English
9657 De Architectura Vitruvius 2016 Roman Latin
9702 Astonishing the Gods Ben Okri 1995 Nigerian English
9706 The Etymologies Isidore of Seville 630 Spanish Latin
9713 Eros Is More Juan Antonio González Iglesias 2018 Spanish Spanish
9741 Tatlin! Guy Davenport 1974 American English
9807 The Childhood Of Jesus J. M. Coetzee 2013 South African English
9817 The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak 2009 Turkish Turkish
9819 The Precipice Toby Ord 2020 British English
9848 Entre Les Deux Il N’y A Rien Mathieu Riboulet 2006 French French
9857 The Meaning of Truth William James 1909 American English
9857 Biographia Literaria Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817 British English
9857 An Essay on Man Alexander Pope 1734 British English
9857 Critical And Historical Essays Thomas Babington Macaulay 1843 British English
9893 The Whole Shebang Timothy Ferris 1997 American English
9907 The Oxford Book Of Letters Frank Kermode, Anita Kermode 1995 British English
9924 The Problem Of Atheism Augusto Del Noce 1964 Italian Italian
9927 Dimensions Of History Jay Wright 1976 American English
9945 An Apartment On Uranus Paul B. Preciado 2019 Spanish French
9951 The Souls Of China Ian Johnson 2017 American English
9970 Care of the Soul Thomas Moore 1992 American English
10002 Where Tigers Are At Home Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès 2008 French French
10009 The End Of Nature Bill McKibben 1989 American English
10037 The Future In The Present C. L. R. James 1977 Trinidadian English
10077 To Shape A New World Tommie Shelby, Brandon M. Terry 2018 American English
10082 Disciplined Minds Jeff Schmidt 2000 American English
10087 We Have No Idea Daniel Whiteson, Jorge Cham 2017 Unknown English
10091 Time Enough For Love Robert A. Heinlein 1973 American English
10115 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10136 Maitreya Severo Sarduy 1978 Cuban Spanish
10136 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
10221 Doctor Pasavento Enrique Vila-Matas 2005 Spanish Spanish
10241 A History of Philosophy Frederick Charles Copleston 1946 British English
10241 Religion and the Rise of Western Culture Christopher Dawson 1950 British English
10241 The Great Chain of Being Arthur Lovejoy 1936 American English
10241 Persons and Places George Santayana 1944 American English
10241 The New Science of Politics Eric Voegelin 1952 Austrian English
10260 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
10280 Naming And Necessity Saul Kripke 1980 American English
10305 Mimesis Erich Auerbach 1946 German German
10305 The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali Salvador Dali 1942 Spanish Spanish
10305 What Is Called Thinking? Martin Heidegger 1954 German German
10305 The Gnostic Religion Hans Jonas 1958 German English
10305 Critique Of Everyday Life Henri Lefebvre 1947 French French
10305 Ornament And Crime Adolf Loos 1908 German German
10305 Eros And Civilization Herbert Marcuse 1955 German English
10305 Sense And Non Sense Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1948 French French
10305 Perspective As Symbolic Form Erwin Panofsky 1927 German German
10396 Essays On Music Theodor Adorno 2002 German English
10397 For Marx Louis Althusser 1965 French French
10420 Internal Ecology Morals For Xxi Century Dario Salas Sommer 2007 Chilean Spanish
10450 Nothing to be Frightened Of Julian Barnes 2008 British English
10450 Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story Jim Holt 2012 American English
10450 Mr. Palomar Italo Calvino 1983 Italian Italian
10504 A Voyage To India Gonçalo M. Tavares 2010 Portuguese Portuguese
10555 The Revisionist Douglas Crase 1981 American English
10574 The Half Known Life Pico Iyer 2023 British English
10583 The Rebel's Clinic Adam Shatz 2024 Unknown English
10589 Salvage Dionne Brand 2024 Canadian English
10601 All Things Are Too Small Becca Rothfeld 2024 Unknown English
10627 United States Gore Vidal 1993 American English
10634 The Black Utopians Aaron Robertson 2024 Unknown English
10641 The Abstract Wild Jack Turner 1996 Unknown English
10656 An Accidental Man Iris Murdoch 1971 British English
10661 Buckley Sam Tanenhaus 2025 American English
10685 The Possibility Of Life Jaime Green 2023 Unknown English
10735 Truth And Truthfulness Bernard Williams 2002 British English
10740 Yes Is Better Than No Byrd Baylor 1977 American English
10747 The Changing Light At Sandover James Merrill 1982 American English
10822 Touching Feeling Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 2003 American English
10895 After Many A Summer Dies The Swan Aldous Huxley 1939 British English
10913 Common As Air Lewis Hyde 2010 American English
10922 Robert Grosseteste R. W. Southern 1988 British English
10983 The Proper Study of Mankind Isaiah Berlin 1997 British English
11000 Shifting The Silence Etel Adnan 2020 Unknown English
11001 The Island Of The Day Before Umberto Eco 1994 Italian Italian
11016 The Story Of San Michele Axel Munthe 1929 Swedish English
11024 Tremor Adam Zagajewski 1985 Polish Polish
11023 Ways Of Being Alive Baptiste Morizot 2020 French French
11031 This Sex Which Is Not One Luce Irigary 1977 French French
11054 Two Years Eight Months And Twenty Eight Nights Salman Rushdie 2015 British English
11063 The Complete Works Of Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft 1989 British English
11136 O Strange New World Howard Mumford Jones 1964 American English
11136 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture David Brion Davis 1966 American English
11136 Fin-de-Siècle Vienna Carl E. Schorske 1980 American English
11172 Philosophy In The Boudoir Marquis de Sade 1795 French French
11190 Love And Sleep John Crowley 1994 American English