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
8899 Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It Geoff Dyer 2003 British English
8953 Time Without Keys Ida Vitale 2019 Uruguayan Spanish
9011 T Zero Italo Calvino 1967 Italian Italian
9093 Pluto's Republic Peter B. Medawar 1982 British English
9118 Selected Poems Zbigniew Herbert 1968 Polish Polish
9150 Language And Mind Noam Chomsky 1968 American English
9150 Knowledge And Human Interests Jürgen Habermas 1968 German German
9187 Untitled Subjects Richard Howard 1969 American English
9194 The Accidental Universe Alan Lightman 2014 American English
9194 But What If We're Wrong? Chuck Klosterman 2016 American English
9194 The Death Class Erika Hayasaki 2014 American English
9257 To Your Scattered Bodies Go Philip José Farmer 1971 American English
9261 Moving Beyond Words Gloria Steinem 1993 American English
9264 Nothing to be Frightened Of Julian Barnes 2008 British English
9278 Invisible Reality Juan Ramón Jiménez 1983 Spanish Unknown
9295 Findings Richard Howard 1970 American Unknown
9313 Wholeness And The Implicate Order David Bohm 1980 British English
9313 On The Edge Of Paradise David Newsome 1980 Unknown English
9317 Hamlet On The Holodeck Janet H. Murray 1997 American English
9359 The Family Idiot Jean Paul Sartre 1971 French French
9378 Saint Leon William Godwin 1799 British English
9520 Memoirs Raymond Aron 1983 French French
9520 Spheres Of Justice Michael Walzer 1983 American English
9531 Feminists Theorize The Political Judith Butler, Joan Wallach Scott 1992 Multiple English
9551 Guillén On Guillén Jorge Guillén 1972 Spanish Spanish
9551 The Owl's Insomnia Rafael Alberti 1972 Spanish Spanish
9551 Selected Poems Lars Gustafsson 1972 Swedish Swedish
9551 Poems Of John B. Wheelwright John B. Wheelwright 1972 American English
9588 Lord of Light Roger Zelazny 1967 American English
9614 The Three Paradoxes Paul Hornschemeier 2007 American English
9631 Largo Desolato Vaclav Havel 1985 Czech Czech
9630 The Less Noble Sex Nancy Tuana 1993 Unknown English
9636 The Collected Works of Paul Valéry Paul Valéry 1957 French French
9640 Being There Andy Clark 1996 Unknown English
9642 Unbearable Weight Susan Bordo 1993 American English
9661 De Architectura Vitruvius 2016 Roman Latin
9706 Astonishing the Gods Ben Okri 1995 Nigerian English
9710 The Etymologies Isidore of Seville 630 Spanish Latin
9717 Eros Is More Juan Antonio González Iglesias 2018 Spanish Spanish
9745 Tatlin! Guy Davenport 1974 American English
9811 The Childhood Of Jesus J. M. Coetzee 2013 South African English
9821 The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak 2009 Turkish Turkish
9823 The Precipice Toby Ord 2020 British English
9852 Entre Les Deux Il N’y A Rien Mathieu Riboulet 2006 French French
9861 The Meaning of Truth William James 1909 American English
9861 Biographia Literaria Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817 British English
9861 An Essay on Man Alexander Pope 1734 British English
9861 Critical And Historical Essays Thomas Babington Macaulay 1843 British English
9897 The Whole Shebang Timothy Ferris 1997 American English
9911 The Oxford Book Of Letters Frank Kermode, Anita Kermode 1995 British English
9929 The Problem Of Atheism Augusto Del Noce 1964 Italian Italian
9932 Dimensions Of History Jay Wright 1976 American English
9950 An Apartment On Uranus Paul B. Preciado 2019 Spanish French
9956 The Souls Of China Ian Johnson 2017 American English
9975 Care of the Soul Thomas Moore 1992 American English
10007 Where Tigers Are At Home Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès 2008 French French
10014 The End Of Nature Bill McKibben 1989 American English
10043 The Future In The Present C. L. R. James 1977 Trinidadian English
10082 To Shape A New World Tommie Shelby, Brandon M. Terry 2018 American English
10087 Disciplined Minds Jeff Schmidt 2000 American English
10092 We Have No Idea Daniel Whiteson, Jorge Cham 2017 Unknown English
10096 Time Enough For Love Robert A. Heinlein 1973 American English
10120 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10140 Maitreya Severo Sarduy 1978 Cuban Spanish
10140 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
10226 Doctor Pasavento Enrique Vila-Matas 2005 Spanish Spanish
10246 A History of Philosophy Frederick Charles Copleston 1946 British English
10246 Religion and the Rise of Western Culture Christopher Dawson 1950 British English
10246 The Great Chain of Being Arthur Lovejoy 1936 American English
10246 Persons and Places George Santayana 1944 American English
10246 The New Science of Politics Eric Voegelin 1952 Austrian English
10264 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
10284 Naming And Necessity Saul Kripke 1980 American English
10309 Mimesis Erich Auerbach 1946 German German
10309 The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali Salvador Dali 1942 Spanish Spanish
10309 What Is Called Thinking? Martin Heidegger 1954 German German
10309 The Gnostic Religion Hans Jonas 1958 German English
10309 Critique Of Everyday Life Henri Lefebvre 1947 French French
10309 Ornament And Crime Adolf Loos 1908 German German
10309 Eros And Civilization Herbert Marcuse 1955 German English
10309 Sense And Non Sense Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1948 French French
10309 Perspective As Symbolic Form Erwin Panofsky 1927 German German
10400 Essays On Music Theodor Adorno 2002 German English
10401 For Marx Louis Althusser 1965 French French
10424 Internal Ecology Morals For Xxi Century Dario Salas Sommer 2007 Chilean Spanish
10454 Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story Jim Holt 2012 American English
10454 Mr. Palomar Italo Calvino 1983 Italian Italian
10508 A Voyage To India Gonçalo M. Tavares 2010 Portuguese Portuguese
10559 The Revisionist Douglas Crase 1981 American English
10578 The Half Known Life Pico Iyer 2023 British English
10587 The Rebel's Clinic Adam Shatz 2024 Unknown English
10593 Salvage Dionne Brand 2024 Canadian English
10605 All Things Are Too Small Becca Rothfeld 2024 Unknown English
10632 United States Gore Vidal 1993 American English
10639 The Black Utopians Aaron Robertson 2024 Unknown English
10646 The Abstract Wild Jack Turner 1996 Unknown English
10661 An Accidental Man Iris Murdoch 1971 British English
10666 Buckley Sam Tanenhaus 2025 American English
10690 The Possibility Of Life Jaime Green 2023 Unknown English
10740 Truth And Truthfulness Bernard Williams 2002 British English
10745 Yes Is Better Than No Byrd Baylor 1977 American English
10752 The Changing Light At Sandover James Merrill 1982 American English
10828 Touching Feeling Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 2003 American English
10901 After Many A Summer Dies The Swan Aldous Huxley 1939 British English
10919 Common As Air Lewis Hyde 2010 American English
10928 Robert Grosseteste R. W. Southern 1988 British English
10989 The Proper Study of Mankind Isaiah Berlin 1997 British English
11006 Shifting The Silence Etel Adnan 2020 Unknown English
11007 The Island Of The Day Before Umberto Eco 1994 Italian Italian
11021 The Story Of San Michele Axel Munthe 1929 Swedish English
11029 Tremor Adam Zagajewski 1985 Polish Polish
11028 Ways Of Being Alive Baptiste Morizot 2020 French French
11036 This Sex Which Is Not One Luce Irigary 1977 French French
11059 Two Years Eight Months And Twenty Eight Nights Salman Rushdie 2015 British English
11068 The Complete Works Of Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft 1989 British English
11141 O Strange New World Howard Mumford Jones 1964 American English
11141 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture David Brion Davis 1966 American English
11141 Fin-de-Siècle Vienna Carl E. Schorske 1980 American English
11177 Philosophy In The Boudoir Marquis de Sade 1795 French French
11195 Love And Sleep John Crowley 1994 American English