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Best Philosophy Books

Philosophy worth reading takes hard questions seriously without making them harder than they need to be. These texts — from ancient to contemporary — reward careful attention and pay dividends long after you put them down.

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Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder · 1991 Editor's Choice Get it on Amazon →
The Republic Plato · -380 Essential Read Get it on Amazon →

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche · 1883 Recommended Get it on Amazon →
The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus · 1942 Recommended Get it on Amazon →
The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 Recommended See details →
A History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell · 1945 Recommended See details →
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn · 1962 Recommended See details →
A Modern Utopia H. G. Wells · 1900 Recommended See details →
A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf · 1929 Recommended See details →
A Study of History Arnold J. Toynbee · 1900 Recommended See details →
A treatise of human nature David Hume · 1739 Recommended See details →
Agudeza y arte de ingenio, en que se explican todos los modos y differencias de conceptos, con ejemplares escogidos de t Baltasar Gracián y Morales · 1649 Recommended See details →
An essay on man Alexander Pope · 1733 Recommended See details →
Anarchism and Other Essays Emma Goldman · 1910 Recommended See details →
Areopagitica John Milton · 1644 Recommended See details →
Autobiography John Stuart Mill · 1873 Recommended See details →
Commentaries on the laws of England Sir William Blackstone · 1721 Recommended See details →
Culture and anarchy; an essay in political and social criticism Matthew Arnold · 1869 Recommended See details →
De consolatione philosophiae Boethius · 1483 Recommended See details →
De la division du travail social Émile Durkheim · 1893 Recommended See details →
Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos Miguel de Unamuno · 1900 Recommended See details →
Democracy and Education John Dewey · 1916 Recommended See details →
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion David Hume · 1779 Recommended See details →
Discours de la méthode René Descartes · 1644 Recommended See details →
Discourses on Livy Niccolò Machiavelli · 1531 Recommended See details →
Emile or Education Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762 Recommended See details →
Escape from Freedom Erich Fromm · 1941 Recommended See details →
Familiar quotations; a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern liter John Bartlett · 1855 Recommended See details →
Fields, Factories, and Workshops Peter Kropotkin · 1899 Recommended See details →
Histoire naturelle comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc · 1749 Recommended See details →
Institutio Christianae religionis Jean Calvin · 1536 Recommended See details →
Kritik der reinen Vernunft Immanuel Kant · 1781 Recommended See details →
Leviathan Thomas Hobbes · 1651 Recommended See details →
Lun yu Confucius · 1750 Recommended See details →
Marius the Epicurean Walter Pater · 1885 Recommended See details →
Mutual Aid Peter Kropotkin · 1891 Recommended See details →
Nathan der Weise Gotthold Ephraim Lessing · 1779 Recommended See details →
Nova Atlantis Francis Bacon · 1627 Recommended See details →
Pharsalia Lucan · 1486 Recommended See details →
Philosophical essays concerning human understanding David Hume · 1900 Recommended See details →
Plato and Platonism Walter Pater · 1893 Recommended See details →
Poetics Aristotle · 1536 Recommended See details →
Prince Niccolò Machiavelli · 1998 Recommended See details →
Principles of Political Economy John Stuart Mill · 1848 Recommended See details →
Principles of internal medicine Tinsley Randolph Harrison · 1950 Recommended See details →
Sartor resartus Thomas Carlyle · 1800 Recommended See details →
Siddhartha Hermann Hesse · 1922 Recommended See details →
Sophocles Sophocles · 1832 Recommended See details →
State and Revolution Vladimir Il’ich Lenin · 1900 Recommended See details →
Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas · 1467 Recommended See details →
The Book of the Dead E. A. Wallis Budge · 1894 Recommended See details →
The Stones of Venice John Ruskin · 1851 Recommended See details →
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith · 1776 Recommended See details →
The guide of the perplexed of Maimonides Moses Maimonides · 1473 Recommended See details →
Three guineas Virginia Woolf · 1938 Recommended See details →
Tractatus logico-philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1921 Recommended See details →
Two Treatises on Government John Locke · 1689 Recommended See details →
Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill · 1863 Recommended See details →
Vom Kriege Carl von Clausewitz · 1835 Recommended See details →
Walking Henry David Thoreau · 1914 Recommended See details →

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