List of important publications in philosophy

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This is a list of important publications in philosophy, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

• Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
• Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
• Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of philosophy.

Historical Philosophical Texts[edit]

European and Islamic Philosophy[edit]

Ancient Philosophy[edit]

• Parmenides, On Nature
• Plato, Protagoras
• Plato, Cratylus
• Plato, Phaedrus
• Plato, Symposium
• Plato, Meno
• Plato, Euthyphro
• Plato, Apology
• Plato, Crito
• Plato, Phaedo
• Plato, Gorgias
• Plato, The Republic
• Plato, Timaeus
• Plato, Parmenides
• Plato, Laws
• Aristotle, Organon
• Aristotle, Physics
• Aristotle, Metaphysics
• Aristotle, On the Soul
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
• Aristotle, Politics
• Aristotle, Rhetoric
• Aristotle, Poetics
• Lucretius, On the Nature of Things
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
• Plotinus, Enneads

Medieval Philosophy[edit]

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, c. AD 397
• Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, early 5th century
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, c. 500
• Avicenna, The Book of Healing
• Avicenna, Proof of the Truthful
• Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed
• Maimonides, Mishneh Torah
• Yehuda Halevi, Kuzari
• Saadia Gaon, Emunoth ve-Deoth
• Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers
• Averroes, The Incoherence of the Incoherence
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, c. 1260
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
• Anselm, Proslogion

Early Modern Philosophy[edit]

Title page of Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon

• Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, 1509 (printed 1511)
• Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513 (printed 1532)
• Sir Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620
• Hugo Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis, 1625
• René Descartes, Discourse on Method , 1637
• René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651
• Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670
• Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, 1677
• Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1677
• John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1689
• John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689
• Gottfried Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686
• Gottfried Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 1704 (printed 1765)
• Gottfried Leibniz, Théodicée, 1710
• Gottfried Leibniz, Monadology, 1714 (printed 1720)
• George Berkeley, Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710
• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 1738–1740
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, 1750
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: or, On Education, 1762
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762
• Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759
• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781
• Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, 1785
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788
• Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, 1790
• Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Foundations of the Science of Knowledge, 1794
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit , 1807
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, 1812–1817
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, 1820
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, printed 1837
• Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 1819–1859
• Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 1843
• Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 1843
• Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, 1844
• Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, 1844
• Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, 1848
• Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867–1894
• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
• John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861–1863
• John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, The Subjection of Women, 1869
• Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 1874
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883–1891
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
• Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, 1887
• Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, 1896

Asian Philosophy[edit]

Indian Philosophy[edit]

• The Upanishads
• The Bhagavad Gita ("The Song of God")
• Samkhya school:
  • Isvarakrsna, Sankhya Karika
• Nyaya school:
  • Aksapada Gautama, Nyaya Sutras
• Vaisheshika school:
  • Kanada, Vaisheshika Sutra
• Yoga school:
  • Patañjali, Yoga Sutras
  • Swami Swatamarama, Hatha Yoga Pradipika
• Vedanta school:
  • Vyasa, Brahma Sutras

Chinese Philosophy[edit]

Zhou Dynasty[edit]

• Kongzi, Analects (likely written later by followers)
• Kongzi, Five Classics (compiled)
• Sunzi, Art of War
• Laozi, Dao De Jing

Warring States[edit]

• Mengzi, [The] Mengzi
• Han Fei, [The] Han Feizi

Song Dynasty[edit]

• Zhou Dunyi, The Taiji Tushuo
• Zhu Xi, Four Books [compiled]
• Zhu Xi, Reflections on Things at Hand, 1175

Japanese Philosophy[edit]

Pre-Meiji Buddhism[edit]

• Kukai, Attaining Enlightenment in this Very Existence, 817
• Honen, One-Sheet Document, 1212
• Shinran, Kyogyoshinsho, 1224
• Dogen Zenji, Shōbōgenzō, 1231-1253
• Hakuin Ekaku, Wild Ivy

Early Modern[edit]

• Zeami Motokiyo, Style and Flower, approx. 1400 AD
• Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings, approx. 1600 AD

Contemporary Philosophical Texts[edit]

Phenomenology and Existentialism[edit]

• Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations (1900/1901)
• Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy (1913)
• Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927)
• Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (1931)
• Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1945)
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)

Hermeneutics and Deconstruction[edit]

• Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (1960)
• Paul Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (1965)
• Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (1967)

Structuralism and Post-structuralism[edit]

• Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (1966)
• Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (1968)
• Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972-1980)
• Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman (1974)
• Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

Critical Theory and Marxism[edit]

• Georg Lukacs, "History and Class Consciousness" (1923)
• Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (1941)
• Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)
• Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (1945)
• Louis Althusser, Reading Capital (1965)
• Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966)
• Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action (1981)
• Alain Badiou, Being and Event (1988)

Epistemology[edit]

• Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912)
• G.E. Moore, A Defence of Common Sense (1925)
• Edmund Gettier, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? (1963)
• Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979)
• Stanley Cavell,The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (1979,1999)
• Roderick Chisholm, A Theory of Knowing
• Alvin Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition
• John McDowell, Mind and World
• Susan Haack, Evidence and Enquiry
• Laurence Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge
• Stephen Stich, The Fragmentation of Reason
• Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits
• Keith DeRose, The Case for Contextualism
• Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interest
• Hilary Kornblith, Knowledge and its Place in Nature
• Jonathan Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding
• David K. Lewis, Elusive Knowledge
• Willard van Orman Quine, Epistemology Naturalized
• Peter Unger, Ignorance

Metaphysics[edit]

• John Dewey, Experience and Nature, 1929
• William James, Pragmatism
• G. E. Moore, The Refutation of Idealism, 1903
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (a.k.a. The Tractatus)
• Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality
• A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
• Rudolf Carnap, Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology
• D.M. Armstrong, Universals and Scientific Realism
• W.V.O. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism
• W.V.O. Quine, On What There Is
• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity
• Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons
• David Kellogg Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds
• John McDowell, Mind and World
• Timothy Williamson, Modal Logic as Metaphysics
• Stephen Mumford, Dispositions
• Theodore Sider, Writing the Book of the World
• David Chalmers, Constructing the World

Philosophy of biology[edit]

• Elliott Sober, The Nature of Selection
• Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, 1945
• Ruth Garrett Millikan, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories
• Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Philosophy of chemistry[edit]

• J. van Brakel, Philosophy of Chemistry, Leuven University Press, 2000.

Philosophy of mind[edit]

• David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind and The Character of Consciousness
• Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained
• Thomas Nagel, What Is it Like to Be a Bat?
• Hilary Putnam, The Meaning of Meaning
• Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949
• Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 1956
• John Searle, Intentionality
• Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind
• Ruth Millikan, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories.
• Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought
• Jerry Fodor, The Modularity of Mind
• Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind
• Tyler Burge, Anti-Individualism and the Mental
• Paul Churchland, Eliminative Materialism and Propositional Attitudes
• Stephen Stich, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science
• David K. Lewis, An Argument for the Identity Theory

Philosophy of physics[edit]

• Hans Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space and Time
• John Stuart Bell, On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, 1964

Philosophy of psychology[edit]

• William James, The Principles of Psychology
• Donald Davidson, The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme

Philosophy of religion[edit]

• Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds, 1967
• Alvin Plantinga, 'Is Belief in God Properly Basic', 1981
• Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, 1979
• William Lane Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument, 1979
• J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism, 1982
• Dewi Zephaniah Phillips, 'Religion Without Explanation'
• William Rowe, 'The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look', 1996

Philosophy of science[edit]

• Karl Pearson, The Grammar of Science, 1892
• Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 1954
• Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959
• Thomas Samuel Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962
• Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy
• Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, 1975
• David K. Lewis, 'How to Define Theoretical Terms', 1970.
• Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, 1980
• Larry Laudan, 'The Demise of the Demarcation Problem', 1983

Ethics and value theory[edit]

Aesthetics[edit]

• R.G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art
• Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, 1968
• Arthur C. Danto, After the End of Art
• Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

Ethics[edit]

• G. E. M. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy
• Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices and Natural Goodness
• David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement
• Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality
• Allan Gibbard, Thinking How to Live
• Susan Hurley, Natural Reasons
• Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality
• Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity
• John McDowell, Values as Secondary Qualities
• Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue
• J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
• G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica
• Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness
• Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons
• Derek Parfit, On What Matters
• Peter Railton, Facts, Values, and Norms
• W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good
• Thomas M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other
• Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism
• Peter Singer, Practical Ethics
• Michael A. Smith, The Moral Problem
• Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

Meta-ethics[edit]

• P. F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment

Bioethics[edit]

• Paul Ramsey, The Patient as a Person
• Paul Ramsey, Fabricated Man
• Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"

Business ethics[edit]

• Tibor R. Machan, The Morality of Business: A Profession for Human Wealthcare (2007)

Identity[edit]

• Judith Butler, 'Performative Acts and Gender Constitution', (1988)
• Edward Said, Orientalism

Social philosophy[edit]

Philosophy of economics[edit]

• Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values
• Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
• Elizabeth S. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics

Philosophy of education[edit]

• B.F. Skinner, Walden Two
• John Dewey, Democracy and Education
• Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Philosophy of history[edit]

• R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History

Philosophy of law[edit]

• John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights
• H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 1994
• Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law
• Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire

Political philosophy[edit]

• Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971
• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
• Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty

Logic, language, and mathematics[edit]

Logic and philosophy of logic[edit]

• Charles Sanders Peirce, "How to Make Our Ideas Clear"
• Gottlob Frege, Begriffsschrift
• Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, 1910-1913
• Kurt Gödel, "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems", 1931
• Saul Kripke, "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic"
• Alfred Tarski, "The Concept of Truth"
• Donald Davidson, "Truth and Meaning"

Philosophy of language[edit]

• Gottlob Frege, "Sense and Reference"
• Bertrand Russell, "On Denoting"
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
• Willard Van Orman Quine, "Word and Object"
• J. L. Austin, "A Plea for Excuses"
• J. L. Austin, "How To Do Things With Words"
• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity
• H. P. Grice, "Logic and Conversation"
• Michael Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language
• Stanley Cavell,Must We Mean What We Say? (1969)
• Cora Diamond, What Nonsense Might Be
• Robert Brandom, Making it Explicit
• David K. Lewis, 'General Semantics'
• David Chalmers, 'Two Dimensional Semantics'

Philosophy of mathematics[edit]

• Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica
• Paul Benacerraf What Numbers Could not Be
• Paul Benacerraf, Mathematical Truth
• Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam, Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings
• George Boolos, Logic, Logic and Logic
• Imre Lakatos, Proofs and Refutations
• Penelope Maddy, Second Philosophy.
• Hartry Field, Without Numbers.

Chinese and Japanese Thought[edit]

• Feng Youlan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 1934
• Feng Youlan, New Rational Philosophy, 1939
• Kitaro Nishida, An Inquiry into the Good, 1911
• Kitaro Nishida, From the Acting to the Seeing, 1923–27
• Suzuki Daisetsu Teitaro, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 1934
• Nishitani Keiji, Religion and Nothingness, 1961

See also[edit]

• List of years in philosophy

Notes[edit]

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References[edit]

• Irvine, Andrew David. "Bertrand Russell". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

Further reading[edit]

• What Are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, Douglas P. Lackey, Philosophical Forum 30(4): 329-346 (1999).
• American Philosophical Association
• Epistemology Research Guide
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Annotated Bibliography on Analysis
• Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: An Annotated Bibliography
• London Philosophy Study Guide