List of important

publications in
philosophy

The inclusion or exclusion of items from this list or

length of this list is disputed. Learn more

This is a list of important publications in

philosophy, organized by field. The
publications on this list are regarded as
important because they have served or are
serving as one or more of the following
roles:

Foundation – A publication whose ideas

would go on to be the foundation of a
topic or field within philosophy.
Breakthrough – A publication that changed
or added to philosophical knowledge
significantly.
Influence – A publication that has had a
significant impact on the academic study
of philosophy or the world.
Historical philosophical texts
European and Islamic
philosophy

Ancient philosophy

1. Heraclitus (c. early 5th century).

Fragments.
2. Parmenides (c. early 5th century). On
3. Nature.[1]
4. Plato (early period, c. 399 –
c. 387 BC[2]). Apology.
5. Plato (early period). Crito.
6. Plato (early period). Euthyphro.
7. Plato (early period). Gorgias.
8. Plato (early period). Protagoras.
9. Plato (early transitional period, c. 387 –
c. 380 BC). Cratylus.
10. Plato (early transitional period). Meno.
11. Plato (middle period, c. 380 –
c. 360 BC). Phaedo.
12. Plato (middle period). Symposium.
13. Plato (late transitional period, c. 360 –
c. 355 BC). Parmenides.
14. Plato (late transitional period).
Theaetetus.
15. Plato (late transitional period).
Phaedrus.
16. Plato (late period, c. 355 – c. 347 BC).
Laws.
17. Plato (late period). Timaeus.
18. Plato (Bk. 1, early period. Bks. 2-10, late
period). The Republic.
19. Aristotle (fl. 384 – 322 BC). Organon.
20. Aristotle. Physics.
21. Aristotle. Metaphysics.
22. Aristotle. On the Soul.
23. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
24. Aristotle. Politics.
25. Aristotle. Rhetoric.
26. Aristotle. Poetics.
27. Lucretius (fl. 99 – 55 BC). On the Nature
of Things.
28. Cicero, (106 – 43 BC). On the
Commonwealth.
29. Cicero, On the Laws.
30. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC – 65AD).
31. Letters from a Stoic

32. Marcus Aurelius (161 – 180 AD).

Meditations.
33. Epictetus (125 AD). Enchiridion.
34. Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 – 210 AD),
35. Outlines of Pyrrhonism
 36. Plotinus (270 AD). Enneads.
37. Porphyry (c. 234 – 305 AD), Isagoge
38. Hermes Trismegistus, Corpus
[3]
39. Hermeticum

Medieval philosophy

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, c. AD

397
Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, early
5th century
Proclus, The Elements of Theology
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, c.
500
Eriugena, Periphyseon
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
Anselm, Proslogion
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra
Gentiles, c. 1260
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Duns Scotus, Ordinatio (aka Opus
Oxoniense)[4]
 William of Ockham, Suma Logicae

Title page of Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon

Early modern philosophy

Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of

Folly, 1509 (printed 1511)
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513
(printed 1532)
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1570-
1592 (printed 1580-1595)
Sir Francis Bacon, Novum Organum,
1620
Hugo Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis,
1625
René Descartes, Rules for the Direction of
the Mind, 1628
René Descartes, Discourse on the
Method, 1637
René Descartes, Meditations on First
Philosophy, 1641
René Descartes, Principles of
Philosophy, 1644
René Descartes, Passions of the Soul,
1649
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
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws,
1748
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
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement,
1790
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation,
1789
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the
Revolution in France, 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
Auguste Comte, Course of Positive
Philosophy, 1830-1842
Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 1843
 Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling,
1843
Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of
Anxiety, 1844
Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding
Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical
Fragments, 1846
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 Herbert
Spencer, System of Synthetic
Philosophy, 1862-1892
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, Time and Free Will,
1889
Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory,
1896
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, 1907
Asian philosophy

Indian philosophy

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
Mīmāṃsā School
Jaimini, Purva Mīmāṃsā Sutras
Jainism
Jain Agamas
Jain Agamas (Digambara)
Jain Agamas (Śvētāmbara)
Buddhism
Pāli Tipitaka
Mahayana sutras
Tamil,
Thiruvalluvar,

Thirukkural
 Chinese philosophy

Zhou Dynasty

Kongzi, Analects (likely written later by

followers)
Kongzi, Five Classics (compiled)
Sunzi, Art of War
Laozi, Dao De Jing

Warring States

Mengzi, [The] Mengzi

Mo Tzu, Mozi
Zhuangzi, Chuang Tzu
Han Fei, [The] Han Feizi

Song Dynasty
The Record of Linji
 Zhou Dunyi, The Taiji Tushuo
Zhu Xi, Four Books [compiled]
Zhu Xi, Reflections on Things at Hand,
1175

Japanese philosophy

Pre-Meiji Buddhism

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

Contemporary philosophical texts

Phenomenology and
existentialism

Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations

(1900/1901)
Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a
Pure Phenomenology and to a
Phenomenological Philosophy (1913)
Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and
Non-Formal Ethics of Values (1913,
1916)
Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923)
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
(1927)
Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations
(1931)
Alfred Schütz, The Phenomenology of the
Social World (1932)
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)
 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity
(1961)
Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given (1997)

Hermeneutics and
deconstruction

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and

Method (1960)
Paul Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy: An
Essay on Interpretation (1965)
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology
(1967)

Structuralism and
poststructuralism

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

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

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
Alvin Goldman, "What is Justified
Belief?"
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: A Case for
Scepticism

Metaphysics

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
James Ladyman, Don Ross, David
Spurrett, John Collier, Every Thing Must
Go: Metaphysics Naturalized Philosophy

of biology

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

J. van Brakel, Philosophy of Chemistry,

Leuven University Press, 2000. Philosophy
of mind

David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind and

The Character of Consciousness
Daniel Dennett, Consciousness
Explained
Thomas Nagel, "What Is it Like to Be a
Bat?"
Thomas Nagel, The View From
Nowhere
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

Hans Reichenbach, The Philosophy of

Space and Time
John Stuart Bell, On the Einstein-
Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, 1964

Philosophy of psychology

William James, The Principles of

Psychology
Donald Davidson, The Very Idea of a
Conceptual Scheme
Philosophy of religion

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
Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being,
1982
J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism,
1982
Dewi Zephaniah Phillips, 'Religion
Without Explanation'
 J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and
Human Reason, 1993
William Rowe, 'The Evidential
Argument from Evil: A Second Look',
1996

Philosophy of science

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 Aesthetics

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 and value theory

Ethics

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 and 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

P. F. Strawson, Freedom and

Resentment

Bioethics

Don Marquis, "Why Abortion is

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

Business ethics

Tibor R. Machan, The Morality of

Business: A Profession for Human
Wealthcare (2007)

Identity

Judith Butler, 'Performative Acts and

Gender Constitution', (1988)

Edward Said, Orientalism Social

philosophy

Philosophy of economics

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

B.F. Skinner, Walden Two

John Dewey, Democracy and Education
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the
Oppressed

Philosophy of history

R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History

Karl Löwith, Meaning in History: The
Theological Implications of the
 Philosophy of History

Philosophy of law

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

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
Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the
Limits of Justice

Logic, language, and

mathematics

Logic and philosophy of logic

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

Gottlob Frege, "On 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)
John Searle, Speech Acts
Cora Diamond, What Nonsense Might
Be
Robert Brandom, Making it Explicit
David K. Lewis, 'General Semantics'
David Chalmers, 'Two Dimensional
Semantics'

Philosophy of mathematics
 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, Science without Numbers: The
Defence of Nominalism.

Chinese and Japanese thought

Feng Youlan, A History of Chinese
Philosophy, 1934
Feng Youlan, New Rational Philosophy,
1939
A Manifesto for a Re-appraisal of
Sinology and Reconstruction of
Chinese Culture[5], 1958

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
List of years in philosophy

Notes
This article includes a list of references, related
reading or external links, but its sources remainLearn
more

1. Palmer, John (2 August 2016).

"Parmenides (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy)" . Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford
University. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
2. Brickhouse, Thomas; Smith,
Nicholas. "Plato (427—347 B.C.E.)" .
 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
ISSN 2161-0002 . Retrieved 2018-12-
06.

3. Hermeticism has philosophical as well

as a religious and esoteric aspect.
4. The Ordinatio, is taken to be Scotus'
premier work.
5. 'New Confucianism is perhaps the most
influential form of Confucian
philosophy in the twentieth century:
The following essay, published on New
Year’s Day 1958, is often referred to as
the "New Confucian Manifesto" (even
though that particular phrase never
occurs in it).
 https://www.hackettpublishing.com/
mou_zongsan_manifesto

References
Irvine, Andrew David. "Bertrand Russell" .
In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Further reading
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

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