This list is aimed at curating those texts that will both challenge a novice researcher, and continually reward repeated encounters as you develop your philosophical interests. These books are helpful research tools that will include essays on important thinkers not listed here:
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Pre-Socratics (c. 600–400 BC)
Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (Routledge)
G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and Malcolm Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge University Press)
Richard D. McKirahan, Philosophy Before Socrates (Hackett Publishers)
Socrates (c. 469–399 BC) and Plato (c. 429–347 BC)
Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford University Press)
Hugh Benson, Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (Oxford University Press)
Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies (Oxford University Press)
Gail Fine, ed., Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology and Plato II: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul (Oxford University Press)
Terence Irwin, Plato’s Ethics (Oxford University Press)
Richard Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge University Press)
Nicholas D. Smith, Plato: Critical Assessments (Routledge)
Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cornell University Press)
Aristotle (384–322 BC)
J. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford University Press)
Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox, eds., Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology (Cambridge University Press)
Jonathan Beere, Doing and Being: An Interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Theta (Oxford University Press)
E.R. Jiminez, Aristotle’s Concept of Mind (Cambridge University Press)
Richard Kraut, Aristotle and the Human Good (Princeton University Press) and Aristotle:
Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press)
Mariska Leunissen, Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle’s Science of Nature (Oxford University Press)
C. D. C. Reeve, Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Hackett Publishers)
W. D. Ross, Aristotle (Methuen and Co.)
C. Shields, The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle (Oxford University Press)
Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics (300 BC–fifth century AD)
Julia Annas, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (University of California Press) and The Morality of Happiness (Oxford University Press)
Mind focuses on Stoic and Epicurean theories of the mind—what it is and what it does, while Morality focuses on Ancient ethical theories, beginning with Aristotle. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, eds., The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations (Cambridge University Press)
Elizabeth Asmis, Epicurus’ Scientific Method (Cornell University Press)
Richard Bett, The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (Cambridge University Press)
Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate (Oxford University Press)
John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton University Press)
Brad Inwood, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge University Press)
A.A. Long, Stoic Studies (University of California Press)
J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press)
Ricardo Salles, The Stoics on Determinism and Compatibilism (Ashgate)
M. Scholfield, Miles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes, eds., Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology (Clarendon Press)
Medieval Philosophy
Augustine (354–430)
Brian Dobell, Augustine’s Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity (Cambridge University Press)
William E. Mann, Augustine’s Confessions: Critical Essays (Rowman & Littlefield)
Gareth B. Matthews, Augustine (Blackwell Publishing)
Boethius (c. 475–526?)
Thomas Böhm, Thomas Jürgasch, and Andreas Kirchner, eds., Boethius as a Paradigm of Late Ancient Thought (DeGruyter)
Antonio Donato, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity (Bloomsbury)
Philip Edward Phillips and Noel Harold Kaylor, eds., A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (Brill)
Saint Anselm (1033–1109)
Brian Davies and Brian Leftow, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (Cambridge University Press)
Jasper Hopkins, A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm (University of Minnesota Press)
Peter Abelard (1079–1142)
Jeffrey E. Brower and Kevin Guilfoy, The Cambridge Companion to Abelard (Cambridge University Press)
John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge University Press)
Roger Bacon (1214 or 1220–1292)
Robert Adamson, Roger Bacon: The Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages, an Address (delivered at Owens College)
Stewart C. Easton, Roger Bacon and His Search for a Universal Science: A Reconsideration of the Life and Work of Roger Bacon in the Light of His Own Stated Purpose (Columbia University Press)
Hackett, Jeremiah, ed., Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays (Brill)
Duns Scotus (1265/1266–1308)
Richard Cross, Duns Scotus (Oxford University Press)
Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer, The Philosophical Vision of Duns Scotus (The Catholic University of America Press)
Thomas Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge University Press)
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford University Press)
Therese Cory Scarpelli, Aquinas on Human Self-Knoweldge (Cambridge University Press)
Eleanore Stump, Aquinas (Routledge)
William of Ockham (1287–1347)
Marilyn McCord Adams, William Ockham (University of Notre Dame Press)
Paul Vincent Spade, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ockham (Cambridge University Press)
Jean Buridan (1300–c. 1358)
Jack Zupko, John Buridan: Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master (University of Notre Dame Press)
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464)
Inigo Bocken, Conflict and Reconciliation: Perspective on Nicholas of Cusa (Brill)
Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds., Nicholas of Cusa: In Search of God and Wisdom (Brill)
Additional Collected Essays Covering the Middle Ages
Peter, Dronke, ed., A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy (Cambridge University Press)
Edward Grant, Physical Science in the Middle Ages (Cambrudge University Press)
Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press)
Jorge J.E. Gracia and Timothy Noone, A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Blackwell Publications)
Inglis, John, ed., Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: In Islam, Judaism, and Christianity (Routledge)
Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism (Charles Scribner’s Sons)
Modern European Philosophy
Michel de Montaigne
Ann Hartle, Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher (Cambridge University Press)
Ullrich Langer, The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne (Cambridge University Press)
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Galileo Galilei
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
Pierre Gassendi
René Descartes (1596–1650)
Antoine Arnauld
Blaise Pascal
Margaret Cavendish
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)
Jonathan Bennet, A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics (Hackett Publishers)
Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols. (Oxford University Press)
John Locke (1632–1704)
V. Chappell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Locke (Cambridge University Press) M. Stuart, Locke’s Metaphysics (Oxford University Press)
Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715)
Desmond Connell, The Vision in God: Malebranche Scholastic Sources (Nauwelaerts Publishers)
Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
The Cambridge Companion to Newton, I. B. Cohen and G. E. Smith, eds. (Cambridge University Press)
Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, and Commentaries, I. B. Cohen and Richard Westfall, eds. (W. W. Norton & Co.)
G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716)
Daniel Garber, Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (Oxford University Press)
Catherine Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study (Princeton University Press)
George Berkeley (1685–1753)
G. S. Pappas, Berkeley’s Thought (Cornell University Press)
The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, K. P. Winkler, ed. (Cambridge University Press)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
Victor Gourevitch, Rousseau: The “Discourses” and Other Early Political Writings (Cambridge University Press)
Victor Gourevitch, Rousseau: The “Social Contract” and Other Later Political Writings (Cambridge University Press)
David Hume (1711-1776)
The Cambridge Companion to Hume, 2d edition, edited by David Fate Norton, and J. Taylor (Cambridge University Press)
T. Penelhum, Themes in Hume: The Will, The Self, Religion (Clarendon Press)
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
The Cambridge Companion to Kant, edited by Paul Guyer (Cambridge University Press)
The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, edited by Paul Guyer (Cambridge University Press)
Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge University Press)
Additional Collected Essays Covering the Modern Period
Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Clarendon Press) Craig B. Brush, Montaigne and Bayle: Variations on the Theme of Skepticism (Martinus Nijhoff)
I. Hunter, Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge University Press)
Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Van Gorcum) J.B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy
Late Modern European Philosophy
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
Eileen Hunt Botting, Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family (State University Press)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831)
Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur, eds., A Companion to Hegel, (Blackwell Publishers) Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Blackwell Publishers)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
Dale Jacquette, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Acumen Publishers) Christopher Janaway, Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (Clarendon Press)
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
David Brink, Mill’s Progressive Principles (Oxford University Press)
J. Skorupski, John Stuart Mill (Routledge Publishers)
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)
Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard (Routledge Publishers)
Hannay, Alastair and Gordon Marino eds., The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard (Cambridge University Press)
Karl Marx (1818–1883)
The Cambridge Companion to Marx, edited by Terrell Carver (Cambridge University Press)
G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, 2nd ed., (Oxford University Press)
William James (1842–1910)
Graham Bird, William James (Routledge Publishers)
Ruth Anna Putnam, The Cambridge Companion to William James (Cambridge University Press)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Nietzsche on Morality and Affirmation, edited by Daniel Came (Oxford University Press)
Simon May, Nietzsche’s Ethics and his War on “Morality” (Oxford University Press)
Keith Ansell Pearson, A Companion to Nietzsche (Blackwell Publishers)
Contemporary Philosophy
Gottlob Frege (1848–1923)
G. Currie, Frege: An Introduction to His Philosophy (Harvester Press)
Leila Haaparanta and Jaako Hintikka, eds., Frege Synthesized (D. Reidel Publisher)
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938)
Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, edited by Hubert Dreyfus (MIT Press)
Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology (Stanford University Press)
George Santayana (1863–1952)
Kenneth M. Price and Robert C. Leitz, Critical Essays on George Santayana (G. K. Hall and Co., Publishers)
The Philosophy of George Santayana, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp (Northwestern University Press)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1973)
G. E. M. Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, London: Hutchinson University Library)
Marie McGinn, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations (Routledge Publishers)
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)
The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, edited by Charles Guignon (Cambridge University Press)
Stephen Mulhall, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and ‘Being and Time’, 2d edition (Routledge Publishers)
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002)
Donatella Di Cesare, Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait (Indiana University Press)
The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, edited by Robert J. Dostal (Cambridge University Press)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)
Joseph Catalano, A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (University of Chicago Press)
Cambridge Companion to Sartre, edited by Christina Howells (Cambridge Unviersity Press)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–2000)
Penelope Deutscher, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance (Cambridge University Press)
Sonia Kruks, Situation and Human Existence: Freedom, Subjectivity and Society (Routledge Publishers)
W.V.O. Quine (1908–2000)
The Cambridge Companion to Quine, edited by Roger F. Gibson (Cambridge University Press)
A Companion to W. V. O. Quine, edited by Gilbert Harman and Ernie Lepore (Blackwell Publishers)
Donald Davidson (1917–2003)
The Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court Press)
Interpreting Davidson, edited by Petr Kotatko, Peter Pagin, and Gabriel Segal (Stanford University Press)
P.F. Strawson (1919–2006)
The Philosophy of P. F. Strawson, edited by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court Press)
Clifford Brown, Peter Strawson (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
John Rawls (1921–2002)
Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 2d ed. (Cambridge University Press)
Reading Rawls: Critical Studies on Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, edited by Norman Daniels (Basic books)
The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, edited by Samuel Freeman (Cambridge University
Press)
Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
A Companion to Foucault, edited by Christopher Falzon, Timothy O’Leary, and Jana Sawicki (Blackwell Publishers)
The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting (Cambridge University Press)
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004)
Michael Naas, Derrida from now on (Fordham University Press)
Deconstruction and Philosophy, edited by John Sallis (University of Chicago Press)
Derrida: A Critical Reader, edited by David Wood (Blackwell Publishers)
Richard Rorty (1931–2007)
Rorty and His Critics, edited by Robert Brandom (Blackwell Pubishers)
Reading Rorty, edited by Alan R. Malachowsky
Robert Nozick (1938–2002)
Ralph M. Bader and John Meadowcroft, Cambridge Companion to Anarchy (Cambridge University Press)
Derek Parfit (1942–2017)
Journal article searches will yield a treasure trove of papers on Parfit’s work.
Daniel Dennett (b. 1942)
Robert P. Kraynak, “Commentary on Dennett”
(https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/human_dignity/kraynak_on_denne
tt.html)
Journal article searches will yield a treasure trove of papers on Dennett’s work. Dennett works on and around cognitive science issues.
Cornel West (b. 1953)
Clarence Sholé Johnson, Cornel West & Philosophy (Routledge Publishers)
