Works

#249 · 1817 (1st edition); 1827 (2nd edition); 1830 (3rd and definitive edition, in three volumes)

The dialectical self-movement of pure concepts — Being passing into Nothing, Essence unfolding into Concept. Hegel's most ambitious and most difficult book

Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (Mature (the most comprehensive single-text statement of the system))

Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus von Kues)

Hegel's entire philosophical system in one organised text — Logic, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Spirit

German analytic philosophy / logicism 1

#735 · 1892

On Sense and Reference (Mid)

Gottlob Frege

Frege's 1892 classic essay distinguishing Sinn (sense) from Bedeutung (reference)

German Christian mystical Neoplatonism 1

#492 · 1440

De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (Late)

Cusa's 1440 foundational Renaissance work on the coincidence of opposites and learned ignorance

German classical / Weimar classicism 1

#762 · 1795-96

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Mid)

#763 · 1795 (in Die Horen)

Goethe's 1795-96 founding Bildungsroman — the formation of the modern self through experience

German classical / Weimar classicism / Kantian aesthetics 1

On the Aesthetic Education of Man (Mid)

Friedrich Schiller

Schiller's 1795 letters on aesthetic education as the path from sensuous to political freedom

German classical philology / nineteenth-century Platonic scholarship 1

#1031 · 1804-28 (multi-volume translation with extensive prefaces and notes)

Translation of Plato's dialogues (Mature)

Friedrich Schleiermacher

The founding modern German translation of Plato — Schleiermacher's philological achievement that reshaped nineteenth-century Plato studies

German classical-Romantic literature 1

#1068 · 1816 (parts I-II) and 1829 (part III); recounting 1786-88 journey

Italian Journey (Late-mature retrospective)

#468 · 1932 (revised from 1927 essay; English 1976)

Goethe's account of his 1786-88 Italian journey — the formative classical experience that reshaped his aesthetic-philosophical vision

German conservative political theory 1

The Concept of the Political (Mid)

Carl Schmitt

Schmitt's 1932 controversial definition of the political as the friend-enemy distinction

German contemporary cultural philosophy 1

#595 · 1983

Critique of Cynical Reason (Kritik der zynischen Vernunft) (Mid)

Peter Sloterdijk

Sloterdijk's 1983 foundational text on cynicism as the dominant mode of modern consciousness

German critical theory / philosophy of history 1

#197 · 1925 (submitted as habilitation thesis, rejected by the University of Frankfurt); 1928 (published commercially)

The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Early (the most ambitious early work, before the Arcades Project))

Walter Benjamin

The German Baroque Trauerspiel and the philosophical theory of allegory — Benjamin's rejected habilitation thesis, now recognised as a masterpiece of critical theory

German existentialism 2

#447 · 1932 (3 vols; English 1969-71)

Philosophy (Mid)

Karl Jaspers

Jaspers's three-volume systematic existentialist philosophy (1932) — world-orientation, Existenz, metaphysics

#448 · 1938 (German; English 1971)

Philosophy of Existence (Late)

Karl Jaspers

Jaspers's 1938 short lectures on existentialism — accessible introduction to his Philosophy (1932)

German idealism 1

#503 · 1794-95

Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre) (Early)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Fichte's 1794-95 foundational German idealist work — the self-positing I (Ich)

German Idealism 1

#100 · 1800

System of Transcendental Idealism (Early)

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

The history of self-consciousness — from nature's production of mind to mind's recognition of itself in art

German idealism / Hegelianism 1

#21 · 1806–07 (finished as Napoleon entered Jena)

Phenomenology of Spirit (Early)

#247 · 1822-31 (delivered as lectures); 1837 (compiled and published posthumously by Eduard Gans)

Consciousness ascends through self-correcting stages of error toward Spirit's self-recognition in history

German idealism / philosophy of history 1

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (Late (Berlin lectures of the 1820s, his mature mature))

#266 · 1821-31 (delivered as lectures); 1832 (compiled and published posthumously)

World history as the progress of the consciousness of freedom — Hegel's posthumous lectures organising the historical-cultural process under the dialectical-idealist framework

German idealism / philosophy of religion 1

Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Late (Berlin lectures))

#181 · 1820 (published 1821 with the famous controversial Preface)

World religions arranged in the dialectical-developmental framework — Hegel's posthumous lectures on the philosophy of religion, culminating in "the consummate religion" of Christianity

German idealism / political philosophy 1

Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Late (the mature systematic philosophy))

#248 · 1820s (delivered as lectures); 1835-38 (compiled and published posthumously by H. G. Hotho)

The dialectical unfolding of freedom in abstract right, morality, and ethical life — culminating in the rational state. "The rational is actual and the actual is rational"

German idealist philosophy of art 1

Lectures on Aesthetics (Late (Berlin lectures))

#551 · 1821-22 (rev. 1830-31)

Art as the sensible manifestation of the Idea — Hegel's posthumous three-volume systematic philosophy of art

German liberal Protestant theology 1

The Christian Faith (Der christliche Glaube) (Late)

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Schleiermacher's 1821-22 foundational text of modern liberal Protestant theology

German Lutheran Confessing Church ethics 1

#505 · 1940-43 (unfinished; first German edition 1949)

Ethics (Ethik) (Late)

#427 · 1988-93 (3 vols; English 1991-98)

Bonhoeffer's unfinished 1940-43 ethical magnum opus — Christian ethics for "responsible action"

German Lutheran historical-revelation theology 1

Systematic Theology (Late)

Wolfhart Pannenberg

Pannenberg's three-volume systematic theology (1988-93) — revelation as universal history

German Lutheran Reformation 3

#299 · 1520

On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (Early (1520, foundational year))

Martin Luther

Reform of the medieval sacramental system — Luther's 1520 treatise reducing the seven sacraments to the two with scriptural warrant (Baptism and the Lord's Supper)

#298 · 1520 (published in both Latin and German; the third of the three great 1520 Reformation treatises)

The Freedom of a Christian (Early (1520 is Luther's most productive year of foundational treatises))

Martin Luther

"A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none; a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all" — Luther's 1520 short treatise on the paradoxical structure of Christian freedom

#297 · October 31, 1517 (posted to the door of All Saints' Church, Wittenberg)

Ninety-Five Theses (Early (the founding act of the Reformation))

Martin Luther

The 95 propositions against indulgences — Luther's October 31, 1517 disputation theses, the founding document of the Reformation

German Lutheran-evangelical / Confessing Church 1

#191 · 1939 (drawn from the Finkenwalde seminary, 1935-37)

Life Together (Mid (between the Cost of Discipleship and the prison theology))

#222 · 1927 (Bonhoeffer's doctoral dissertation, completed at age 21)

Christian community as gift, not ideal — Bonhoeffer's short and influential guide to common life, drawn from the underground Confessing seminary at Finkenwalde

German Lutheran-evangelical theology / theological sociology 1

Sanctorum Communio (Earliest (Bonhoeffer's dissertation at age 21))

The communion of the saints as a theological-sociological reality — Bonhoeffer's 21-year-old dissertation that Karl Barth called "a theological miracle"

German Lutheran-Reformed theology 1

#337 · 1932-33

Creation and Fall (Early-mid)

#672 · 1912-24 (composed); 1924 (published)

Theological exegesis of Genesis 1-3 — Bonhoeffer's 1932-33 Berlin lectures

German modernist literature 1

The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) (Late)

Thomas Mann

Mann's 1924 foundational Bildungsroman — Hans Castorp's seven years at the Berghof sanatorium

German modernist poetry 1

#764 · 1912-22 (composed at Duino and Muzot); 1923 (published)

Duino Elegies (Late)

Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke's 1922 cycle of ten elegies on the angel, the human, and the world

German phenomenology 2

#170 · 1900 (vol. 1, Prolegomena to Pure Logic); 1901 (vol. 2, six investigations); revised editions 1913, 1921

Logical Investigations (Early (the breakthrough work that founds phenomenology))

Edmund Husserl

The Prolegomena destroys psychologism in logic; the six Investigations begin to lay out the descriptive phenomenology of meaning, perception, and intentional consciousness

#445 · 1913-16 (Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research)

Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values (Mid)

Max Scheler

Scheler's 1913-16 foundational phenomenological ethics of material (non-formal) values

German phenomenology / Carmelite Thomism 1

#444 · 1936 (completed; published posthumously 1950)

Finite and Eternal Being (Late)

Edith Stein (St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross)

Stein's 1936 phenomenological-Thomist ontology — completed before her Auschwitz death

German phenomenology / transcendental phenomenology 1

#171 · 1913

Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology (Mid (the transcendental turn))

Edmund Husserl

The phenomenological reduction (epoché) and the constitution of the world by transcendental consciousness — Husserl's explicit turn to transcendental idealism

German philosophical hermeneutics 1

#394 · 1960 (German; English 1975, 2nd rev. ed. 1989)

Truth and Method (Mid)

Hans-Georg Gadamer

Gadamer's 1960 magnum opus — the major statement of philosophical hermeneutics

German philosophy / Continental philosophy 2

#1315 · 1881

Daybreak (Mid)

#1317 · 1888 (completed); 1908 (published, posthumous)

Nietzsche's 1881 aphoristic work on morality

Ecce Homo (Late)

#1314 · 1878 (1st part); 1879 (Assorted Opinions and Maxims); 1880 (The Wanderer and His Shadow)

Nietzsche's 1888 final autobiographical work

German philosophy / Continental philosophy / Free-spirit philosophy 1

Human, All Too Human (Mid)

Nietzsche's 1878 aphoristic work — free-spirit middle period begins

German philosophy / Cultural criticism 1

#1316 · 1873-76

Untimely Meditations (Early)

#317 · 1813 (doctoral dissertation); 1847 (revised 2nd edition)

Nietzsche's 1873-76 four cultural-philosophical essays

German post-Holocaust literature 1

#713 · 2001

Austerlitz (Late)

W.G. Sebald

Sebald's 2001 foundational post-Holocaust memory novel — Jacques Austerlitz's recovery of erased childhood

German post-Kantian philosophical pessimism 1

#318 · 1851

Parerga and Paralipomena (Late)

Arthur Schopenhauer

The book that finally made Schopenhauer famous late in life — two volumes of essays on philosophical, religious, practical themes

German post-Kantian philosophy 1

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Early)

Arthur Schopenhauer

The four kinds of sufficient reason — Schopenhauer's 1813 doctoral dissertation, methodological foundation for World as Will

German post-Kantian philosophy / pessimist metaphysics 1

#55 · 1818 (first ed.); 1844 (expanded with second volume); 1859 (final third edition)

The World as Will and Representation

Arthur Schopenhauer

The world we perceive is representation; the inner thing-in-itself is blind, ceaseless Will; release comes through aesthetic contemplation and ascetic denial

German Protestant existentialist theology 1

#423 · 1958 (Shaffer Lectures at Yale)

Jesus Christ and Mythology (Late)

Rudolf Bultmann

Bultmann's 1958 statement of the demythologization program — translating the New Testament kerygma into existentialist categories

German Protestant historical-critical-existentialist 1

#424 · 1948-53 (Vol I 1948, Vol II 1953; English 1951-55)

Theology of the New Testament (Late)

Rudolf Bultmann

Bultmann's 1948-53 two-volume systematic theology of the New Testament

German Reformed eschatological theology 1

#426 · 1964 (German; English 1967)

Theology of Hope (Early)

Jürgen Moltmann

Moltmann's 1964 inaugural eschatological theology — God's future as fundamental category

German Romantic-classical literature 1

#311 · 1772-1808 (composed across decades; Part I published 1808; Part II completed 1832, posthumous)

Faust, Part I (Mid (composed across Goethe's career; Part I the major mid-career work))

#1065 · 1772-1806 (composed over 35 years; published 1808)

Faust's pact with Mephistopheles and the seduction of Gretchen — Goethe's 1808 dramatic poem, the central work of German literature

German Romanticism / classical-modern European drama 1

Faust I (Mature)

#1066 · 1825-31 (completed shortly before Goethe's 1832 death; published posthumously 1832)

Faust's pact with Mephistopheles — the founding text of the Faust mythos in modern European literature

German Romanticism / late classical modernism 1

Faust II (Last)

#1029 · 1800 (Monologen, Berlin)

Goethe's 1832 posthumous Faust II — Faust's journey through history, the salvation of his striving soul

German Romanticism / liberal Protestant theology 1

Soliloquies (Early)

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Five meditations on selfhood, freedom, world, prospect, and youth — Schleiermacher's founding statement of ethical individuality

German Romanticism / phenomenology of perception 1

#1067 · 1810 (J.G. Cotta, Tübingen)

Theory of Colors (Mature)

#1630 · 1823-1832 conversations; 1836-1848 publication by Eckermann

Goethe's phenomenological treatise on color — long out of favour against Newton, rehabilitated by twentieth-century phenomenology

German Romanticism / philosophical conversation 1

Conversations with Eckermann (Late)

#556 · 1832 (composed 1825-31; published posthumously)

Eckermann's record of his 1823-32 conversations with the late Goethe — the principal source for Goethe's late thought

German Romanticism / Wagnerian aesthetics 1

#1456 · 1849

The Artwork of the Future (Early)

Richard Wagner

Wagner's 1849 manifesto declaring the Gesamtkunstwerk — drama, music, poetry, dance reunified under the people's revolution

German Romanticism / Wagnerian music-drama theory 1

#1457 · 1851

Opera and Drama (Early-to-Middle)

Richard Wagner

Wagner's 1851 theoretical magnum opus — music as means, drama as end

German Romanticism / Weimar Classicism 1

Faust, Part Two (Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil) (Late)

Goethe's 1832 Faust Part Two — culminating philosophical drama, completed in his final year

German Romanticism / Weltliteratur / orientalist-philosophical poetry 1

#1629 · 1814-1819

West-östlicher Divan (Late)

#731 · 1900 (2nd ed. 1907)

Goethe's 1819 'West-östlicher Divan' — German-Romantic poetic engagement with the Persian Hafez and Sufi tradition

German sociology / Lebensphilosophie 1

The Philosophy of Money (Mid)

Georg Simmel

Simmel's 1900 phenomenology of money as the form and symbol of modern social life

German sociology / Verstehende Soziologie 2

#729 · 1904-05 (essays); 1920 (revised)

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Mid)

Max Weber

Weber's 1905 classic linking the Calvinist ethic to the spirit of modern capitalism

#730 · 1909-20 (drafts); 1922 (posthumous)

Economy and Society (Late)

Max Weber

Weber's monumental 1922 posthumous systematic sociology of types of social action and authority

German Sturm und Drang / pre-Romantic literature 1

#312 · 1774

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Early (the 25-year-old Goethe's breakthrough work))

#360 · 1951-63 (Vol I 1951, Vol II 1957, Vol III 1963)

Werther's romantic despair and suicide — Goethe's 1774 epistolary novel, the breakthrough work of Sturm und Drang and the inaugurating text of German Romanticism

German-American Protestant philosophical theology 1

Systematic Theology (Mid)

Paul Tillich

Tillich's three-volume Systematic Theology — the major mid-20th-century Protestant philosophical-theological synthesis

German-Jewish philosophy / dialogical philosophy 1

#733 · 1918-19 (composed in trenches); 1921 (published)

The Star of Redemption (Mid)

Franz Rosenzweig

Rosenzweig's 1921 systematic Jewish theology of creation, revelation, redemption — the new thinking

German-Jewish-American political philosophy 1

#700 · 1977-78 (Vol I Thinking; Vol II Willing; Vol III Judging unfinished at her death)

The Life of the Mind (Late)

Hannah Arendt

Arendt's 1977-78 posthumous unfinished masterwork — the three faculties of the active mind: Thinking, Willing, Judging

German-language modernism / Prague Jewish literature 1

#668 · 1914-15 (composed); 1925 (posthumous)

The Trial (Der Process) (Late)

Franz Kafka

Kafka's 1925 foundational modernist text — Josef K.'s mysterious trial in an unknowable bureaucratic system

German-language modernist literature 1

#765 · 1922 (composed); 1926 (posthumous)

The Castle (Late)

Franz Kafka

Kafka's 1926 posthumous novel of the land surveyor K. and the inaccessible Castle bureaucracy

Ghanaian / African analytic philosophy 1

#581 · 1996

Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (Late)

Kwasi Wiredu

Wiredu's 1996 foundational text — African philosophy and the cross-cultural universals/particulars distinction

Greek archaic Aeolian lyric 1

#1863 · c. 620–580 BCE

Fragments

Alcaeus of Mytilene

The ship of state is driven by the storm — wine, war, and exile in the world's first political lyric

Greek archaic lyric and iambic poetry 1

#1861 · c. 680–645 BCE

Fragments

Archilochus

Some Thracian delights in my shield — the first-person singular erupts into Western literature

Greek atomism / Pre-Socratic ethics 1

#1189 · c. 420 BCE

On Cheerfulness (Mature)

Democritus's c. 420 BCE ethical treatise — euthumia (cheerfulness) as the proper end of human life

Greek atomism / Pre-Socratic natural philosophy 3

#1188 · c. 420 BCE

On the Mind (Mature)

Democritus's c. 420 BCE treatise — atomic theory of perception and the soul

#1187 · c. 430 BCE

The Great World-System (Megas Diakosmos) (Mature)

Democritus's c. 430 BCE lost cosmological masterwork — foundation of Greek atomism

#1190 · c. 430 BCE

On Forms (Peri Ideōn) (Mature)