Works

#1047 · 1871 (John Murray, London); revised 1874

Domestic variation and the now-discarded theory of pangenesis — Darwin's major treatment of inheritance, ten years after Origin

The Descent of Man (Mature)

#1048 · 1872 (John Murray, London)

Humans as the product of evolutionary descent — and the theory of sexual selection as a major mechanism of evolutionary change

Nineteenth-century evolutionary biology / psychology 1

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (Late)

#892 · 1867 (vol. I); 1885 (vol. II posthumous); 1894 (vol. III posthumous, edited by Engels)

Comparative emotional expression — Darwin's foundational study of facial expression across humans and animals, with photographs of emotional states

Nineteenth-century historical materialism 1

Capital (Late)

Karl Marx

Marx's 1867-94 magnum opus on the critique of political economy — the three-volume Capital project

Nineteenth-century liberal Protestant theology / Romantic theology 1

#144 · 1799 (anonymous first ed.); 1806, 1821, 1831 (revised eds with explanations)

On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (Early)

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Religion is neither metaphysics nor morality but the feeling and intuition of the infinite — a defence to Romantic intellectuals who had outgrown orthodox doctrine

Nineteenth-century natural history / scientific autobiography 1

#1049 · 1839 (first edition); 1845 (substantially revised second edition)

Journal of Researches (Early)

#1050 · 1881 (John Murray, London) — Darwin's last book, published months before his April 1882 death

Darwin's account of his 1831-36 Beagle voyage — the formative experience of his evolutionary thinking, popularly known as "The Voyage of the Beagle"

Nineteenth-century natural history / soil biology 1

The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (Last)

#874 · 1860-62 (published in The Russian Messenger 1862)

Earthworms as geological agents — Darwin's last book, the founding text of soil biology and ecological-functional ecology

Nineteenth-century Russian realist novel 3

Fathers and Sons (Mid)

Ivan Turgenev

Turgenev's 1862 Russian novel — the generational conflict and the figure of Bazarov the nihilist

#760 · 1865-69

War and Peace (Mid)

Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy's 1869 epic of Russian aristocratic life during the Napoleonic Wars — and the philosophy of history

#761 · 1873-77 (serialized); 1878 (book)

Anna Karenina (Mid)

Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy's 1878 novel — "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

Nineteenth-century Swiss-German cultural history 1

#781 · 1860

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Mid)

Jacob Burckhardt

Burckhardt's 1860 founding work of cultural history — the Italian Renaissance and the modern individual

North African Latin patristics / proto-orthodox Christology / anti-Gnostic polemic 1

#1552 · c. 206

On the Flesh of Christ (Mid-to-late (Montanist period))

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

Tertullian's c. 206 'De Carne Christi' — anti-Docetic, anti-Gnostic affirmation of Christ's real flesh; 'credo quia absurdum'

North African Latin patristics / proto-orthodox heresiology 1

#1551 · c. 203

On the Prescription of Heretics (Pre-Montanist)

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

Tertullian's c. 203 'De Praescriptione' — apostolic-rule polemic against heresy, refusing to debate Scripture with heretics

North African Latin patristics / proto-orthodox-Christian psychology 1

#1683 · c. 208-212

On the Soul (Mid-to-late (Montanist period))

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

Tertullian's c. 208-12 'De Anima' — first Latin Christian treatise on the soul, against the Gnostic Hermogenes

North Indian bhakti / Sufi mysticism / Sant tradition 1

#1831 · c. 15th century (oral composition across Kabir's lifetime; collected and written down by disciples; the Bijak as a text dates from the 17th century)

Bijak (Lifelong (the poems represent Kabir's entire career; the collection is posthumous))

Kabir

Neither Hindu nor Muslim — the fish in the water is thirsty: the divine is found within, and the seekers who look elsewhere are looking in the wrong direction

Northern Renaissance Christian humanism 1

#544 · 1516

Utopia (De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia) (Mid)

St. Thomas More

More's 1516 Utopia — foundational text of utopian political philosophy

Northern Renaissance humanism / Catholic moderate reform 1

#937 · 1524 (De Libero Arbitrio ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ sive Collatio, Froben, Basel)

De Libero Arbitrio (Late (the treatise that publicly broke the Erasmus-Luther alliance, written after seven years of pressure for Erasmus to declare his position))

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

The Bible itself does not univocally settle the question of free will — therefore we should hold the moderate position the Fathers and the Church have always held

Northern Renaissance humanism / Latin Christian satire 1

#936 · 1518 (first edition Familiarium Colloquiorum Formulae); enlarged 1519, 1522, 1524, 1526, 1529, 1533

Colloquia (Mature (the work that grew through Erasmus's most productive decades and was repeatedly enlarged))

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

Latin conversation exercises that became a vehicle for satirical-philosophical Christianity — and a perennial Protestant-Catholic battlefield

Northern Renaissance philology / Christian humanism 1

#938 · 1516 (Novum Instrumentum omne, Froben, Basel — first edition); revised 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535

Greek New Testament (Novum Instrumentum) (Mature (the work that established Erasmus's international reputation and reshaped biblical scholarship))

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

Return to the sources — the Greek New Testament made available, with new Latin translation, against the inherited Vulgate

Nyaya-Vaisheshika school of Hindu philosophy 1

#1782 · c. 10th century CE

Nyayakusumanjali

Udayana

Logical proof of God's existence through five arguments — the world as effect, atomic combination, cosmic order, knowledge, and scriptural authority all require Ishvara

Object-oriented ontology / speculative realism 1

#412 · 2002

Tool-Being (Early (Harman's breakthrough work, derived from his 1999 DePaul PhD))

Graham Harman

Objects withdraw — the founding manifesto of object-oriented ontology, against the anti-realism of the linguistic turn

Object-Oriented Ontology / speculative realism 1

#1603 · 2018

Object-Oriented Ontology (Late-middle)

Graham Harman

Harman's 2018 Pelican 'Object-Oriented Ontology' — accessible introduction to OOO for general readers

Object-Oriented Ontology / speculative realism / post-Heideggerian phenomenology 1

#1602 · 2005

Guerrilla Metaphysics (Early)

Graham Harman

Harman's 2005 'Guerrilla Metaphysics' — extending Heideggerian tool-analysis from human-world relations to objects in general

Oxford natural philosophy / Augustinian light-metaphysics 1

#1771 · c. 1225–1228

On Light (De Luce)

Robert Grosseteste

Light is the first corporeal form — the cosmos generated by the infinite self-multiplication of an original point

Patristic Latin theology / North African Catholic Christianity 1

#942 · 412-30 (the long anti-Pelagian controversy); peak works 426-29

Anti-Pelagian writings (Late (Augustine's last great theological controversy, occupying the final two decades of his life))

Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus)

Grace alone — without prevenient grace the human will, after the Fall, can do nothing salvific

Peripatetic ethics / literary character-writing 1

#1724 · c. 319 BCE

Characters

Theophrastus

The flatterer, the boor, the cheapskate: Aristotelian virtue theory applied to the observation of everyday life

Persian classical poetry / Islamic philosophy / Iqbal's philosophy of self 2

#1214 · 1915

Asrar-i Khudi (Secrets of the Self) (Mid)

Muhammad Iqbal

Iqbal's 1915 Persian masnavi — philosophy of the dynamic-active self against passive-quietist Sufi tradition

#1216 · 1932

Javid Nama (Book of Eternity) (Late)

Muhammad Iqbal

Iqbal's 1932 Persian masnavi — heavenly-journey poem in the tradition of Dante and Rumi

Persian epic and Zoroastrian mythological tradition 1

#1857 · c. 977–1010 CE

Shahnameh (Book of Kings)

Ferdowsi

I revived the Persians with this Persian language — fifty thousand couplets against the erasure of a civilisation

Persian Sufism / philosophical mysticism 1

#89 · c. 1258–1273 (Konya, dictated in Persian over fifteen years)

Mathnawi (Late)

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

The reed cut from the reed-bed cries out — and the longing for return is itself the way back

Pharisaic / early rabbinic Judaism 1

#1713 · c. 1st century BCE–1st century CE (oral); codified in Mishnah c. 200 CE and Talmud c. 500 CE

Sayings and Legal Rulings

Hillel the Elder

The Golden Rule, the seven hermeneutical rules, and the primacy of study — the foundations of rabbinic Judaism in a handful of sayings

Phenomenological sociology of knowledge 1

#691 · 1966

The Social Construction of Reality (Mid)

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann

Berger & Luckmann's 1966 foundational text — knowledge as socially constructed through everyday interaction

Phenomenological-hermeneutical Platonism / Heideggerian Marburg-school philosophy 1

#1497 · 1931

Plato's Dialectical Ethics (Early)

#1498 · 1976 (essays 1957-1975)

Gadamer's 1931 Habilitation — Plato's Philebus read through Heideggerian phenomenology

Philosophical hermeneutics 1

Philosophical Hermeneutics (Late-middle)

Gadamer's 1976 English-language essays — the hermeneutical programme applied to language, art, and practice

Philosophical hermeneutics / Platonic-Aristotelian classical studies 1

#1499 · 1978

The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy (Late)

Gadamer's 1978 study — the Idea of the Good across Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Philosophical hermeneutics / practical philosophy / philosophy of science and technology 1

#1500 · 1981

Reason in the Age of Science (Late)

#1488 · 1963 (revised 1969)

Gadamer's 1981 essays — practical philosophy and hermeneutical reflection in the technological age

Philosophical logic / Quinean naturalism / foundations of mathematics 1

Set Theory and Its Logic (Mid-career)

Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1963 textbook-treatise on set theory — including his own NF / ML systems alongside ZF

Philosophy of mind / philosophy of artificial intelligence 1

#1555 · 1980

Minds, Brains, and Programs (Mid-career)

John Searle

Searle's 1980 Chinese Room argument — strong AI does not produce understanding

Polish personalism / Catholic moral theology / Lublin School 1

#225 · 1960 (the first major theological-philosophical book of the future John Paul II; based on his pastoral and academic teaching)

Love and Responsibility (Early (his major pre-papal work; drawn from pastoral and academic teaching))

Karol Józef Wojtyła / Pope John Paul II

The personalist norm and the ethics of sexual love — Wojtyła's 1960 treatise developing the philosophical foundation of his later theology of the body

Polish phenomenological personalism / Lublin School 1

#226 · 1969 (the philosophical magnum opus of his pre-papal academic career)

The Acting Person (Mid (his major academic-philosophical work, before his 1978 papal election))

Karol Józef Wojtyła / Pope John Paul II

Person and act — Wojtyła's phenomenological-Thomistic analysis of human action as the constitution and self-revelation of the person

Political realism / Cold War political tradition 1

#1369 · 1982

Leaders (Late)

Richard M. Nixon

Nixon's 1982 character studies of major world leaders

Political realism / Cold War strategy 1

#1368 · 1980

The Real War (Late)

Richard M. Nixon

Nixon's 1980 Cold War strategy book

Post-Kantian ethics / Schopenhauerian metaphysics / philosophy of free will 1

#1543 · 1841

The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics (Late)

Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's 1841 'Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics' — the freedom of the will and the basis of morality

Post-Kantian idealism / Goethean colour-theory / philosophy of perception 1

#1541 · 1816

On Vision and Colors (Early)

Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's 1816 colour-theory treatise — defending Goethe against Newton

Post-Kantian metaphysics / Schopenhauerian Wille-philosophy / philosophy of biology 1

#1542 · 1836 (2nd ed. 1854)

On the Will in Nature (Middle)

Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's 1836 'On the Will in Nature' — empirical-scientific corroborations of the World as Will

Post-positivist history and philosophy of science 1

#667 · 1977

The Essential Tension (Late)

Thomas S. Kuhn

Kuhn's 1977 collection — essential tension between tradition-bound normal science and revolutionary innovation

Post-WWII European modernist poetry 1

#808 · 1959

Sprachgitter (Mid)

Paul Celan

Celan's 1959 collection — Sprachgitter (language-grille) and the post-Shoah condition of German poetry

Postcolonial studies 2

#397 · 1978

Orientalism (Mid)

Edward W. Said

Said's 1978 foundational text of postcolonial studies — Orientalism as discourse

#398 · 1993

Culture and Imperialism (Late)

Edward W. Said

Said's 1993 broader engagement with the cultural dimensions of imperialism

Postcolonial studies / deconstructive Marxism 1

#399 · 1988 (essay in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture; rev. 1999 in Critique of Postcolonial Reason)

Can the Subaltern Speak? (Mid)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Spivak's 1988 foundational essay — "Can the subaltern speak?"

Postcolonial theory / Africana philosophy 1

#1210 · 2000 (French), 2001 (English)

On the Postcolony (Mid)

#1211 · 2013 (French), 2017 (English)

Mbembe's 2000 study of postcolonial African political life — power, sovereignty, and the obscene in the African postcolony

Postcolonial theory / Africana philosophy / Critical race theory 1

Critique of Black Reason (Late)

#1212 · 2003 (essay), 2016 (book — French), 2019 (book — English)

Mbembe's 2013 critique of the racial-philosophical foundations of modernity — Blackness as political-philosophical category

Postcolonial theory / Africana philosophy / Critical theory 2

Necropolitics (Mature)

#1213 · 2020 (French), 2024 (English)

Mbembe's 2003 essay and 2016 expanded book — sovereignty as the right to kill; necropolitics beyond Foucault's biopolitics

Brutalism (Late)

#271 · c. 500 BC (the fragments preserved through later authors' quotations)

Mbembe's 2020 study — brutalism as the late-modern political-philosophical form of capitalist-technological-extractivist governance

Postliberal Christian ethics / Anabaptist 1

#425 · 1981

A Community of Character (Mid)

Stanley Hauerwas

Hauerwas's 1981 essays toward a constructive Christian social ethic — the church as a community of character

Pre-Nicene Christianity / Apostolic tradition 1

#1703 · c. 180 CE

Against Heresies

Irenaeus of Lyon

The most detailed early account of gnostic systems and the first systematic Christian theology of salvation history

Pre-Socratic Eleatic philosophy 1

#507 · c. 475 BCE

On Nature (Peri Physeos) (Early)

Parmenides of Elea

Parmenides's c. 475 BCE foundational philosophical poem — the Way of Truth and Way of Opinion

Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy 2

#2 · c. 500 BC

Fragments

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Reality is process, not substance: the world is fire, the river never the same, the logos the only stable thing

On Nature (Fragments)

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Logos, flux, unity-of-opposites — Heraclitus's gnomic philosophical fragments, the founding statement of process-philosophical thinking

Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy / Ionian natural theology 1

#1836 · c. 540–475 BCE

Fragments (Silloi and On Nature)

Xenophanes of Colophon

If horses had gods they would look like horses — the first systematic critique of anthropomorphic religion

Pre-Socratic natural philosophy / early Greek medicine 1

#1837 · c. 5th century BCE

On Nature (fragments)

Alcmaeon of Croton

The brain is the seat of thought and health is the balance of opposing powers — empirical medicine meets Pythagorean cosmology

Pre-Socratic natural philosophy / Milesian school 3

#1687 · c. 6th century BCE

On Nature (fragments)

Anaximander of Miletus

The apeiron as origin of all things — the first Greek prose treatise on nature, with its single surviving fragment on cosmic justice

#1686 · c. 6th century BCE (original); testimonia preserved in sources from the 4th c. BCE onward

Fragments and Testimonia

Thales of Miletus

The earliest surviving reports of Western philosophy: water as arche, the earth on water, and "all things are full of gods"

#1813 · c. mid-6th century BCE

On Nature (fragments)

Anaximenes of Miletus

Air as arche — rarefaction yields fire, condensation yields wind, cloud, water, earth, stone: the first quantitative mechanism of change

Pre-Socratic philosophy 2

#508 · c. 450 BCE

On Nature and Purifications (Fragments) (Early)

Empedocles of Acragas

Empedocles's c. 450 BCE fragments — four roots (earth, air, fire, water), love and strife, transmigration

#509 · c. 460 BCE

On Nature (Fragments) (Early)

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae

Anaxagoras's c. 460 BCE fragments — Nous (Mind) as cosmic ordering principle

Pre-Socratic philosophy / Eleatic school 1

#1688 · c. 460 BCE

Paradoxes (fragments)

Zeno of Elea

The paradoxes of motion and plurality that have challenged mathematics and physics for 2,500 years

Process philosophy / English-American metaphysics 1

#406 · 1938 (Wellesley & University of Chicago lectures, 1937-38)

Modes of Thought (Late)

Whitehead's 1938 late lectures on the modes of philosophical thinking — the most accessible introduction to his thought

Process philosophy / philosophy of culture 1

#187 · 1933

Adventures of Ideas (Late (Whitehead's last major book))

#216 · 1920 (the Tarner Lectures, Trinity College Cambridge)

The civilising adventure of ideas — humanity, freedom, persuasion replacing coercion, beauty and truth and peace as the highest civilisational goods

Process philosophy / philosophy of nature 1

The Concept of Nature (Early-mid (preceding Science and the Modern World, 1925))

#54 · 1929 (delivered as Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh, 1927–28)

Against the "bifurcation of nature" into primary and secondary qualities — Whitehead's 1920 philosophy of nature as a single integrated event-process

Process philosophy / philosophy of organism 1

Process and Reality (Late)

#215 · 1925 (the Lowell Lectures, Harvard; the proximate prelude to Process and Reality, 1929)

Reality consists of actual occasions of experience — drops of process — concrescent with their relations; God is the principle of concretion

Process philosophy / philosophy of science 1

Science and the Modern World (Mid (the major statement of philosophical-cultural critique, preceding the technical metaphysics of Process and Reality))