All Ancient Medieval Early modern Modern Contemporary

Filter

filter syntax

Plain text matches title, author, tagline, summary, tradition.

school:slug — has this school in influences (e.g. school:lutheranism)

attr:key=value — has this attribute value (e.g. attr:methodology=Empirical)

tradition:name — match by tradition string

form:name — match by literary/textual form

Combine freely with AND. Quote spaces: tradition:"German idealism".

American pragmatism / radical empiricism 2

#1040 · 1904-08 essays; collected posthumously 1912

Essays in Radical Empiricism (Late posthumous)

William James

Radical empiricism — experience as foundation of metaphysics, with relations as much given as things related

#1039 · 1909 (Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College, Oxford, May 1908)

A Pluralistic Universe (Late)

William James

The universe is plural, not monistic — James's mature constructive metaphysics against absolute idealism

American pragmatism / scientific psychology / philosophy of mind 1

#201 · 1890 (after twelve years of writing; James later said he should not have spent so much time on it)

The Principles of Psychology (Mid (the major early work; foundational for both psychology and pragmatist philosophy))

William James

The stream of thought, the will, habit, emotion, attention — James's 1890 founding synthesis of scientific psychology with philosophical anthropology

American pragmatism / symbolic interactionism 1

#621 · 1934 (posthumous; lectures 1928-30)

Mind, Self, and Society (Late)

George Herbert Mead

Mead's 1934 foundational text of symbolic interactionism — mind, self, and society arising from social action

American presidential memoir / post-9/11 political reflection 1

#1684 · 2010

Decision Points (Late (post-presidency))

George W. Bush

G. W. Bush's 2010 'Decision Points' — presidential memoir structured around 14 major decisions

American process theology 2

#502 · 1975

Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Mid)

John B. Cobb Jr.

Cobb's 1975 foundational process-theological Christology in dialogue with non-Christian religions

#501 · 1984

Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Late)

Charles Hartshorne

Hartshorne's 1984 foundational process-theological critique of classical theism's "six mistakes"

American Progressive social-ethical tradition 1

#624 · 1910

Twenty Years at Hull-House (Late)

Jane Addams

Jane Addams's 1910 foundational text — the Settlement Movement and the social-ethical tradition

American radical feminism 1

#498 · 1989

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Mid)

Catharine A. MacKinnon

MacKinnon's 1989 foundational radical-feminist legal-political theory — sex as a political category

American Reformed Calvinist philosophical theology 1

#612 · 1754

Freedom of the Will (Late)

Jonathan Edwards

Edwards's 1754 foundational text of American Reformed philosophical theology — compatibilist freedom

American Reformed-Calvinist evangelical theology 1

#174 · 1746

A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Mid (Northampton pastorate; the major work of evangelical reflection))

Jonathan Edwards

True religion consists chiefly in holy affections — Edwards's twelve signs distinguishing genuine spiritual experience from its counterfeits

American Revolutionary thought 1

#618 · 1776 (January)

Common Sense (Mid)

Thomas Paine

Paine's 1776 foundational pamphlet of the American Revolution — case for independence

American second-wave liberal feminism 1

#497 · 1963

The Feminine Mystique (Late)

Betty Friedan

Friedan's 1963 catalyst of second-wave American feminism — "the problem that has no name"

American slave narrative / African American autobiographical tradition 1

#295 · 1845

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Early (the first of Douglass's three autobiographies))

Frederick Douglass

The founding text of the African American autobiographical tradition — Douglass's 1845 first-person testimony of his enslavement and escape

American Social Gospel movement 1

#625 · 1917

A Theology for the Social Gospel (Late)

Walter Rauschenbusch

Rauschenbusch's 1917 foundational Social Gospel theology — Christianizing the social order

American social-psychological criticism 1

#693 · 1979

The Culture of Narcissism (Late)

Christopher Lasch

Lasch's 1979 foundational text — late capitalism produces narcissistic personality structure

American Southern evangelical political tradition 1

#309 · 1975 (campaign biography for the 1976 presidential campaign)

Why Not the Best? (Mid (pre-presidential))

James Earl Carter Jr.

The campaign autobiography that introduced Jimmy Carter to America — Georgia governor, Naval officer, peanut farmer, born-again Southern Baptist

American Sōtō Zen Buddhism 1

#631 · 1970

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Late)

Shunryu Suzuki (Suzuki-rōshi)

Shunryu Suzuki's 1970 foundational text — "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities..."

American Tibetan Buddhism (Kagyu/Shambhala) 1

#680 · 1997

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Late)

Pema Chödrön (Deirdre Blomfield-Brown)

Pema Chödrön's 1997 foundational contemporary American Tibetan Buddhist teaching on suffering and openness

American transcendentalism 6

#1024 · 1837 (delivered August 31, 1837, at the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard; first published as An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1837)

The American Scholar (Mature)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

America's intellectual Declaration of Independence — the scholar's vocation, the proper relation between books and life

#1026 · 1841 (James Munroe & Co., Boston)

Essays: First Series (Mature)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance, Compensation, The Over-Soul — the most concentrated statement of Emerson's transcendentalist programme

#184 · 1841 (twelve essays collected from earlier lectures and journal entries)

Essays: First Series (Mid (Emerson at the peak of his powers))

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string" — Emerson's essays on the self, the Over-Soul, friendship, love, prudence, heroism, and the moral order

#1027 · 1844 (James Munroe & Co., Boston)

Essays: Second Series (Mature)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The poet, experience, nature, politics — Emerson's second collection, more sober and philosophically mature than the First Series

#1020 · 1849 (composed during Thoreau's Walden Pond years 1845-47; published 1849 at Thoreau's own expense)

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Early-mature)

Henry David Thoreau

A boat trip up the Concord and Merrimack rivers — and the philosophical-poetic-religious meditations the trip occasions

#1028 · 1850 (Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston; based on lectures delivered 1845-46)

Representative Men (Mature)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Goethe — Emerson's engagement with the great figures of Western thought as representative types of human possibility

American Transcendentalism / democratic poetics 1

#555 · 1855 (1st edn); 1881 (definitive); 1892 (deathbed)

Leaves of Grass (Late)

Walt Whitman

Whitman's 1855-92 foundational American democratic-poetic vision — "I contain multitudes"

American transcendentalism / liberal religion 1

#1025 · 1838 (delivered July 15, 1838, at Harvard Divinity School; published as An Address Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, 1838)

Divinity School Address (Mature)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The miracle is not Christ's but the ongoing miracle of moral-religious sensibility in every soul — Emerson's founding manifesto of transcendentalist religion

American transcendentalism / nature writing 1

#180 · 1854 (drawing on Thoreau's 1845-47 residence at Walden Pond)

Walden (Mid (Thoreau's major prose statement))

Henry David Thoreau

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately" — Thoreau's two-year experiment in simple living and his philosophical-naturalistic reflection on its meaning

American Transcendentalism / nature-writing / philosophical journal 1

#1677 · 1837-1861

Journal (Career-spanning)

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's 1837-1861 'Journal' — 14 manuscript volumes, his career-spanning magnum opus and the matrix from which Walden was distilled

American transcendentalism / political-philosophical individualism 1

#1019 · 1849 (first published as "Resistance to Civil Government" in Aesthetic Papers; reprinted posthumously as "Civil Disobedience" in 1866)

Resistance to Civil Government (Mature)

Henry David Thoreau

"That government is best which governs least" — and when government becomes unjust, refusal to obey is not only a right but a duty

American transcendentalism / radical abolitionism 2

#1023 · 1854 (delivered at the antislavery convention, Framingham, July 4, 1854; published in The Liberator and other papers)

Slavery in Massachusetts (Mature)

Henry David Thoreau

Massachusetts has become complicit in slavery through the Fugitive Slave Act — and the citizens who tolerate this complicity have themselves become slave-catchers

#1022 · 1859 (delivered as a public address in Concord, Boston, and Worcester, October-November 1859; published 1860)

A Plea for Captain John Brown (Mature)

Henry David Thoreau

A defense of John Brown after Harpers Ferry — the most politically incendiary of Thoreau's essays

American transcendentalism / wilderness literature 1

#1021 · 1846-57 (three Maine expedition narratives composed across a decade); compiled posthumously 1864

The Maine Woods (Mature-late)

Henry David Thoreau

Three Maine expeditions — Ktaadn, Chesuncook, the Allegash and East Branch — and the foundational American confrontation with the unmodified wilderness

American Wittgensteinian-Emersonian philosophy 1

#601 · 1979

The Claim of Reason (Mid)

Stanley Cavell

Cavell's 1979 foundational text — Wittgenstein, scepticism, morality, tragedy

American/British Deist thought 1

#619 · 1794 (Part I); 1795 (Part II); 1807 (Part III)

The Age of Reason (Late)

Thomas Paine

Paine's 1794-95 deist critique of Christianity — "I believe in one God, and no more"

Anabaptist pacifist Christian ethics 1

#428 · 1972 (2nd edn 1994)

The Politics of Jesus (Mid)

John Howard Yoder

Yoder's 1972 foundational Anabaptist work — the political-ethical witness of Jesus is normative for the Church

Analytic metaphysics / mereology / philosophy of mathematics 1

#1557 · 1991

Parts of Classes (Late-middle)

David Lewis

Lewis's 1991 mereological reformulation of set theory — classes have proper parts, not membership

Analytic metaphysics / modal metaphysics / possible-worlds semantics 1

#1475 · 2003

Ways a World Might Be (Late-middle)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 2003 essays on modal metaphysics — moderate modal actualism against Lewisian modal realism

Analytic metaphysics / modal realism 1

#413 · 1986

On the Plurality of Worlds (Late (Lewis's mature systematic statement of the modal-realist programme))

David Lewis

Every way the world could have been is a way some concrete world is — modal realism in its strongest form

Analytic metaphysics / modal realism / Humean supervenience 1

#1558 · 1999

Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Late)

David Lewis

Lewis's 1999 collection — Humean supervenience, knowledge by acquaintance, properties as universals

Analytic metaphysics / philosophical logic / philosophy of language 1

#1559 · 1998

Papers in Philosophical Logic (Late)

David Lewis

Lewis's 1998 collection — counterfactuals, modal logic, conditional probability, two-dimensional semantics

Analytic metaphysics / philosophy of language / philosophy of mind 1

#1474 · 1999

Context and Content (Mid-to-late)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 1999 essays on intentionality, context, and the structure of belief and assertion

Analytic metaphysics / philosophy of mind / epistemology of self-knowledge 1

#1476 · 2008

Our Knowledge of the Internal World (Late)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 2008 Locke Lectures — self-knowledge through the same possible-worlds machinery as knowledge of the external world

Analytic metaphysics / philosophy of mind and language / possible-worlds semantics 1

#1473 · 1984

Inquiry (Mid-career)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 1984 monograph — propositions as sets of possible worlds, assertion as adding to common ground

Analytic metaphysics / possible-worlds semantics / philosophy of language 1

#1472 · 1968

A Theory of Conditionals (Early)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 1968 founding paper of the possible-worlds semantics for conditionals — the 'Stalnaker conditional'

Analytic philosophy / American pragmatism / philosophical logic / Quinean naturalism 1

#1487 · 1953 (essays 1939-1952)

From a Logical Point of View (Mid-career)

Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1953 essay collection — home of 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' and 'On What There Is'

Analytic philosophy / British empiricism 1

#104 · 1912

The Problems of Philosophy (Early)

Bertrand Russell

A short introduction to philosophical questions about knowledge, perception, induction, and the value of philosophy itself

Analytic philosophy / Cambridge analytic-philosophy 1

#1258 · 1933 (vol. 1), 1938 (vol. 2)

Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy (Mature)

C. D. Broad

Broad's 1933-38 two-volume systematic examination of McTaggart's philosophy

Analytic philosophy / Cambridge analytic-philosophy / Emergent materialism 1

#1257 · 1923 (lectures), 1925 (book)

The Mind and its Place in Nature (Mid)

C. D. Broad

Broad's 1925 Tarner Lectures — major philosophy-of-mind work; emergent materialism and the seventeen possible theories

Analytic philosophy / Cambridge analytic-philosophy / Ethical theory 1

#1259 · 1930

Five Types of Ethical Theory (Mid)

C. D. Broad

Broad's 1930 systematic survey — Spinoza, Butler, Hume, Kant, Sidgwick

Analytic philosophy / Cambridge analytic-philosophy / Psychical research 1

#1260 · 1959-60 (lectures), 1962 (book)

Lectures on Psychical Research (Late)

C. D. Broad

Broad's 1962 Perrott Lectures — analytic-philosophical engagement with psychical-research claims

Analytic philosophy / Catholic-Aristotelian ethics / philosophy of mind / Wittgenstein scholarship 1

#1567 · 1981 (papers c. 1950-1980)

Collected Philosophical Papers (Late)

G. E. M. Anscombe (Elizabeth Anscombe)

Anscombe's 1981 three-volume Collected Philosophical Papers — From Parmenides to Wittgenstein; Metaphysics; Ethics, Religion and Politics

Analytic philosophy / Empirical semantics / Norwegian philosophy 1

#1345 · 1953

Interpretation and Preciseness (Mid)

Arne Næss

Næss's 1953 work on philosophical method

Analytic philosophy / Existential-risk studies / Effective altruism 1

#1339 · 2008

Global Catastrophic Risks (Mid)

Nick Bostrom

Bostrom and Ćirković's 2008 edited volume on existential risks

Analytic philosophy / late-late Wittgenstein 1

#114 · Written 1949–51 (in Wittgenstein's final eighteen months); published posthumously 1969

On Certainty (Latest)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The foundations of empirical knowledge lie in our forms of life — and our framework certainties cannot themselves be doubted within the system that depends on them

Analytic philosophy / Logical atomism 2

#1311 · 1914

Our Knowledge of the External World (Mid)

Bertrand Russell

Russell's 1914 Lowell Lectures — scientific method in philosophy

#1312 · 1918

Mysticism and Logic (Mid)

Bertrand Russell

Russell's 1918 essay collection

Analytic philosophy / logical atomism 1

#25 · 1918 (drafted in the trenches); 1921 (German pub.); 1922 (Ogden English ed.)

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Early)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The world is the totality of facts, not of things — and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

Analytic philosophy / Logicism / Mathematical logic 1

#1310 · 1903

The Principles of Mathematics (Early)

Bertrand Russell

Russell's 1903 foundational logicist treatise

Analytic philosophy / logicism / philosophy of mathematics 1

#105 · 1884

The Foundations of Arithmetic

Gottlob Frege

Arithmetic is reducible to logic — numbers are not subjective ideas but objective abstract entities accessible to reason

Analytic philosophy / Mathematical-philosophical logic 1

#1179 · 1955 (1st ed.), 1962 (2nd ed.)

Formal Logic (Early)

Arthur Norman Prior

Prior's 1955 textbook — comprehensive presentation of modern formal logic with historical and philosophical context

Analytic philosophy / Natural realism 1

#1087 · 1999

The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World (Late)

Hilary Putnam

Putnam's 1999 Dewey Lectures — "natural realism" undoes the modern dichotomy between mind and world

Analytic philosophy / naturalized epistemology 1

#148 · 1951 (Philosophical Review)

Two Dogmas of Empiricism

Willard Van Orman Quine

Two dogmas of empiricism — the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism — are untenable; all our beliefs face the tribunal of experience as a corporate body

Analytic philosophy / ordinary-language philosophy 1

#30 · c. 1929–49 (drafted across two decades); 1953 (posthumous publication, ed. Anscombe & Rhees)

Philosophical Investigations (Late)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Meaning is use — language is a family of games — philosophy leaves everything as it is, and the picture of the inner that held us captive is dismantled

Analytic philosophy / philosophy of language / metaphysics / philosophy of logic 1

#1562 · 2011 (essays 1962-2008)

Philosophical Troubles (Late)

Saul Kripke

Kripke's 2011 'Philosophical Troubles' — Vol. 1 of Collected Papers, including 'A Puzzle about Belief' and 'Outline of a Theory of Truth'

Analytic philosophy / philosophy of mathematics / mathematical logic 1

#159 · 1910 (vol. 1), 1912 (vol. 2), 1913 (vol. 3); 2nd edition 1925-27

Principia Mathematica (Early (both authors))

Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell

The logicist programme in its most ambitious form — three volumes deriving arithmetic, set theory, and analysis from a small set of logical primitives

Analytic philosophy / Philosophy of mind / Philosophy of language 1

#1182 · 1970-71 (drafted), 1971 (posthumous publication)

Objects of Thought (Late)

Arthur Norman Prior

Prior's 1971 posthumous work — propositions, intentionality, and the philosophy of mind

Analytic philosophy / Philosophy of science 1

#1338 · 2002

Anthropic Bias (Early)

Nick Bostrom

Bostrom's 2002 work on observation selection effects

Analytic philosophy / pragmatism 1

#294 · 1981

Reason, Truth and History (Mid (the major mid-career book, the systematic statement of internal realism))

Hilary Putnam

"Internal realism" — Putnam's 1981 major book, the systematic statement of his middle-period position between metaphysical realism and relativism

Analytic philosophy / Pragmatism 1

#1086 · 1994

Words and Life (Late)

Hilary Putnam

Putnam's 1994 essays marking his pragmatist turn — words, meaning, and the life-world that gives them sense

Analytic philosophy / Quinean naturalism 1

#1491 · 1990 (revised 1992)

Pursuit of Truth (Late)

Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1990 short late synthesis — his philosophy in 100 compressed pages

Analytic philosophy / Quinean naturalism / philosophy of language / philosophy of mind 1

#1490 · 1974

The Roots of Reference (Late)

Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1974 Carus Lectures — how the child comes to refer, naturalised through behavioural-stimulus theory

Analytic philosophy / Quinean naturalism / pragmatism 1

#1489 · 1969

Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (Mid-to-late)

Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1969 lecture-essay volume — 'Epistemology Naturalized' and the indeterminacy of reference

Analytic philosophy / scrutability theory 1

#1443 · 2012 (2010 Locke Lectures, Oxford)

Constructing the World (Mid)

David J. Chalmers

Chalmers's 2012 Locke Lectures — neo-Carnapian scrutability project

Analytic philosophy / Secular humanism 1

#1313 · 1930

The Conquest of Happiness (Mid)

Bertrand Russell

Russell's 1930 popular work on happiness

Analytic philosophy / Tense logic / Philosophy of time 2

#1180 · 1967

Past, Present and Future (Mature)

Arthur Norman Prior

Prior's 1967 systematic statement — tense logic, the modern logic of temporal language

#1181 · 1968

Papers on Time and Tense (Late)

Arthur Norman Prior

Prior's 1968 essay collection — major papers on the logic and philosophy of time

Analytic philosophy / Wittgenstein scholarship / Catholic philosophical thought 1

#1566 · 1959 (2nd ed. 1971)

An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Mid-career)

G. E. M. Anscombe (Elizabeth Anscombe)

Anscombe's 1959 'Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus' — the standard postwar English commentary

Analytic philosophy of language / formal pragmatics 1

#931 · 1969 (Harvard UP; based on his 1967 Harvard PhD dissertation under W. V. O. Quine)

Convention: A Philosophical Study (Early (Lewis's first book, published at 28, the year he began at UCLA))

David Lewis

A convention is a stable solution to a coordination problem — and the conventions of language are not arbitrary but rationally selected for mutual benefit

Analytic philosophy of language / pragmatics / philosophy of mind 1

#1477 · 2014

Context (Late)

Robert Stalnaker

Stalnaker's 2014 monograph — the common-ground model of conversation, refined and applied

Analytic philosophy of language / speech-act theory 1

#1554 · 1979

Expression and Meaning (Mid-career)

John Searle

Searle's 1979 essays extending speech-act theory to indirect speech, metaphor, fiction, and literal meaning

Analytic philosophy of mind 1

#324 · 1988

Representation and Reality (Mid)

Hilary Putnam

Putnam's rejection of his own earlier functionalism — the 1988 critique of computational-functionalist philosophy of mind

Analytic philosophy of mind / biological naturalism 1

#1556 · 2004

Mind: A Brief Introduction (Late)

John Searle

Searle's 2004 late synthesis — biological-naturalist philosophy of mind in ~330 pages

Analytic philosophy of mind / consciousness studies 1

#1442 · 2010

The Character of Consciousness (Mid)

David J. Chalmers

Chalmers's 2010 collected consciousness-philosophy essays

Analytic philosophy of mind / late-twentieth-century consciousness studies 1

#411 · 1996

The Conscious Mind (Early (Chalmers's breakthrough book, derived from his 1993 Indiana PhD))

David J. Chalmers

The "hard problem" of consciousness — why physical processes give rise to subjective experience at all

Analytic philosophy of mind / virtual realism 1

#647 · 2022

Reality+ (Late (Chalmers's major popular-and-technical synthesis on virtual reality and the simulation hypothesis))

David J. Chalmers

Virtual reality is genuine reality — the systematic philosophical defense of virtual realism

Analytic philosophy of time / formal logic 1

#414 · 1957

Time and Modality (Early (Prior's first major synthesis of tense logic, derived from his 1955-56 Oxford Locke Lectures))

Arthur N. Prior

The future is open, the present is uniquely real — tense logic as the formal vindication of presentism

Analytical psychology 3

#1324 · 1912-28 (essays); 1953 (English)

Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Mid)

Carl Gustav Jung

Jung's major early systematic exposition of analytical psychology

#343 · 1944

Psychology and Alchemy (Late)

Carl Gustav Jung

Alchemy as archetypal-psychological individuation process

#1325 · 1952

Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (Late)

Carl Gustav Jung

Jung's 1952 work — meaningful coincidence as proper-philosophical-psychological category