Short Philosophical Books: Primary Literature

Most that get into philosophy generally learn through books that cover philosophy as whole. Either with “pop-philosophy” books, or even if one takes a more in-depth approach, like a philosophy textbook, you’re only reading a summary of philosophy, described by someone else.

There is nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact, I think it is the right approach in the beginning. Nevertheless, there is a significant short-coming: despite learning philosophy, you’re not engaging with any philosophical work at all. And that’s how philosophy was always developed, reading originals texts and critically analyzing them. By never reading primary literature, you will never have this experience.

The solution is to study read original works. But there is a big problem with that. First, there is a lot of it. The benefit of reading something more broad is that you have at least some basic awareness of several problems and topics, even if without much depth. Philosophical texts are often very narrow and specific. So if you want to have a broad knowledge of philosophy and you want to read each original text about it, you will need a few centuries. In addition, they’re often long, which compounds the problem as they take a long time to read. And to make it even harder, they’re often complicated. Although there are a few exceptions, most books in this list are readable.

Here I want to provide some short philosophical books in order to go around this problem. It’s not a perfect solution. There are important works that are just long, and there is no other way than to simply take the time and effort to read them. But nevertheless, at least this provides a guide for people engaging with original works without feeling overwhelmed by the endless choice available and the time and effort needed.

Older:

David Hume — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (111 pages)

Descartes — Meditations on First Philosophy (128 pages)

Dostoyevsky — Notes from the Underground (291 pages)

Epictetus — Enchiridion (64 pages)

Friedrich Nietzsche — Ecce Homo (144 pages)

Friedrich Nietzsche — The Antichrist (100 pages)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Social Contract (160 pages)

Jean-Paul Sartre — Existentialism is a Humanism (108 pages)

John Stuart Mill — On Liberty (85 pages)

Kant — Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (144 pages)

Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (144 pages)

Lao Tzu — Tao Te Ching (128 pages)

Leo Tolstoy — What is Art? (240 pages)

Plato — Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (168 pages)

Ralph Waldo — Self-Reliance (104 pages)

Schopenhauer — The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims (122 pages)

Seneca — On the Shortness of Life (112 pages)

Soren Kierkegaard — The Sickness Unto Death (208 pages)

Modern:

Albert Camus — The Myth of Sysiphus (144 pages)

Anscombe — Intention (106 pages)

Armstrong — What is a Law of Nature? (180 pages)

Ayer — Language, Truth and Logic (160 pages)

Blackburn — On Truth (144 pages)

Derrida — The Gift of Death (160 pages)

Duncan Pritchard — Epistemological Disjunctivism (180 pages)

Ernest Sosa — A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I (164 pages)

Fricker — Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (198 pages)

Guy Debord — Comments on Society of the Spectacle (104 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Bullshit (80 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Inequality (120 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Truth (112 pages)

J. J. C. Smart & Bernard Williams — Utilitarianism (155 pages)

Jean Baudrillard — Simulacra and Simulation (176 pages)

Jean Baudrillard — The Spirit of Terrorism (88 pages)

Ludwig Wittgenstein — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (142 pages)

Mcdowell — Mind and World (158 pages)

Philippa Foot — Natural Goodness (136 pages)

Quine — From Stimulus to Science (101 pages)

Simone de Beauvoir — The Ethics of Ambiguity (192 pages)

Slavoj Žižek — Welcome to the Desert of the Real (160 pages)

T. M. Scanlon — Being Realistic about Reasons (144 pages)

Taylor — Malaise of Modernity (121 pages)

Thomas Nagel — The Possibility of Altruism (160 pages)

Note: The page numbers are only a rough guide to length, depends on edition of the book. They have different page size, font size, etc.

Most that get into philosophy generally learn through books that cover philosophy as whole. Either with “pop-philosophy” books, or even if one takes a more in-depth approach, like a philosophy textbook, you’re only reading a summary of philosophy, described by someone else.

There is nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact, I think it is the right approach in the beginning. Nevertheless, there is a significant short-coming: despite learning philosophy, you’re not engaging with any philosophical work at all. And that’s how philosophy was always developed, reading originals texts and critically analyzing them. By never reading primary literature, you will never have this experience.

The solution is to study read original works. But there is a big problem with that. First, there is a lot of it. The benefit of reading something more broad is that you have at least some basic awareness of several problems and topics, even if without much depth. Philosophical texts are often very narrow and specific. So if you want to have a broad knowledge of philosophy and you want to read each original text about it, you will need a few centuries. In addition, they’re often long, which compounds the problem as they take a long time to read. And to make it even harder, they’re often complicated. Although there are a few exceptions, most books in this list are readable.

Here I want to provide some short philosophical books in order to go around this problem. It’s not a perfect solution. There are important works that are just long, and there is no other way than to simply take the time and effort to read them. But nevertheless, at least this provides a guide for people engaging with original works without feeling overwhelmed by the endless choice available and the time and effort needed.

David Hume — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (111 pages)

Descartes — Meditations on First Philosophy (128 pages)

Dostoyevsky — Notes from the Underground (291 pages)

Epictetus — Enchiridion (64 pages)

Friedrich Nietzsche — Ecce Homo (144 pages)

Friedrich Nietzsche — The Antichrist (100 pages)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Social Contract (160 pages)

Jean-Paul Sartre — Existentialism is a Humanism (108 pages)

John Stuart Mill — On Liberty (85 pages)

Kant — Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (144 pages)

Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (144 pages)

Lao Tzu — Tao Te Ching (128 pages)

Leo Tolstoy — What is Art? (240 pages)

Plato — Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (168 pages)

Ralph Waldo — Self-Reliance (104 pages)

Schopenhauer — The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims (122 pages)

Seneca — On the Shortness of Life (112 pages)

Soren Kierkegaard — The Sickness Unto Death (208 pages)

Modern:

Albert Camus — The Myth of Sysiphus (144 pages)

Anscombe — Intention (106 pages)

Armstrong — What is a Law of Nature? (180 pages)

Ayer — Language, Truth and Logic (160 pages)

Blackburn — On Truth (144 pages)

Derrida — The Gift of Death (160 pages)

Duncan Pritchard — Epistemological Disjunctivism (180 pages)

Ernest Sosa — A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I (164 pages)

Fricker — Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (198 pages)

Guy Debord — Comments on Society of the Spectacle (104 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Bullshit (80 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Inequality (120 pages)

Harry Frankfurt’s — On Truth (112 pages)

J. J. C. Smart & Bernard Williams — Utilitarianism (155 pages)

Jean Baudrillard — Simulacra and Simulation (176 pages)

Jean Baudrillard — The Spirit of Terrorism (88 pages)

Ludwig Wittgenstein — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (142 pages)

Mcdowell — Mind and World (158 pages)

Philippa Foot — Natural Goodness (136 pages)

Quine — From Stimulus to Science (101 pages)

Simone de Beauvoir — The Ethics of Ambiguity (192 pages)

Slavoj Žižek — Welcome to the Desert of the Real (160 pages)

T. M. Scanlon — Being Realistic about Reasons (144 pages)

Taylor — Malaise of Modernity (121 pages)

Thomas Nagel — The Possibility of Altruism (160 pages)

Note: The page numbers are only a rough guide to length, depends on edition of the book. They have different page size, font size, etc.