100 books like The Metaphysics

If aliens land and ask me what it’s like to be a human, I’ll give them Heidegger’s first book, Being and Time. Of course, that might prompt them to destroy all humans out of frustration at the difficulty of his writing, but if they persevere, they will find the best description of what it’s like to live out your time on this planet (One Hundred Years of Solitude comes in second).

Immanuel Kant is one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy – specifically regarding metaphysics – because he discovered the internal logic and organization for all of philosophical metaphysics. The book with which Kant accomplished that monumental feat is extremely difficult to read and understand. Therefore, Kant wrote an easier-to-read version, and that is the book that I am recommending: Philosophy of Material Nature. This book is highly affordable and readable.

The book that the Philosophy of Material Nature paraphrases is, of course, the Critique of Pure Reason. What all of these works show us is that philosophical metaphysics naturally divides into theological metaphysics, cosmological metaphysics, and psychological metaphysics. Kant’s achievement is standardly characterized as the articulation of philosophical metaphysics as a science. The general term for such a science is “transcendental philosophy.” Thus, the rest of the books in this recommendation list relate to… show more.

In my opinion, Gilles Deleuze was the greatest French philosopher of the 20th century, and that century was loaded with amazing French philosophers. Deleuze wrote a large number of excellent books. However, his doctoral dissertation, Difference and Repetition, is quite special. On the one hand, it is – from a philosophical point of view – very enjoyable to read. Though, some may find its style too layered and allusive. On the other hand, Difference and Repetition is also consistently listed as one of the three greatest works in philosophy written in the 20th century. Ultimately, in regard to Kant’s science of metaphysics, Deleuze’s book is a work in transcendental philosophy. More specifically, Deleuze’s book addresses all three divisions by treating cosmological metaphysics as the point of origin for theological and psychological metaphysics.

One last thing to mention here is that Difference and Repetition is the most difficult… show more.

After extensive research, this is the only book in existence that answers the question: What is existentialism? Existentialism may be understood as the correct point of departure for addressing the philosophy of being as it relates to the individual. In other words, existentialism provides the philosophical framework with which to answer the question: What does it mean to be?

Existentialism is the culmination of the philosophical tradition moving from Kant through the German Romantics to Heidegger and Sartre, among the other existentialists. In regard to Kant’s division, it differs from Deleuze’s choice to articulate transcendental philosophy with cosmology as the point of departure, in that it takes psychology as the point of departure. Yet, at the same time, just as understanding “the moment of vision” brings about a kind of gestalt shift in the reader’s perspective, so too though existentialism may be characterized as transcendental psychology, it has a higher… show more.

In this book, one of the great philosophers of the first half of the 20th century sketches his take on two central philosophical tasks -- explaining what kinds of things exist in reality, and how they are related, and delineating what we can know and how we know it.  In so doing, Russell illustrates the new method of logical and linguistic analysis he used in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918), to lay the foundations of an epistemological and metaphysical system rivaling the great systems of the past. A key transitional figure linking the history of the subject to contemporary concerns, he raised logic and language to central subjects of philosophical study in their own right, without losing sight of their relevance for more traditional philosophical quests.

Mary Midgley was in her nineties when she wrote this book, yet it’s alive with ideas and energy – and the insistence that philosophy should be “for” something in the most urgent, practical sense; that it should help us explore such questions as to how to live and to do good. Midgley was both highly scientifically literate and fiercely opposed to the claim that science will ever answer every question. We humans, she believed, are brilliant animals who need to understand our biological heritage as richly as possible if we’re to grapple fruitfully with our planetary future. I can think of few more urgent themes for the present century.

I picked up this book because the back cover made it sound like this funny romp where a rock competition decides the fate of the Earth—and who doesn’t want that? But this isn’t just a more uplifting version of that one Rick and Morty episode about “Gettin’ Schwifty.” With vivid worlds and deeply flawed characters, Space Opera is like a psychedelic trip with that brilliant, probably-drunk friend whose gorgeous mind you could listen to for days. (Stop looking at me like that! I’m not in love with her syntax, you are!) Don’t get me wrong: there are so many behaviors in Space Opera that I recommend against as a sexual health physician—they’d increase your risk of disease and mental illness—and I’ve got moral positions that don’t jive with Valente’s vision, either. But there’s a scene where Valente touches on immigration and deportation that made me weep and left an indent… show more.

The Metaphysical Club is about the Pragmatist philosophers: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. This sounds forbidding, but it’s anything but. Group biography shows how and why particular ideas occur to particular people at a particular moment, and this is a brilliant example of it.

First published in 1956 Dion Fortune recalls her heroine Vivian le Fay, first introduced in The Sea Priestess fifteen years earlier.

In Moon Magic she is conjured as Lilith le Fay, mysterious and alluring. Interestingly, considering Dion Fortune died before finishing the book, its completion was brought about by an acolyte ‘channeling the author’ after her death. 

Her play on the dynamic of the male and female polarity allows the story to evolve on different levels, as an interesting, if dated view of a society in need of a spiritual revelation, and a treatise on genuine esoteric practices. Fortune’s clipped prose style gives the reader's imagination free rein, allowing her to influence our understanding of certain concepts and provide an entertaining tale to boot.

This book, given as three lectures in 1970 by a 28-year-old wunderkind, made its author one of the greatest philosophers of our era.  Just as Russell transformed the philosophy of his day by demonstrating the significance of an advanced system logic he helped to found, so Kripke transformed the philosophy descending from Russell by inventing an expressively richer version logic, and illustrating its significance. This book, more than any other,  provided the starting point for contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. It is, nevertheless, remarkably accessible.  Delivered in a delightfully informal style, it presents ideas capable of far-reaching technical elaboration in their simplest and most comprehensible form, revealing their intuitive essence. If you want to understand philosophy today, you need to read this book.