The Metaphysics
350 BC · 459 pages
Aristotle asks what a thing most fundamentally is, and the answer runs through matter, form, and cause to a god who moves the whole world simply by being loved.
★ 7.6
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Summa Theologica
1274 · 432 pages
Aquinas asks thousands of questions about God, law, virtue, and sin, and answers each only after stating the strongest case against himself. Catholic thought has been arguing with him for 750 years.
★ 7.4
The Enneads
270 · 558 pages
Everything pours out of one source Plotinus calls the One, which is beyond words. Mind, soul, and matter follow from it, and a soul can climb back. Christian mysticism was built on this.
★ 7.3
Early Greek Philosophy
Various and Jonathan Barnes
500 BC · 282 pages
Heraclitus said you cannot step into the same river twice. Parmenides said nothing changes at all. Before Socrates, Greek thinkers asked what the world is made of and answered without appeal to gods.
★ 6.9
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
1974 · 430 pages
Seventeen days on a motorcycle carry a father and son from Minnesota to California while he works out what Quality means and recovers the man he was before electroshock erased him.
★ 6.9
Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues
1710 · 217 pages
Nothing exists but minds and what minds perceive, Berkeley argues, and matter is a word philosophers cannot cash. God does the perceiving that keeps your furniture there once you leave the room.
★ 6.3