Philosophy audiobooks

Selections from Parerga and Paralipomena

By: Arthur Schopenhauer

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Volume 2 of Parerga and Paralipomena has a very different character from Volume 1.

There are, in total, 31 Essays, 24 of which are presented here. The range of topics is very varied, opening with 'On Philosophy and Its Method' and including 'On Pantheism', 'On Ethics', 'On Jurisprudence', 'On Men of Learning', 'On Thinking for Oneself', 'On... Read more

Offences Against Oneself and An Open Letter

By: Jeremy Bentham & Károly Mária Kertbeny

Narrated by: Andrew Cullum

Length: 4 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

The criminalisation of homosexuality over centuries has been one of the shocking injustices of European history - it existed from the middle ages and before and well into the 20th century. The death penalty (hanging or burning) was a commonplace feature in legal systems. These two remarkable texts - one from England in the 18th century and one... Read more

The Spirit of the Laws

By: Baron De Montesquieu & Charles de Secondat

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 23 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

From the moment of its publication in 1748, The Spirit of the Laws proved to be a controversial work provoking widespread interest.

Within three years it had been translated into various European languages - and was swiftly added to the List of Prohibited Books by the Roman Catholic Church. It is a remarkable book, a potpourri of observations... Read more

Civilization and Its Discontents, Totem and Taboo

By: Sigmund Freud

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 9 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is remembered as the father of psychoanalysis. Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) is one of his key works. In it he considers the conflict between the needs of the individual acting both egotistically and altruistically in the pursuit of happiness and the myriad demands of civilised society and the ensuing tensions... Read more

The Wealth of Nations

By: Adam Smith

Narrated by: Michael Lunts

Length: 41 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, is the first book of modern political economy and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, to give it is full title, was an immediate best seller and has since rightfully claimed its place in the Western... Read more

Ideas

By: Edmund Husserl

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

As philosophy professor Taylor Carman explains in his helpful introduction, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the founder of modern phenomenology, one of the most important and influential movements of the 20th century.

Ideas, published in 1913 – its full title is Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy – was the key work. It... Read more

Epicurus of Samos

By: Epicurus

Narrated by: James Gillies & Jonathan Booth

Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Epicurus of Samos (341-270 BCE) was the founder of the philosophical system to which he gave his name: Epicureanism. It is a label that is often misused and misunderstood today, with ‘a life of pleasure’ as the key aim misinterpreted as a life of indulgence. In fact, the philosophy of Epicurus demonstrated also by his life, was anything but! He... Read more

Summa Theologica

By: Thomas Aquinas

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 52 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

The Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas, is a fundamental text in Catholic doctrine, a compendium of theology that has been studied and debated since its first publication in the 13th century. Furthermore, it has been widely regarded as one of the classics of Western philosophy, not least because, perhaps for the first time in such a systematic... Read more

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

By: Emile Durkheim

Narrated by: Mike Rogers

Length: 19 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Religion is at the heart of man’s societies. ‘For a long time,’ Durkheim writes early on in his book, ‘it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the world and themselves were of religious origin.’

Durkheim decided to examine how and why this phenomenon functioned and evolved - by... Read more

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

By: William Godwin

Narrated by: Michael Lunts

Length: 27 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness by William Godwin (1756-1836) was first published in February 1793, the month following the execution of Louis XVI of France.

It proved to be immediately popular and influential. Godwin, the son of a Calvinist preacher, was educated at Hoxton Academy, after which, he... Read more

Language, Truth and Logic

By: A. J. Ayer

Narrated by: Michael Lunts

Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

The front cover of the second edition of Language, Truth and Logic carried this statement in capital letters: ‘THE CLASSIC TEXT WHICH FOUNDED LOGICAL POSITIVISM - AND MODERN BRITISH PHILOSOPHY.’

It was a bold statement, but the book, first published in 1936 when A. J. Ayer was just 25 and a lecturer on philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, drew... Read more

Philosophical Investigations

By: Ludwig Wittgenstein

Narrated by: Jonathan Booth

Length: 9 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Philosophical Investigations - a landmark in 20th century philosophy - was published in 1953, two years after the death of its author. In the preface written in Cambridge in 1945 where he was professor of philosophy he states: ‘Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and to explain its ideas to... Read more

De la brevedad de la vida, De la felicidad y Otros Ensayos [Of the Brevity of Life, Of Happiness and Other Essays]

By: Lucio Anndeo Séneca

Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

En su antigua condición de tutor y consejero del emperador Nerón, el filósofo y hombre de Estado Séneca era tremendamente consciente de la brevedad de la vida, la suya propia se vio truncada cuando el emperador le ordenó que se suicidara, por su presunta implicación en una conspiración. Y Séneca demostró ser consecuente con lo que predicaba, y... Read more

Critique of Pure Reason

By: Immanuel Kant

Narrated by: Michael Lunts

Length: 27 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason can lay claim to being the most important single work of modern philosophy, a work whose methodology, if not necessarily always its conclusions, has had a profound influence on almost all subsequent philosophical discourse. In this work Kant addresses, in a groundbreaking elucidation of the nature of... Read more

The Sphere and Duties of Government

By: Wilhelm von Humboldt

Narrated by: Derek Le Page

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) now lives under the shadow cast by his more famous brother Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859, naturalist, explorer, geographer and much else), but Wilhelm was an important figure in Prussian-German history in his own right. He contributed considerably through his work as a diplomat, educationalist (he was one of... Read more

Early Greek Philosophy

By: John Burnet

Narrated by: Jonathan Booth

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

In his introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, John Burnet points out the particular focus of the pre-Socratics on the ‘cosmological’ character of their enquiries. They determined, he explains, to look into the natural world around them. The period can be said to mark the rise of scientific enquiry epitomised by the Atomists and the... Read more

Reflections on Violence

By: Georges Sorel

Narrated by: Charles Armstrong

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

More than a century after Reflections on Violence first appeared (1908) it remains a remarkably controversial essay. The concept of violence as a means to an end (social, religious, political or for aggrandisement) is hugely challenging as a philosophical subject - yet it is, of course, universally (and frequently) pursued.

The French thinker and... Read more

The Essence of Christianity

By: Ludwig Feuerbach

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 12 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) pursued studies in anthropology and philosophy - particularly following Hegel - and from these came his proclaimed stance on secular humanism and atheism. ‘Religion is the dream of the human mind,’ he writes unequivocally.

The Essence of Christianity opens with a preface to the second edition in which he responds... Read more

The Maxims

By: Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Narrated by: David Rintoul

Length: 3 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

There’s no fool like an old fool....

The world is full of pots calling kettles black....

We can no more set a term to our passions than to our life.

These are just three of the aphorisms that made the collection of maxims by François, Duc de la Rochefoucauld, an enduring influence upon succeeding generations following their initial publication in... Read more

An Inquiry into the Human Mind

By: James Reid

Narrated by: James Gillies

Length: 11 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Though now little known outside specialist philosophical circles, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-1796) is remembered both for the founding of the Scottish School of Common Sense and his major work, An Inquiry into the Human Mind: on the Principles of Common Sense (1764).

With his feet firmly on the ground, he challenged the... Read more

Summa Theologica

By: Thomas Aquinas

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 39 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) died before he could complete his ambitious plan for Summa Theologica, described as ‘a systematic compendium’ of Roman Catholic theology. Drawing on a wide range of Christian sources - and, controversially, on Greek and Latin philosophers as well as Arabian commentators - he sought to explicate matters of doctrine... Read more

What Is Metaphysics, What Is Philosophy and Other Writings

By: Martin Heidegger

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

Length: 4 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

This recording contains four important and related works by Heidegger: 'What Is Philosophy', 'What Is Metaphysics', 'On the Essence of Truth' and 'The Question of Being'.

It starts with 'What Is Philosophy', which originated as a lecture given in Normandy in 1955, and was first published a year later. The translators acknowledge that 'What Is... Read more

The Reveries of the Solitary Walker

By: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 4 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

The Reveries of the Solitary Walker was one of the last works written by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and was, in fact, not quite complete. It was published four years after his death and came quickly to be regarded as one of his most poetic works.

It consists of 10 Walks (only the final ‘Walk’ was unfinished) during... Read more

О назначении человека

By: Николай Бердяев

Narrated by: Станислав Федосов

Length: 15 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Николай Бердяев [1874 – 1948] – виднейший представитель русской религиозной философии XX столетия. В работе «О назначении человека» Н. А. Бердяев выступает как представитель школы религиозного экзистенциализма, противопоставляя свободу духа объективной необходимости. Труд философа посвящен проблемам этического познания, проблемам свободы,... Read more