​TOPICAL ARRANGEMENT OF SOURCES

Some people prefer approaching philosophy historically, beginning with the ancients and proceeding to the present time; others would rather focus on the "big problems" of philosophy — the questions and issues that have obsessed philosophers throughout the centuries. To assist those who would prefer to take the latter approach, this page contains many of the primary sources in our philosophy and ethics archives arranged topically.
  • metaphysics
  • epistemology
  • ethics: theories
  • ethics: topics
  • political philosophy
  • philosophy of religion
  • philosophy of education
  • personal identity
  • mind, body, and immortality
  • freedom and determinism
  • aesthetics

METAPHYSICS

Buddha.  Questions That Do Not Tend to Edify  [Lesser Mâlunkyâputta Sutra]  ​
​Various.  Sources in Presocratic Philosophy  [Readings in Philosophy]
​Various.  Sources in Greek Atomism  [Readings in Philosophy]
​Plato.  The Myth of the Cave [Republic]
​Plato.  Plato's Cosmology  [Timaeus]
​Aristotle.  The Subject Matter of Metaphysics  [Metaphysics]
Aristotle.  Being and Substance  [Metaphysics] ​
Aristotle.  The Unmoved Mover [Metaphysics] ​
​Aristotle.  The Four Causes  [Physics]
Aristotle.  On Substance  [Categories] ​
​Aristotle. The Process of Change  [Metaphysics]
​Plotinus.  Selections from the Enneads
​Plotinus.  On Beauty [Enneads]
​Augustine.  On the Goodness of Creation  [Nature of the Good]
​ Anselm of Canterbury.  God as the Source of All Being  [Monologium]
​Gottfreid Leibniz, On the Perfection of the Universe [Discourse on Metaphysics]
​Immanuel Kant.  Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics  [selection]
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  Of First and Last Things  [Human, All Too Human]
​Bertrand Russell.  The World of Universals  [The Problems of Philosophy]
​C.D. Broad.  Mechanism and Its Alternative  [Mind and It's Place in Nature]
​Alfred North Whitehead.  Speculative Philosophy  [Process and Reality]

EPISTEMOLOGY

​Plato.  The Philosopher as Midwife  [Theaetetus]
Plato.  Knowledge as Recollection [Meno]  ​
​Aristotle.  A System of Knowledge  [Posterior Analytics]
Aristotle.  First Principles of Knowledge [Metaphysics] ​
​Sextus Empiricus.  Outlines of Pyrrhonism  [selections, Book 1]
Thomas Aquinas.  On Truth  [Summa Theologica]  ​
​Thomas Aquinas.  What is Truth?  [De Veritate]
​Francis Bacon.  Native Fallacies of Human Thought  [New Organon]
​René Descartes.  Of Doubt and Certainity  [Meditations]
​René Descartes.  Rules for the Direction of the Mind [complete]
​David Hume.  Skeptical Doubt Concerning the Understanding [Enquiry Concern Human Underst]
​David Hume.  Of Skeptical Doubt With Regard to the Senses [Treatise of Human Nature]
​David Hume.  Of Cause and Effect  [Treatise of Human Nature]
​John Locke.  Of Human Knowledge [Essay Conc. Human Underst.]
John Locke.  Knowledge of Other Things [Essay Conc. Human Underst.]
John Locke.  "Mind as White Paper"   [Essay Conc. Human Underst.]
​George Berkeley. Mind and Reality   [Principles of Human Knowl.]
​Immanuel Kant.  A Priori and A Posteriori Knowledge [Cr. of Pure Reason]
​Immanuel Kant.  The Synthetic Unity of Apperception  [Critique of Pure Reason]
​G.W.F.  Hegel.  The Objectivity of Thought [Encycl. of the Phil. Sciences]
​Josiah Royce.  Objective Idealism [The World and the Individual]
​William James. Pragmatism's Conception of the Truth [Pragmatism]
William James. The Stream of Consciousness  [Principles of Psychology]
​Henri Bergson.  Intuition [An Introduction to Metaphysics]
​Bertrand Russell.  On Induction [Problems of Philosophy]
​Bertrand Russell.  Truth and Falsehood [Problems of Philosophy]
​Bertrand Russell.  Idealism  [Problems of Philosophy]
​G.E. Moore.  A Defense of Common Sense

ETHICS: THEORIES

​Plato.  The Argument of Thrasymachus  [Republic]
​Plato.  The Ring of Gyges  [Republic]
​Aristotle.  The Nature of the Moral Act  [Nicomachean Ethics]
​Aristotle.  Happiness and Moral Virtue  [Nicomachean Ethics]
Epicurus.  Letter to Menoeceus [Lives of the Philosophers] ​
​Diogenes Laertius.  Moral Teachings of Epicurus [Lives]  
Cicero.  On Epicurean Ethics [De Finibus] ​
​Cicero.  On Stoic Ethics [De Finibus]
Cicero. Mental Disorder as an Impediment to Pleasure [De Finibus] 
​Epictetus.  The Enchiridion (Handbook)  [complete]
​Seneca.  Epistles on the Moral Life [Moral Epistles]
​Seneca.  Epistles on Virtue [Moral Epistles]
​Marcus Aurelius.  Meditations, Book IV
​Augustine.  On Use and Enjoyment [Christian Doctrine]  
Augustine.  Happiness and the Chief Good  [Morals of the Catholic Church] ​
​Moses Maimonides.  Happiness and the Life of Virtue  [Guide for the Perplexed] 
​Thomas Aquinas. The Ultimate Happiness of Man  [Summa Contra Gentiles 3]
​Thomas Aquinas.  Natural Law [Summa Theologica]
​Jeremy Bentham.  Utility and Pleasure [Principles of Morals and Legislation]
​William Godwin.  The Archbishop and the Chambermaid   [Enquiry Concerning Political Justice]
​David Hume.  Critique of Psychological Egoism   [Treatise of Human Nature]
​David Hume.  The Origin of Natural Virtues and Vices  [Treatise of Human Nature]
​Immanuel Kant.  Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals  [Selections]
​Immanuel Kant.  On the Supposed Right to Lie From Benevolent Motives [Cr. of Practical Reason]
​Immanuel Kant.  A Defense of Human Freedom  [Metaphysics of Morals]
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  Good and Evil, Good and Bad  [Genealogy of Morals]
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  What is Noble?  [Beyond Good and Evil]
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  Master-Slave Morality [Beyond Good and Evil]
Friedrich Nietzsche.  Redefining Good and Evil  [Beyond Good and Evil]
​John Stuart Mill.  What Utilitarianism Is  [Utilitarianism 2]
John Henry Newman. Conscience  [Grammar of Ascent]
​Henry Sidgwick.  The Meaning of Utilitarianism  [The Method of Ethics]
​John Dewey.  Reconstruction in Moral Conceptions  [Reconstruction in Philosophy]
​Cardinal Mercier.  The Moral Order  [Manual of Scholastic Philosophy]
​G.E. Moore.  Critique of Mill's Utilitarianism  [Principia Ethica]
​G. E. Moore.  Critique of Kant's Ethics  [Principia Ethica] 
​W. D. Ross.  What Makes Right Acts Right?  [The Right and the Good]
​Jacques Maritain.  Action and Contemplation  [Scholasticism and Politics]

ETHICS: TOPICS

​Thomas Aquinas.  On the Taking of a Human Life [Summa Theologica] 
​Thomas Aquinas.  Of War  [Summa Theologica]
​Thomas Aquinas.  On Property [Summa Theologica]
​Thomas Aquinas.  On Vengeance.  [Summa Theologica]
​David Hume.  On Suicide
Jean Jacques Rousseau.  On Suicide. ​
​Thorstein Veblen.  Conspicious Consumption  [Theory of the Leisure Class]
​Karl Marx.  The Power of Money [Econ. & Phil. Manuscripts of 1844]
​Leo Tolstoy.  The First Step [Argument for Vegetarianism]
​Mohandas K. Gandhi.  The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism
​Mohandas K. Gandhi.  The Meaning and Practice of Ahimsa (Non-Violence)
​T.H. Huxley.  On the Hypothesis That Animals Are Automata
​Henry Sidgwick. Luxury [Practical Ethics]
​Emma  Goldman.  Marriage and Love [Anarchism and Other Essays]
​Bertrand Russell.  The Ethics of War

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Pericles.  Funeral Oration  [Peloponnesian War]
​Thucydides.  The Melian Dialogue  [Peloponnesian War]
Plato.  Republic  [selections]
​Aristotle.  On Justice  [Nicomachean Ethics]
​Augustine.  The Two Cities [City of God]
​Thomas Aquinas.  Of Justice [Summa Theologica]
​Thomas Aquinas.  Treatise on Law [Summa Theologica]
​Niccolò Machiavelli.  The Prince [selections]
​Thomas Hobbes.  The State of Nature [Leviathan]
​John Locke.  Second Treatise of Government
​Jean Jacques Rousseau.  The Social Contract [complete]
​Baruch Spinoza.  On the Foundation of the State  [Tractatus Theologico-Politicus]
​Baruch Spinoza.  Of Natural Rights  [Political Treatise]
​David Hume.  Justice and Property  [Treatise Concerning. Human Nature]
​Immanuel Kant.  Right of Punishing  [Science of Right]
​Karl Marx.  The Communist Manifesto
​Karl Marx. On Alienation [Econ & Phil Manuscripts of 1844]
​Frederick Engels.  Principles of Communism  [What is Communism?]
​John Stuart Mill.  Liberty and Social Coercion  [On Liberty 1]
​John Stuart Mill.  Representative Government  [Consid. on rep. Government 3]
​Henry David Thoreau.  Civil Disobedience
​Emma Goldman.  Anarchism  [Anarchism and Other Essays]
​Herbert Spencer.  Right to Ignore the State

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

​Plotinus.  The Nature of the One [Enneads]  
​Cicero.  On the Existence of the Gods [Nature of the Gods]
​Seneca.  Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil  [On Providence]
Tertullian.  Athens and Jerusalem
Augustine.  The Cause of Evil  [On the Freedom of the Will]  
Anselm of Canterbury.  The Ontological Argument [Proslogium] ​
​Moses Maimonides.  Negative Theology [Guide for the Perplexed]
​Moses Maimonides.  On the Existence of God  [Guide for the Perplexed]
​Thomas Aquinas.  Faith and Reason  [Summa Theologica]
Thomas Aquinas.  The Harmony of Faith and Reason [S. Contra Gentiles]
​Thomas Aquinas.   On the Existence of God [Summa Theologica]   
​Bonaventure.  Knowledge of God Through Creatures  [Comm. on the Sent.]
​Bonaventure.  God as Being and Goodness  [Minds Road into God]
​René Descartes. Of the Existence of God [Meditations]
Thomas Hobbes.  Of Religion  [Leviathan] ​
​George Berkeley.  Idealism and the Existence of God  [Dialogues]
​Paul Henri d'Holbach.  The Origin of Man's Ideas of God  [System of Nature]
​Jonathan Edwards.  Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
​David Hume.  On the Argument from Design  [Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]
​David Hume.  Evil and the Existence of God  [Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]
​David Hume.  Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [complete]
​David Hume.  Of Miracles [Enquiry Concerning Human Underst.]
​Immanuel Kant.  On the Ontological Argument.  [Cr. of Pure Reason]
​Immanuel Kant.  On the Cosmological Argument [Cr. of Pure Reason]
Baruch Spinoza.  Concerning God  [Ethics]
​Baruch Spinoza.  On Superstition  [Tractatus Logico Politicus]
​Gottfried Leibniz.  Solving the Problem of Evil [Theodicy]
​Percy Bysshe Shelley.  A Refutation of Deism
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  The Case Against Christianity [The Antichrist]
​Friedrich Nietzsche.  The Death of God  [The Gay Science]
​Søren Kierkegaard.  Fear and Trembling [selections]
​Emile Durkheim.  Social Origins of Religion  [Forms of Religious Life]
​John Henry Newman.  The Theistic Conception of God   [Grammar of Ascent]
​John Henry Newman.  On the Nature and Credibility of a Miracle  [Two Essays on Miracles]
​Ludwig Feuerbach.  Religion as Projection  [The Essence of Christianity]
​John Stuart Mill.  The Utility of Religion  [Three Essays on Religion]
John Stuart Mill.  Theism  [Three Essays on Religion] ​
​John Stuart Mill.  Immortality  [Three Essays on Religion]
​Josiah Royce.  Union of God and Man [The World and the Individual]
​Josiah Royce.  The Struggle With Evil [The World and the Individual]
Leo Tolstoy. A Confession (selection)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Rebellion  [The Brothers Karamazov] 
​William James.  The Will to Believe  [The Will to Believe]
​Robert Ingersoll.  Why I am an Agnostic
​Emma Goldman.  The Philosophy of Atheism
​Charles Bradlaugh.  A Plea for Atheism
G. K. Chesterton. Miracles [Mir. and Mod. Civilization]
Sigmund Freud. Religion as an Illusion  [Future of an Illusion]
​Miguel de Unamuno.  God of the Heart  [The Tragic Sense of Life]
​Carl Van Doren.  Why I am an Unbeliever

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Plato, Knowledge as Recollection [Meno]
​Plato, The Education of the Guardians  [Republic II & IV]
​Aristotle.  The Education of Citizens  [Politics 7-8]
​Quintilian.  The Education of an Orator  [Institutes of Oratory 1]
Augustine.  The Education of St. Augustine [Confessions 1]  ​
Plutarch.  The Education of Children  [Moralia] ​
John Locke.  Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Jean Jacques Rousseau.   Study Guide: Emile 1
Jean Jacques Rousseau.  Study Guide Emile 2
​Immanuel Kant.  Education
​Arthur Schopenhauer.  On Education  [Studies in Pessimism]
​William James.  Talks to Teachers
​Herbert Spencer.  Intellectual Education  [Essays on Education]
John Dewey.  My Pedagogic Creed  ​
​John Dewey.  The Child and the Curriculum
​Alfred North Whitehead.  Aims of Education

PERSONAL IDENTITY

​David Hume.  Of Personal Identity  [Treatise of Human Nature]
​John Locke.  On Human Identity [Essay Conc. Human Underst.]
​Joseph Butler.  Of Personal Identity [The Anology of Religion]
​Joseph Butler.  Of a Future Life [The Analogy of Religion]
​Thomas Reid.  Of Identity [Intellectual Powers of Man]
Voltaire.  Identity  [The Philosophical Dictionary]
​William James.  Does Consciousness Exist?
​George Herbert Meade.  The Social Self

MIND, BODY, AND IMMORTALITY

​Buddhism.  There is No Self  [Milindapanha]
​Plato.  The Philosopher Facing Death [Phaedo]
​Plato.  Parts of the Soul  [Phaedrus]
Aristotle.  The Nature of the Soul [De Anima] ​
​Thomas Aquinas.  On the Human Soul  [Summa Theologica]
​René Descartes.  The Real Distinction Between Body and Mind  [Meditations]
​David Hume.  On the Immortality of the Soul
​Paul Henri d'Holbach.  Rejection of the Soul's Immortality  [The System of Nature]
​Baruch Spinoza.  The Nature and Origin of the Mind  [Ethics]
​Baruch Spinoza.  The Relation of Body to Mind  [Ethics]
​Arthur Schopenhauer.  Body, Mind and the Will  [World as Will and Idea]
Arthur Schopenhauer.  Immortality: A Dialogue  [Studies in Pessimism]
​William James.  The Theory of the Soul [Principles of Psychology]
William James.  The Self  [Principles of Psychology] ​
​F. H. Bradley.  On the Supposed Uselessness of the Soul
​C.D. Broad.  The Tradtional Problem of Body and Mind  [Mind and Its Place in Nature]
​Josiah Royce.  The Human Self [The World and the Individual]

FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM

​Lucian of Samosata.   Zeus Cross-Examined  [Works]
​Cicero.  On Fate [complete]
​Augustine.  Divine Providence and Human Freedom   [City of God]
Boethius.  Chance and Divine Foreknowledge  [Consolation of Philosophy]
​Thomas Aquinas.  Determinism  [various sources]
​David Hume.  Of Liberty and Necessity [Enquiry Concerning Human Underst]
​Henri d'Holbach.  The Case for Determinism   [System of Nature]
​John Stuart Mill.  Of Liberty and Necessity [A System of Logic]
Charles Peirce.  The Doctrine of Necessity Examined
​William James.  The Dilemma of Determinism
​William James.  A Defense of Free Will  [Pragmatism]
​G. E. Moore.  Free Will  [Ethics]

AESTHETICS

​Plato.  Art as Imitation   [Republic]
Plotinus.  On Beauty  [Enneads 6] ​
​Plotinus.  On Intellectual Beauty  [Enneads 5]
​Immanuel Kant.  Analytic of the Beautiful  [Critique of Judgment]
​Immanuel Kant.  Judgments of Taste  [Critique of Judgment]
​G.W.F Hegel.  Lectures on Aesthetics  [selections]
​Arthur Schopenhauer.  On the Inner Nature of Art  [World as Will and Idea]
​Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Art   [Essays: First Series]
​Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Beauty  [Conduct of Life]
​Leo Tolstoy. "Art and the Common Person"  [What is Art?]  [B]
​Edward Bullough.  "Psychical Distance" and Aesthetics