CD Index 

Western Philosophy

This section, which might be called 'secular texts', contains texts by the most important writers who have defined the philosophy of modern Western society. Texts here discuss ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and political philosophy.

George Berkeley

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) 206,500 bytes

Rene Descartes

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences 129,524 bytes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Address, July 15, 1838 41,811 bytes
The American Scholar 44,775 bytes
The Conduct of Life 393,215 bytes
The Conservative 39,933 bytes
English Traits 386,644 bytes
Essays, First Series 421,128 bytes
Essays, Second Series 333,082 bytes
Lecture On The Times, December 2, 1841 41,417 bytes
Literary Ethics 41,522 bytes
Man The Reformer 38,087 bytes
The Method of Nature 42,538 bytes
Nature; Adresses, and Lectures 90,532 bytes
Representative Men 344,430 bytes
The Transcendentalist 38,495 bytes
Uncollected Prose 347,249 bytes
The Young American 41,832 bytes

Epictetus

The Discourses (101 A.D.) 613,135 bytes

G.W.F. Hegel

Hegel's Logic

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan (1651) 1,169,724 bytes

David Hume

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) 311,275 bytes

Immanuel Kant

The Critique of Judgement (1790) 449,579 bytes
The Critique of Practical Reason (1788) 365,284 bytes
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) 1,268,316 bytes
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) 176,959 bytes
Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) 52,436 bytes
The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780) 74,794 bytes
The Science of Right (1790) 302,320 bytes

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

The Monadology (1898) 36,958 bytes

Karl Marx

Communist Manifesto (1848) 75,153 bytes

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty (1859) 282,495 bytes
Representative Government (1861) 581,506 bytes
Utilitarianism (1863) 158,008 bytes
The Subjection of Women 259,950 bytes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spake Zarathustra (1891) 525,539 bytes

Blaise Pascal

The Provincial Letters (1657) 608,061 bytes
Pensees (1660) 554,098 bytes

Plato

Cratylus (360 BC) 131,429 bytes
Charmides, or Temperance (380 BC) 57,309 bytes
Critias (360 BC) 37,679 bytes
Crito (360 BC) 28,458 bytes
Euthydemus (380 BC) 84,257 bytes
Euthyphro (380 BC) 36,047 bytes
Gorgias (380 BC) 192,256 bytes
Ion (380 BC) 27,736 bytes
Laches, or Courage (380 BC) 54,710 bytes
Laws (360 BC) 765,680 bytes
Lysis, or Friendship (380 BC) 48,612 bytes
Meno (380 BC) 68,426 bytes
Parmenides (370 BC) 102,602 bytes
Phaedo (360 BC) 146,333 bytes
Phaedrus (360 BC) 124,936 bytes
Philebus (360 BC) 129,991 bytes
Protagoras (380 BC) 124,208 bytes
The Republic (360 BC) 690,139 bytes
The Seventh Letter (360 BC) 74,123 bytes
Sophist (360 BC) 124,486 bytes
Statesman (360 BC) 129,869 bytes
Symposium (360 BC) 118,601 bytes
Theaetetus (360 BC) 171,947 bytes
Timaeus (360 BC) 179,113 bytes

Henry David Thoreau

A Plea for Captain John Brown (1853) 50,469 bytes
Slavery in Massachusetts (1854) 33,295 bytes
Life Without Principle (1863) 44,364 bytes
Civil Disobedience (1849) 51,460 bytes
Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854) 584,967 bytes

Voltaire

Candide (1759) 211,311 bytes

Mary Wollstonecraft

Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) 518,787 bytes